“Chasing the Form” from this Virginia 3 man monster has plenty of vibe to spare. There are only 7 tracks on this 50-minute disc. We are not talking about an EP release as about 3 of these cuts are between 8 and 11 minutes. “Sonic guitar, swelling drums and a fibrous flow of bass mesh harmoniously to produce a unique ethereal vibe, surprisingly created by only three musicians.” taken from the group’s promo this statement does a good job of describing the OSTINATO sound.

Now if I may elaborate a little. David Hennessy’s unique guitar sound is really kind of hard to peg. It’s extremely dense and it could be described as a modern take on GLENN BRANCA’s THE STATIC meets THE CURE’s dark tinged “Pornography” era. There is a bit of the dark delayed retro surf of Greg Sage’s WIPERS sound on occasion. These are mere blueprints in their most basic form, as Ostinato really does not sound that much at all like any of these artists. There could be an amalgam of other influences, so who outside the group knows for sure (the bio I got does not compare them to anyone). When bassist/ keyboardist Jeremy Am Ramirez’s vocals actually do appear they are mostly talked and whispered. His bass is almost always in fuzz mode and makes itself more up front when Hennessy lays off the distortion. A fine example of this would be “Antiaircraft”. The composition also makes good use of sampled voices that (I can only imagine) represent the communication between pilot and the air traffic controller. Every track here has something to offer, as I’m sure you will find out when you get your own copy. Stay away from mine, fool.

- Herring

OFFICIAL SITE: myspace.com/ostinatospace

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