My Octopus Mind unveil third studio album 'Trying To Be Normal'
My Octopus Mind - Trying To Be Normal
Drongo Records
3rd November 2023
Experimental psych rockers My Octopus Mind announce third studio album ‘Trying To Be Normal’
November 3rd 2023 to vinyl via Drongo Records
STREAM RECENT SINGLE 'SABRETOOTH MONKEY':
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0kcgZbGd4CxqQZvePN6Eam?si=4jzu7wfnQwWWzYRvA4h5FA
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/sabretooth-monkey-single/1701501404
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.co.uk/albums/B0CDZS8BYN?marketplaceId=A1F83G8C2ARO7P&musicTerritory=GB&ref=dm_sh_Wfrsor67OthvXIgrPMaDRahtc&trackAsin=B0CDZFR4FB
Bristol-based experimental psych-rock group My Octopus Mind are pleased to reveal their third studio album ‘Trying To Be Normal’, released today, November 3rd 2023, to vinyl via Drongo Records.
My Octopus Mind are a high-energy experimental psych-rock four-piece comprised of drums, guitar, vocals and heavily effected double bass. Since their conception in 2017, the band have developed a wild form of experimental rock, taking a tongue in cheek ride through post-punk swagger and dysfunction, wonky riffs, balkan rhythms and moments of haunting grace.
2019 saw the release of their spectacular debut album Maladyne Cave, swiftly followed up by 2020’s Faulty At Source, championed by the likes of Prog, RTE, Loudwire, Beats Per Minute and Noods Radio. The band have supported the likes of Henge, CLT DRP, The Guru Guru and St Pierre Snake Invasion, they’ve toured extensively throughout Europe and have secured slots at Shambala, ArcTanGent and Secret Garden Party.
Their third studio album Trying To Be Normal was written socially distanced over the course of 2020 and 2021 in a 1920’s theater and recorded over 5 days with Jake Bright at Giant Wafer Studios in rural Wales with mastering from Shawn Joseph at Optimum Mastering (J Dilla, Portishead). Due to multiple lockdowns there was no pressure to gig, affording team Octopus the time and creative freedom to focus solely on the album, which took shape organically through epic (up to 12 hour) jam sessions. It’s a playful collection of fresh post-pandemic material that marks a turning point in the band’s sound. It’s powerful, silly and immediately danceable.
“I came up with the title after a tongue in cheek discussion about making the structures of our songs a bit more approachable. Three or four minute bangers sort of thing. We maybe managed two. Things got out of hand, but the title is still true. We tried”, jokes drummer Oli Cocup.
The album comprises of short, sweet, hard hitting rock bangers, some slightly longer, condensed slabs of prog and post punk, with a cheeky ballad thrown in for good measure featuring vocals from Sang Froid’s Aisling Whiting.
Lyrically Trying To Be Normal deals with a lot of heavy subjects; heartbreak, the male identity fusing itself with FEM and rage at rape culture. It’s not without its lighter moments though with nonsensical roleplay as gamblers (High Rollers), thugs (Sabretooth Monkey) and completely inaccurate celebrity critique (Minor Celebrities).
Discussing the creation of the album, the band state: “We spent many years making highly tangential, cerebral music. Soundscapes, non-linear song structures, non-repeating metre sequences. This is our best effort to calm down and hide all that cool indulgent stuff in the margins of the earworms. The writing and recording process was much more collaborative and spontaneous, arising from jams that were recorded and then pulled apart for songs to emerge.
With the pandemic unfolding around us, and as the world appeared to be collapsing, it seemed that we were compelled to make music to escape that reality rather than critique it, as we have done with past albums. It’s like things got so bad that irony was no longer appropriate. We just wanted to play around and have fun instead. It’s hilarious that this is us trying to be normal and completely failing.”
With first glimpses of the new record already being championed by the likes of Duran Duran’s Simon Le Bon, Total Rock, RTE, Noizze, The Most Radicalist and BBC Radio Bristol, Trying To Be Normal is turning heads with a sexy swagger and awkward disrespect for the norms of rock, made by a group of neurodiverse musicians incapable of behaving normally. It’s a place for subconscious expression of chaos, and is a cathartic escape from the anxiety and boredom of lockdown and the alienation of solitude.
Ahead of the release of the album came its third single Sabretooth Monkey, released on September 27th 2023, a song so lyrically bizarre, no synopsis could do it justice.
Discussing the chaos of the track the band very seriously explain: “This is a serious song and it needs to be taken seriously. The demystification of art by explaining the art will now be explained by the art. We think you the listener should befriend a llama, buy a motorbike and take to the open road, drink diesel for breakfast, and headbutt a seagull. I'm a Sabretooth Monkay baby now get your hands off my stash. Also the bassline is fire and the guitar solo is some classic atonal chaos through the Cherry Box fuzz by Lollygagger. shout out to that wizard.”
MY OCTOPUS MIND ARE:
Liam O’Connell - Guitar, Vocals and Piano
Isaac Ellis - Double Bass, Vocals
Oliver Cocup - Drums, Vocals
Honorary member Jordan Woolgar - Guitar, Synth
ONLINE:
Website: https://www.myoctopusmind.com
Bandcamp: https://myoctopusmind.bandcamp.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myoctopusmind
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myoctopusmind
LISTEN:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2ygqaFuDZNFWlMrDUMABxO?si=wfUfijC4RNGGRvxDw553XA
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/my-octopus-mind/1447256607
Amazon Music: https://www.amazon.co.uk/music/player/artists/B07LB5DRJD/my-octopus-mind
FOR FANS OF:
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
The Mars Volta
Incubus
Ocean Size
LIVE DATES:
5th November - The Jam Jar, Bristol (Album Launch)
A warped and psychedelic vibe with hints of King Gizzard" - Mystic Sons
“It's weird, it's wonderful" - BBC Introducing In The West
“Full throttle look at the current social and political climate” - Prog
"It's like The Mars Volta and a combine harvester made love" - Drunken crowd member
