REVIEW: Osees—The Singles & Rare (2006-2020)

The many and varied rare EPs, singles and freakouts of John Dwyer's shapeshifting band.

Thee Oh Sees put out three “volumes” of singles on LP in 2011 and 2013 in an attempt to round up the madness of the innumerable hard-to-find tracks that the band put out, usually on 7” singles, often split with other artists.

But, alas, many years have passed since then, and even if you’ve somehow kept up with the band’s gigantic catalogue of albums (and many live LPs, and Dwyer’s Damaged Bug spin off, and his ongoing series of jam albums), the chances are that you couldn’t quite justify buying the many other singles that have come out since then. I wouldn’t blame you, especially as almost all of them required ordering direct from the band, usually also involving international shipping.

Some of them, like 2006’s Graveblockers and 2010’s Quadrospazzed 09 have subsequently been reissued after being the preserve of hardcore collectors for yonks, but the majority were one-time releases, pressed in limited numbers (2000 or as few as 500).

Grave Blockers was something of a holy grail for a long time, having originally been an absurdly rare lathe cut 6” single (with CDr), then a double 7” on various colours, before John stopped pissing about and stuck it on a 12” single in 2019.

For those of us who got into the band around the time of Putrifiers or Floating Coffin, this earlier sound was a different beast entirely. More connected to the weirdo folk style of the prior incarnation OCS than the speed demon psych that he more or less pioneered, it’s nevertheless woven with that classic sinister John Dwyer songcraft thread. It runs through everything he does, but while that may be true, this is one for the true Dwyer apostle only.

The next EP, Peanut Butter Oven emerged in 2008, in the midst of a blizzard of albums, and is curiously the only one of the band’s ‘major’ EPs never to have received a repress. And given that only 400 copies exist, it has long been a collector’s item.

But somewhat offsetting that is the fact that all four Peanut Butter Oven tracks appear elsewhere. Kingsmeat, The Freak Was Clean and Kids In Cars all show up on Singles Collection Vol 1&2, while Quadrospazzed showed up on 2008 LP The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In, and then got an extended live reissue on a standalone 12” in 2010. Even that was reissued last year. It’s a shame, though, that the actual EP remains unobtainium for us demented collectors who simply want the set, thanks. Besides, it’s a cracking EP with a cool sleeve, and was a solid pointer for the band’s future direction.

One total obscurity in Thee Oh Sees’ canon is this 2012 Velvet Underground & Nico tribute album, featuring the band in amongst their Castle Face pals, doing a cracking version of European Son. Not something you can fire up on Spotify, but follow this handy YouTube link and enjoy.

Fast forward to the 2013 Moon Sick EP (released just two months after the arrival of their breakthrough Floating Coffin LP) and we find the band in arguably their Imperial Phase, where seemingly everything they put out was total gold. For those of us who favour this psych rock sound, this little companion is essential. Fun fact: the beautiful baroque rockish final track Candy Clock features the brilliant Kelly Stoltz on the Harpsicord while John Dwyer gives good Rickenbacker.

Then the band stuck out some equally non-LP prime cuts. The first, The Ceiling, came in July 2015, came via an obscure Joyful Noise compilation called 50 Bands & A Cat For Indiana Equality, which never got a physical release in totality, but the individual tracks were released via a series of lathe cuts. Just 160 were made of this, so if you own one, I salute you. To these ears, it would have fit just nicely on Mutilator Defeated At Last. It’s that good.

During this insanely high quality phase for the band, we then got the Fortress/Man In A Suitcase standalone 7” in Feburary 2016, very evidently signposting A Weird Exits’ style six months ahead of time. Had the band wanted to expand the album instead, no-one would have minded.

And let’s not forget this little flexi 7” Classic Bananas that the band snuck into limited UK & US pressings of their “companion LP” An Odd Entrances in late 2016. I dunno about bananas, but this is typical classic Thee Oh Sees from this fertile period. I’d wager a lot of fans have never heard it. Get on it!

This marked a bit of a watershed moment in the band’s evolution, as beyond that, things got a lot weirder. In late 2017, the Dead Medic/A Few Days Of Reflection 12” was the first of several loose jams issued directly by the band, as a kind of Christmas present. I think the most accurate comment I’ve read is that it’s “the longest intro to bugger all”. It’s fine if you’re into these repetitive cosmic jams, but if you’re heading into these expecting their taut songcraft, prepare for…something very different. I’ll give anything by this band a chance, but this is far from their best stuff.

The following year, they carried on exploring these extended jams—only this time on one track, Clearly Invisible, Dwyer’s take on Maggot Brain, slowly soloing into the cosmos. It meanders around the same bassline and soothing drum pattern for 15 minutes, never going anywhere. Next!

For 2019, The 12” Synth expanded the idea to 40 minutes, confusing the hell out of the Discogs database people in the process. Even though it’s not an album per se, and only has three tracks, the sheer length of makes it an LP. Clear? Whatever it is, it’s another side quest that was probably only of interest because of the name attached to it. Like many people I diligently bought it on blind faith, but wasn’t really expecting 40 minutes of spooky, wobbly electronics. Another one for the pass pile, then.

By this stage, the arrival of Weirdo Hairdo/Don’t Blow Your Mind/Tear Ducks in late 2020 didn’t come as a surprise. We were already conditioned to these jams, and although this one had a lot more connective tissue to the Osees sound, it was still one of those releases that you might play once or twice and file away and forget all about. I’m glad, then, that John Dwyer moved away from these non-canon Osees releases and found a home for them elsewhere. What followed with Bent Arcana, Witch Egg, Ritual/Habit/Ceremony and all the others at least lets the listener know that this is the home for his experimental projects whereas putting the Osees name on these releases felt a bit misleading to a degree. I know some people like these, but your mileage may vary, as they say.