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The Chicago “Avant-Industrial Gospel Band” formed 40 years ago when punk was starting to get weird and the weirdos were starting punk bands. Over the years ONO faded from the public light but never stopped practicing or finding new shapes for their noise-laden, Afro-Futurist vision to inhabit – a one syllable word spoken with reverence in the Chicago underground. Re-emerging in the mid-teens with several highly regarded records on Moniker Records and a new cast of members pulled from the disparate streams of Chicago experimental music, ONO resurfaced as a triumphant force – leaving audiences completely shook by their high concept, confrontational and often tear-inducing live shows.
ONO was started by travis and P. Michael Grego, enigmatic artists worthy of serious D.C. punk style retrospectives and documentaries. “KONGO” is a skeletal, dirge-filled meditation on one the most sickening acts of genocide enacted on humans and its extensions into modern capitalism and racism, American style. “Mercy” extends ONO’s gospel roots to its most traditional and most deconstructed. Guitars and percussion tear holes into metal while travis’s voice is personified by an authoritative, galloping cadence that marshals disjointed ragtime piano, sheets of noise, throbbing, sub-basement beats felt in the solar plexus and vocal accompaniment by Shannon Rose Riley, Jordan Reyes, and Chicago rapper Malci.
Recorded during the same sessions as their album Red Summer out 05.01 on American Dreams Records, we are thrilled to put these two songs into the world as part of a four LP of 12” records along with Andrew Elaban, Claire Rousay and Fruit LoOops.
credits
released June 19, 2020
Mastered by Andrew Weathers
Photo by David Magdziarz
Art by travis
Layout and Design by Dustin Bowen
P Michael - samplers, drum machine, bass, synthesizer Rebecca Pavlatos - vocals, keys Connor Tomaka - samplers, synthesizer, electronics Ben Karas - drums, percussion Ben Billington - drums, percussion Dawei Wang - guitar Shannon Rose Riley - saxophone, vocals Jordan Reyes - vocals, eurorack synth travis - vocals
ONO is an Avant-Gospel band formed 40 years ago by travis and P. Michael Grego. Their resurgence as an absolutely critical Chicago experimental group is bolstered by their ever-expanding line-up of collaborators and members.
I like this album, especially for the message that it brings that is really powerful and in line with what happened nowadays. The title and the whole album refers to the Black Lives Matter (red summer refers to the summer of 1919 where white supremacists committed a lot of homicide against black community in USA). The whole album speaks about this, with a lot of reference to historical events (e.g.: 20th August 1619 is the date when the first black slaves were deported in USA). losfastidios
Recordings from the last 13 years of Buffalo, NY's avant-garde collective Cages, ranging from surreally beautiful to deeply unsettling. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 5, 2019