Austin Sound

This is what happens when you try to release an EP a month, we guess. After all, that much time crammed into a house recording is bound to begin to smell bad no matter what. So Haunting Oboe Music, which as we’ve discussed before, has never really been haunting, nor oboed, is calling it a career. According to the band, the split is mutual and everybody’s cool, which is a shame, because we prefer to watch local bands go out in a blaze of instrument flinging fury on stage. There is still that chance though, as HOM does have a couple more shows that they are going to play before ceasing to be. They have two free week shows this week - one at Emo’s on Thursday, January 7 with Moth Fight, Yellow Fever, Red Leaves, and The Eastern Sea, and then again at Club DeVille on Saturday with Watch Out For Rockets. Their final blowout will go down at the Hole in the Wall on Friday January 15 with The Obsolete Machines, Salesmen, and Monarchs. They’re charging $3 for that one, but they’ll also be giving away all their stock of EPs! Woo-hoo? Apparently there is already a new band in the works from several members, so no need to get too nostalgic or anything. But here’s to hoping the band uses the social media suicide button!

In January of 2008, Haunting Oboe Music announced their ambitious project to release an EP a month for the entire year. We talked to the band at the outset to gauge where they were starting from and what they hoped to accomplish with effort, and followed their progress throughout the year. Having survived the endeavor and produced an amazing 12 EPs and over 50 new songs, we wanted to check back in with the now-quintet as they prepare to start playing live again. (For an amazing rundown of their EPs, we recommend you check out the awesomely comprehensive review of all 12 over at ‘Nites!). The most impressive aspect of the EPs is the range of styles and changing dynamics that can be witnessed over the course of the year, listening to the band fearlessly explore different directions and then slowly hone that sound back into a more coherent presentation. HOM is currently working on narrowing down and re-doing the songs from last year for their debut full length to be released at some point this summer, but perhaps the biggest change to their equally cathartic and intricate sound will be seen live. They’ll be playing inside at Emo’s tonight, Thursday April 16, along with Lymbyc System and Loxsly. We sat down with Nick Whitfield, Ian Hunt, and Anthony Johnson at the band’s house to talk about the project, where the band is now, and what’s next.

We missed our August edition of following Haunting Oboe Music’s EP a month series, but luckily they haven’t missed a beat. So this month we present you with two mp3s, one from their August EP and one from the newly released September offering.

We’ve been curious about Haunting Oboe Music’s July EP ever since we heard that they would be teaming up with recently Sound Off featured band Prayer for Animals. We figured it could either be a complimentary melding of like styles, or, given both groups’ penchants for wandering into dark psychedelic tangents, a bloody mess. Luckily, July is clearly the former, the two’s music melding so seamlessly it is difficult to tell them apart.

The July EP marks the halfway point in HOM’s EP a month project, so the split at this point makes perfect sense. The EP features one original from each band, one cover of the other group’s song, and then the final collaboration between the two, “Take the Wheels Off”, which we’ve posted for download below. The song rips along with Modest Mouse punch, but unraveling more subdued textures. Haunting Oboe Music and Prayer for Animals will both be unloading inside Emo’s tomorrow night, August 28, along with Transmography and Prom Nite.

UME - Photo: Anthony Rathbun

A day late but no less jam-packed with events, it’s Weekend Preview.

Two super lineups dominate the weekend beginning with UME, Ringo Deathstarr, Haunting Oboe Music and more at the Monarch Event Center. Then Sunday, KOOP plays host to a fundraiser where you have the chance of winning a scooter, and the guarantee of good music, compliments of The Bellfuries, La Snacks, Peel, and Foot Foot.

Somehow in the midst of their EP-a-month project, the boys from Haunting Oboe Music found the time to put together this video of their song “Homeless” from the April installment of the year-long effort. It’s a beautifully ambient tune, accentuated here by the collage of color and eerie images.

With the recent release of the June EP, HOM marked the halfway point of their recording, and July’s EP promises a treat as a split with Prayer for Animals. You can also finally catch HOM playing live as they test drive some of the new material this Saturday, July 26 at the Monarch Events Center with a stacked lineup that also includes Ume, Ringo Deathstarr, Prayer for Animals, Red X Red M, Follow that Bird!, and Hey Zeus.

June marks the halfway point of Haunting Oboe Music’s massive EP a month endeavor, and they’ve remained steady throughout. With June now off the presses, the group will finally venture out of the studio into the limelight of the stage to showcase some of the past six month’s work with a show on July 26 at the Monarch Event’s Center.

The June EP returns to more classic HOM textures, in other words, eerie and frantic and, well, haunting. Here’s what the group has to say for the sixth EP in the series:

Here it is, hot off the presses. Haunting Oboe Music continues their EP-a-month onslaught with the release of five new songs from May. While their last two EPs have been subtle and settled, May is undoubtedly some of their most freakish work yet. The cover pretty much tells the whole story. Through April, we’ve had various prints of typewriters, but this month smashes the machine to pieces.

The short burst of “Dears,” presented for download below, opens the EP with some upending beats, which dive headlong into the mellow moaning atmospherics of “Weee!!”. But “Think About It” and “While You’re Running” create the complete meltdown of distortion and effects. Closer “Ghost” is beautiful and spacey and probably the best song on the EP, but also the most closely tied to their earlier work.

For a third of the year now we’ve been following Haunting Oboe Music as they feverishly release an EP a month. So far, each month’s offering has proven interesting, and the group has presented some excellent new songs as they stretch their sound in new directions. The group’s release for April, however, is by far their most impressive overall offering.

The EP is the most eclectic of their releases, but the range swells surprisingly coherent. Four different band members contribute to the songwriting, accounting for the distinctiveness of the songs. Opener “The General,” presented for download below, builds to a beautifully mellow melody, perhaps HOM’s most tender song to date. “Time and Energy” takes the country leanings of last month’s EP to a new level of disturbed folk, incorporating a banjo leading the down-in-a-well vocal echo. The quiet effects-laden instrumental “Homeless” interweaves some samples from the streets, while “Wrist” and “Stab You” work through their more familiar dark vocal harmonies and chants, the former across sparse guitar, the latter through electronic bleeps and seering shouts.

4/14/08
Haunting Oboe Music continues on pace with their attempt to release an EP a month during 2008, and we’ve been following them on the journey. Finally getting the pressings back for March’s “U,” HOM are 3 for 3 and a quarter of the way there. The March EP may be their most divergent and far-reaching yet, as you can hear for yourself below. Here’s what they have to say for the release:

“For this particular installment we decided to put on our cowboy hats, belt buckles and deep-fry all songs to make them as southern as possible. This EP carries tales of nearly deadly car wrecks in Cleveland, Texas, explodes into flames, revisits old friends, and even performs surgery.”