Monday Long Song(s)

The rarely attempted Triple Swedeface

Between the summers of 2020 and 2021, John Dwyer (he of The Osees) together with a group of like minded friends, released five instrumental LPs crammed full of fuzzy freaky prog, skronking jazz fusion, pulsating space rock and sundry improvised weirdness. Four of those records ('Bent Arcana', 'Moon Drenched', 'Witch Egg' and 'Gong Splat') quickly became (and remain) firm favourites in my gaff (the fifth, 'Endless Garbage', is still a little too far out, even for me). 

In the Autumn of 2024, with little fuss or fanfare, Dwyer put nearly 3½ hours worth of unreleased sessions from those four LPs up on his Bandcamp page and, in early Summer 2025, the thirty three tunes were issued physically across three double albums. Such is the wealth and breadth of amazing music to go at on these records, I rate them every bit as highly than their parent releases. 

Here's a 20 minute taster of the delights on offer.

Spoiler

The Burn Pit (Take 2)

Monday Long Song

I particularly enjoyed the clutch of albums released by John Dwyer and various friends throughout 2020 and 2021, especially 'Bent Arcana' and 'Gong Splat'. The strength of these solo projects has me revisiting the music Dwyer makes in his day job with Oh Sees. I'm woefully out of touch with the band's prolific output (at least 11 albums since the last one I know from 2019!), but I have enough of their tunes dotted about the place to keep me out of mischief for a Sunday afternoon. 

'Keys to the Castle' from 2017's 'Orc' is a song of two halves...or more precisely of one quarter and three quarters. A two minute punk blast, followed by a six minute blissed out lugubrious groove.

Oh Sees - Keys to the Castle

Monday Long Song

Now I'm known to have become obsessed with a few prolific artists in my time, but even I struggle to keep up with all of John Dwyer's many musical adventures. Best known as motivator-in-chief of Thee Oh Sees (aka OCS, Osees and sundry other variants) and guv'nor of Castle Face Records, Dwyer is the dictionary definition of restlessly creative. He's also released records under such monikers as Netmen, Dig That Body Up, Zeigenbock Kopf and, most recently, Witch Egg. Dwyer had a hand in a couple of my favourite LPs of 2020, one of which was 'Bent Arcana', recorded in cahoots with a stellar cast including Peter Kerlin from Sunwatchers and TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone, a man who, by the by, once made me an espresso in a Williamsburg coffee shop.

I could offer influences and comparisons for Bent Arcana's music, but this comment left by someone who purchased the album from their Bandcamp page captures its essence nicely:

'Cosmic music from another dimension transmitted via your brain-stem to usher in a new era of fraternity and respect for all'

Bent Arcana - The Gate