9/10
From Bristol, UK, My Octopus Mind is a melting pot of various genres and influences. Much like when I cook and throw in random ingredients, My Octopus Mind goes through a whole a slew of musical worlds, just chucking them into the pot. The biggest difference between my cooking and Maladyne Cave, their newest record, is that theirs is organized and has a purpose. Having been in the scene for over four years, My Octopus Mind has multiple shows under their belt, as well as working for a theatre circus show and short films. These are experienced musicians with a passion for creating new mend bending sounds to the great pleasure of their audience. Their music is a solid trip, but is this new record of the good kind or of the lesser kind?
They start us off with “PinP,” an epic seven-minute track with a lot of tempo changes. It starts off slow and mysterious, with Rowen Elliott on the viola and Annalise Lam on the Violin playing a soothing melody. The song picks up with Charlie Sorensen on drums keeping things jazzy and adding some fast fills. At some points, you feel as the song might go into a more Doom or Metal area, yet they cut right back to their psychedelic jazz vibe. “Anundena” feels like it belongs in an epic movie, with its grand sound and mystic feel. Liam O’Connell’s Guitar and Vocals lend well to the song, giving it a Gypsy feel, all the while remaining spacey and trippy. All the while, Izy Ellis keeps a constant groove on his Double Bass. The wide variety of instruments on the record makes each song feel unique and different.
“Welder” was an unexpected track, compared to the ones that came before it. While the songs before it kept to the spacey psychedelic feel, this one cranked up the distortion to give us an experimental track that could have been written by Jack White. “Need No Other Lovin’” made me stop listening to the music and instead, made me feel it. It’s a sombre song, with chants replacing lyrics. The deep sounding double bass was enough to make my head vibrate and I slowly started to wonder if I had been drugged by said song.
In general, My Octopus Mind does a great job at making sure every sound is with meaning. My only real complaint is that the music gets very spacey and with such a large band with multiple instruments, it’s sometimes difficult to follow and enjoy individual instruments. The compositions are fantastic, and although I deduced that the music makes a point of pulling you from reality, I did feel lost at times. The mastering and sound quality is great though and much work was put into mixing all these instruments.
Written by Johnathan Robinson
*edited by Danielle Kenedy
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