Ontario Hospital – No Contact / Live Archives 2011-2019 (Album – Ekstasis)
Genre/Influences: Industrial, Experimental, Industrial-Trance.
Format: Digital, Cassette.
Background/Info: We all know Richard Oddie for his involvement with Orphx, but he’s also busy with other projects. He together with Dave Foster (Huren, Teste ao) set up Ontario Hospital (O/H). They did some live performances and released a few EP’s. This album features live tracks recorded between 2011 and 2019 in Japan, Russia, Holland and Canada. Notice by the way Richard Oddie released this work on his own label, which is meant for his different projects and friends.
Content: O/H is clearly driven by good-old Industrial music and retro Electro experiments. There’s an 80s touch running through the work, but still a more contemporary Trance/Techno aspect emerging during the last part of the album. The tracks have been progressively built up and are often ending into a sonic climax of Electro-Noise. The songs are mixed with harsh, disturbing vocals injecting an extra dose of terror to the composition.
+ + + : This project stands for intelligent Industrial music. It feels like O/H creates a sonic bridge between the past –sometimes reminiscent of SPK, and more contemporary Industrial sounds. A few songs are musically pretty Dive-like, but globally speaking this project has a very own sound and approach. I like the progression in the tracklist, which is definitely important when playing live. The songs progressively evolve until reaching hard Industrial dance passages with some extra Trance structures on top. O/H sounds like controlled chaos or simply transposing a sonic mayhem into dark, danceable stuff. The vocals are adding a little extra on top.
– – – : I don’t see any minus point, but simply regret I wasn’t that familiar with O/H before.
Conclusion: This project is meticulously mixing old- and modern Industrial influences together creating a rough although intelligent Industrial sound dimension. It’s a true masterpiece!
Best songs: “Supply / Demand”, “Generic Expectations”, “Worthless Scam”, “Safety Net”, “Power Starved / Human Waste”.
Rate: (9).
Artist: www.facebook.com/ontariohospital
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