Rubber Oh Set To Release Debut Album “Strange Craft“
on 3rd June 2022 via Rocket Recordings
Watch the video for “Nothing”
Live dates announced
Rocket Recordings are excited to announce the debut album, Strange Craft from Rubber Oh to be released 3rd June 20022. Pre-order album HERE
Inspiration can strike anyone at any time, and more often than not from somewhat peculiar quarters. Rarely more so than when Sam Grant – best known as guitarist and producer of Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – finally set about work on a solo project that had been pursuing him for some years. “It’s easier to describe it materialistically than by any other way.” he reasons “I want people to imagine that feeling of rubber – its physical memory, the unnatural vibe of it. It’s so tactile but alien, but also difficult not to know. It’s an odd analogy, but that’s what this music is for me.”
Today, Grant shares the second single from his debut, “Nothing” and explains, “Ultimately, ’Nothing’ is a song about the weight of thought, and the freedom in letting go. But the lyrics are meant to sit in a space that’s both optimistic and hopeful, and equally readable as pessimistic and futile – playing with the ideas of dualism and Nihilism.” He goes on to say, “There’s an alluring sense of the Optimistic Nihilist in the track – that prospect of knowing your own inconsequence could be liberating. But it’s always tethered to the paradoxes that creates.”
The single arrives with a surreal lyric video made by Teeth of the Sea’s Mike Bourne. Watch below:
Easily one of the most adventurous, intoxicating, and obsessive single releases you’ll hear this year.
The ferocious bass notes and its accompanying damning tone add this immense low end to the release, creating this stirring movement whilst the drum rolls emphasize the cadence of the hypnotic, swooping momentum. A sonic journey filled with this raw and vivid aggression, lo-fi melodic vocal harmonies glide above the expressive landscape that continues to grow with this insatiable energy.
Rubber Oh challenges this drone-like swirls which continue to loop, showcasing this mighty angst and impressive power that Grant and co can capture within this unruly creation. “Nothing” multiplies in intensity, firing towards this almighty kaleidoscopic orchestration which simply erupts and surprisingly leaves enough space for the jarring cowbell to rise to the attention of the audience as Rubber Oh obliterates the world they created as the single leads to the most colossal of crescendos.
Strange Craft is a deliriously tuneful sci-fi tinged psych-pop. Mapping out a retro-futuristic trajectory that stretches from the wide-eyed travails of the late-’60s through to the hard-edged mind expansions of the 21st century, this collection of warped interstellar voyages is intent on taking the scenic route across the cosmic continuum.
The project took shape initially in snatched hours around Grant’s regular job as studio engineer at Newcastle’s Blank Studios. Not content with completely revamping this facility over the pandemic period, Rubber Oh initially took shape as a means for pure indulgence on the part of its creator, in which he could set about scratching every itch that he’d been forced to discard when working for others.
Paradoxically, certain rules of thumb were utilised, with each track constructed in counter-intuitive approach to the riff-driven world of his main band – across a subterranean low-end bedrock of two bass guitarists, a complete absence of cymbal wash, and only single notes allowed on guitar. While Grant performed the majority of the music, help from friends and acquaintances was enlisted, such as Pigs’ Chris Morley on drums as well as Matt Baty [Pigs x7] and Beth Jeans Houghton [Du Blonde] counting amongst the backing vocalists, all amidst a wash of celestial ambience and curlicues of analogue synth.
At the end of last year, we were treated to the first taster of the album, the fuzzy, blissed out single Little Demon
Strange Craft is fuelled up and ready to accept all comers on a ride into extensions through dimensions.
Live dates:
Thu 02 Jun 2022 – Manchester, YES
Fri 03 Jun 2022 – London, The Lexington
Sat 04 Jun 2022 – Newcastle, The Cluny 2
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