#comasummer

OOHS!’s debut EP landed in our inbox at the perfect time. MusicMap.Global was happy to have its warm tones emanating from the speakers to compensate for the frosty bite outside.

Coming out on AMEK, the Sofia-based collective we interviewed for an Insight post earlier in 2017, ‘Tropic of Cancel’ is a selection of lo-fi bliss. Retro synth bubbles pop around sliding, country-tinged guitars and harmonious and restrained vocals.

Of course we were more than happy to say yes to giving the release a premiere, and also talk to the Bulgarian-Lebanese duo who make up OOHS! – Maxim Mokdad and Margg Names – about what they describe as music that represents “heat-induced illusion”. Now we await the snow-induced sequel…

Tropic Of Cancel by OOHS!

How did you two meet?

Margg: I don’t recall when or how we were introduced, but I remember seeing Maxim perform in some clubs downtown, back in 2010, and he seemed cool and really into music. I’m glad that our paths crossed some years later, only to find out that he was just as passionate about music as I’d thought he’d be.

Maxim: The first time we met proper, as far as I remember, was when I got in touch with Margg to get a copy of the new record that he’d just released with 1000 Names, which is his main gig. I loved his music, and so he was top of my wish list of collaborators, for quite some time. I’m quite happy that I finally got the nerve to ask him to do a gig with me, last year, and things just clicked into place, right away.

This is your first release as OOHS!, but have either of you been involved in musical projects before?

Margg: Yes. As Maxim already mentioned, I’m also one half of 1000 Names. We are a producer/DJ duo, and we have released a number of beat records on quite a few labels, such as Eklektik Records, Black Acre, Project: Mooncircle.

Maxim: This is actually my first musical project, as such. Back in the noughties I got roped in by some friends of mine who were in this amazing band (big up The Paperbax!) to do a few numbers at some of their gigs. We ended up mostly doing fuzzed-out covers of Spacemen 3, The Velvet Underground and such. That got the ball rolling, and soon I was doing solo folk gigs, and amassing a backlog of songs, mostly to fill out my set, but also with the intention of putting a record out at some later point. Work and travel put paid to that, and my music was on the back burner for the best part of a decade. But a couple of years ago that itch just came back… and here we are.

You work with samples and drum machines – what kit do you use and where do you source your sample from?

Maxim: To be honest our set-up is pretty primitive, and very much hardware based. I’m a bit old fashioned that way. Our synths don’t even have MIDI capabilities, as they are close to my age.

In terms of rhythms, we kept things very simple for ‘Tropic Of Cancel’. The backbone of most of the tracks are patterns we sampled off this ’70s preset drum machine I got a few years back. We only pulled out the TR-626 for Supersonic Satellite, because we used it to trigger the VCF on the Juno-60, and for the 4/4 drum pattern – and that’s pretty much the whole song, right there. Everything you hear on this record, bar the obvious samples of sea waves and the car taking off, are sounds that we have played. So, in a way, we mostly sample ourselves.

A lot of the songs are based on sketches that we’ve recorded on the go. I usually have an SP-404 set-up on my desk, to try and record things that pop into my mind whilst tinkering, late at night, with synths or alternate tunings on the guitar. Occasionally, a song will just appear fully formed, music, lyrics and all, but I tend to find it more rewarding to build songs up from these disjointed, rambling fragments. It often feels like trying to construct a narrative form random entries in a dream diary.

We also made a conscious decision to keep our live setup as hands-on and in the moment as possible. It’s usually myself on guitar and vocals, and Margg on the Juno and a Moog oscillator, for pure noise making. The samples are mostly restricted to repetitive patterns, hence our obsession with motorik beats.

When we talked to Angel [Simitchiev, AMEK Collective] we focused a lot on the drone/electronic side of things in Sofia, but how is the indie/psych scene in the city?

Margg: I’m not very familiar with that scene, as I’ve been mostly involved in electronic music, but I certainly am curious to find out more. Me and Maxim tend to frequent concerts organised by promoters such as Alarma Punk Jazz, Blood Becomes Water, and, of course, Amek, who are restless in their support of under-the-radar local and international artists, and have an impeccable taste in music.

Maxim: OOHS! is very much a homegrown entity and we’ve only played a handful of gigs so far, so we’re hardly part of the scene. Still, there do seem to be more and more guitar bands around these days that are doing the psychedelic thing, mostly on the garage/drone end of the spectrum. Comasummer are a band worth checking out, in that respect.

It seems to me that the more exciting sounds are being created on the fringes of the scene, away from the four-square guitar indie doldrums, be it in the post-hardcore, noise/drone, experimental hip-hop, vaporwave or straight-up doom genres. Artists are connecting and collaborating across genres (genders?), based on a mutual appreciation of integrity, individuality and sheer bloody-mindedness.

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