ono - albino

MONIKER RECORDS has released what just may be THE STRANGEST DARKEST AND MOST MESMERIZING LP OF THE YEAR: ALBINO by ONO......

a experimental swirl of shadowy influences from punk to gothic blues, as well as no wave, gospel, noise, dub and proto industrial......ALBINO is a truly AVANT POP MASTERPIECE...... musical reference points for ONO are ALL WAY OUT:  Captain Beefheart, Can, Tools You Can Trust, Birthday Party, Throbbing Gristle, Faust, Public Image Ltd, the Residents. Controlled Bleeding, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks and Suicide.....  just listing all those bands makes my head swell, but believe me ONO swallows all those diverse strains of musical exploration and makes one crazed hell of an album........

ONO's music is a post apocalyptic nightmare dream sequence filmed by david lynch, sure to shred your perception of reality......filled with no wave clanging guitars, cacophonous industrial beats, gospel moaning and a fierce off kilter coat of feeback looping and droning, this lp is as PUNK, EXPERIMENTAL and  OUTSIDER as you can get.......  imagine going to see ONO back in the early 80s when the whole chicago punk scene were bands like naked raygun and mentally ill......  THIS SHIT WOULD'VE PROVOKED FIGHTS, IT SOUNDED SO STRANGE, OUTTA THIS WORLD AND AHEAD OF ITS TIME.......

the mysterious ONO has been lurking around chicago for thirty years now, in the shadows and so far off the grid as to not even warrant a proper allmusic entry, but hopefully with ALBINO this will all change.....ONO's back story is quite hazy as are the album details, but fortunately MONIKER RECORDS has done their research before releasing this album, so read on -

 To non-locals, ONO's stunning Albino might have fallen from the sky, but to an enlightened and ever-growing bunch of Chicago heads the band is already full-on legend, and the release of their first recorded music since 1986 is a majorly epic landmark that needs no introduction. For the rest of y'all: ONO is a unit of transcendent noise-making now in its fourth decade. Both notorious and neglected in their early years, ONO's unholy bitches' brew of noisy snarl, avant-garde R&B, gospel-heavy blackness, queer sensibility and extravagant, performance-art theatrics (they once played a concert at Navy Pier in which singer travis was dragged through the audience in a steel cage, naked but for a jockstrap) was in a whole 'nuther galaxy from the macho Chicago punk scene that spawned them.

Reemerging in the late 00s with astonishing vehemence and an expansive, multi-generational lineup, they've been embraced by a more fertile and experimental Chicago scene, and are about to explode skulls internationally. travis has always referred to fellow-founder P. Michael ONO as the 'leader of the band,' but anchor might be more appropriate—P. Michael's groundswelling bass and nasty, insectoid beats are unquestionably the glue that binds the sprawling noise. But then there's travis, whose fierce brilliance carries echoes of punk prophets like Patti Smith, Iggy Pop and Gil Scott-Heron but is always pure, raging ONO. As for the rest of the band, check the sick, Beefheartian groove of Veil, or their revelatory cover of the Velvet Underground's All Tomorrow's Parties, which manages to excise much of the song's innate sentimentality while upping its sonic generosity, the wall-of-sound sprouting weeds and flowers in its cracks.

ONO's original mission statement (1980) runs through this music more truly and deeply than ever, so to quote it in full and let it speak for itself: ONO1980// Experimental Performance, NOISE, and Industrial Poetry Performance Band; Exploring Gospel's Darkest Conflicts, Tragedies and Premises. Some deep-listening shit--beyond recommended! 

this is one album that just can't be explained--words are not descriptive enough to encapsulate the haunting power of this record, one that i wasn't sure i would even like but now can't stop spinning.  you gotta just listen for yourself, and be saved by the redemptive dark magic of ONO.....ALBINO is truly unique music, that rips down the illegitimate walls we put up between sub genres of rock n roll.......  after a couple of spins you might just find yourself putting ONO on your best of the year list........ 

SO LISTEN TO ALBINO BELOW....
    and grab it from MONIKER RECORDS now......limited to 300 copies.

watch ONO's video for MODEL BRIDE filmed in 1983.....



and for further listening track down ONO's first two seminal recordings, MACHINES THAT KILL PEOPLE (soon to be reissued) and ENNUI.......both VERY RECOMMENDED...........
hit up youtube for a listen, there are avid ONO fans that have done us a favor and uploaded these two lost and classic album from THERMIDOR RECORDS.............