Oneida have never followed rock musics rules. For starters, theyve released a staggering eight albums in ten years, and somehow, each record has been different from the next. This year, the band were supposed to put out their triple-album opus Thank Your Parents, but instead only mustered up 11 tracks. Its probably a good thing that three discs turned to one, as Happy New Year is about as strong an effort as you can get. Oneida have always been complex and thought provoking, and they continue the trend by utilising mistimed cymbal hits, off-key harmonies, and a plethora of wacky keyboard effects. The group kick off Happy New Year in typical Oneida fashion with "Distress, a haunting traditional hymn. As expected, the next song, "Happy New Year moves in a completely different direction, towards a fuzzy and fairly accessible pop song. The songs take even more twists and turns the Star Trek-ish noise track "Pointing Fingers is especially memorable giving fans and curious listeners plenty of stuff to wrap their heads around.
What happened to the triple album? Fat Bobby: We kind of had what I like to call a crisis of vision. Why were we slaving to get this triple record out, what was the point behind it? We really wanted to do an incredible huge slab of things we wanted to organise. We had this total vision and then it was like, "Shit, we cant really do this right, right now.
You sing a lot about change on this disc. Why? We had a lot of things going on, we added another member to the band, so we decided to do this record about change and celebrating change and that kind of weird feeling you have when youre like, "Yeah, things are going to be different, theyre going to be awesome, I think. That shaky, happy feeling.
And thats why you named the disc Happy New Year? Yeah. The idea of New Years Day fits pretty perfectly. That feeling of waking up on New Years Day and like Ive made all these New Years resolutions about how Im going to better myself, yet I did all this stupid shit the night before.
It sounds like this album was pretty planned out. We didnt sit down and construct an operatic thing out of it. It was more about mood and songs that worked together and a kind of flow. For us the record flowed through the first side, and the second side eases off and slowly moves through this melancholy retrenchment.
(Outside)What happened to the triple album? Fat Bobby: We kind of had what I like to call a crisis of vision. Why were we slaving to get this triple record out, what was the point behind it? We really wanted to do an incredible huge slab of things we wanted to organise. We had this total vision and then it was like, "Shit, we cant really do this right, right now.
You sing a lot about change on this disc. Why? We had a lot of things going on, we added another member to the band, so we decided to do this record about change and celebrating change and that kind of weird feeling you have when youre like, "Yeah, things are going to be different, theyre going to be awesome, I think. That shaky, happy feeling.
And thats why you named the disc Happy New Year? Yeah. The idea of New Years Day fits pretty perfectly. That feeling of waking up on New Years Day and like Ive made all these New Years resolutions about how Im going to better myself, yet I did all this stupid shit the night before.
It sounds like this album was pretty planned out. We didnt sit down and construct an operatic thing out of it. It was more about mood and songs that worked together and a kind of flow. For us the record flowed through the first side, and the second side eases off and slowly moves through this melancholy retrenchment.
