OCnotes
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OCnotes

Seattle, Washington, United States | SELF

Seattle, Washington, United States | SELF
Band EDM Singer/Songwriter

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"Preview: A Trip Through OC Notes' Pre Future Post Modern Love Songs: AKA Alien Booty Bass"

Pre Future Post Modern Love Songs: AKA Alien Booty Bass is the dopamine-inducing new album from OC Notes that turns the human auditory cortex into the swirling speaker on the interior of a Leslie cabinet...

Vocal overlays ranging from falsetto to practically ornithological washed over me in waves. Vibrato guitar sentiments churned up on the shore of reality; I felt like I was being swept out to sea...

I walked out into the city and felt privileged and lonely all at once. I had heard something I needed to share, but there was no way I could. I wished the 600,000 other people in the city could hear what I’d heard. Not just the album, but the sounds on it for which there are no words...

After the last two days, I can say with certainty I have heard music that affects cognition, whose structure defies time. OC Notes' solo album has definitely changed my mind. - The Stranger


"12 Washington Bands You Should Listen To Now"

"For fans of: Flying Lotus, outer space. OC Notes is a musician and producer who churns out expansive constellations of sound at a prolific clip from his studio in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. He released his latest collection of solo work, Moldavite, in May, and is currently performing with local MC Rik Rude (also of Fresh Espresso) as Metal Chocolates." - Paste Magazine


"12 Washington Bands You Should Listen To Now"

"For fans of: Flying Lotus, outer space. OC Notes is a musician and producer who churns out expansive constellations of sound at a prolific clip from his studio in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. He released his latest collection of solo work, Moldavite, in May, and is currently performing with local MC Rik Rude (also of Fresh Espresso) as Metal Chocolates." - Paste Magazine


"Grind and Shine: Metal Chocolates"

All week Ann Powers and The Seattle Times' Andrew Matson are having coffee with people in Seattle's fertile rap scene. We're calling the series Grind and Shine, and you can read the interviews and see portraits here.


ARTISTS: Another day, another downloadable bundle of songs from Seattle's OC Notes (Otis Calvin, III). The 25-year-old producer/singer/rapper is Seattle's combination Madlib and Mos Def. Such reductive comparisons don't do him justice — but will get you within rock-throwing distance of his woozy style, which moves fluidly from hip-hop to radio theater to house music.

It's all soul music to Notes, who pumps it out from his underground studio in Seattle's OK Hotel, at the downtown edge of the city, next to the ocean. He has put out three albums this year, including standout work with MC Rik Rude (Ricky Reams, also in popular synth-rap group Fresh Espresso) — a psychedelic hip-hop project called Metal Chocolates. Rik is as stream-of-consciousness with his rhymes as Notes is with his beats — apparently, anyway; it could all be more composed than we know. In Seattle, high school students and recent grads apprentice themselves to Notes. MCs try and fail to freestyle alongside Rik. Metal Chocolates might fit next to the spaced-out vibe of locals Shabazz Palaces and THEESatisfaction, but is its own thing, starry-eyed while rooted to the anxiety of Pioneer Square and its bustling drug and alcohol casualties.

SETTING: Zeitgeist Coffee, 171 S. Jackson Street, Pioneer Square

BEVERAGES: Herbal tea (Rik Rude) and one glass of red wine (OC Notes)

Zeitgeist Coffee in Pioneer Square is right near the old King Street train station — the right spot to meet one of Seattle's most adventurous new hip-hop projects. These guys travel: their sound touches upon syrupy Southern rap, electronica, jazz, psychedelica, even world music. Imagistic and inspired, Metal Chocolates leans easily against the cutting edge of urban music; they're Odd Future without the hate, or The Weeknd with a better sense of humor. Plus, they're sweet guys. We sat down with them for the third interview in our Grind and Shine series.





Hear "Afro Egypt" from 'Metal Chocolates'

Purchase: Bandcamp

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ANN POWERS: Neither of you were born in Seattle.



RIK RUDE: I'm Michigan born and raised, but I'm kind of a nomad. What's kept me in Seattle is the art scene, working with great artists. There have been times when I've contemplated moving to the U.K. or even South America. But I stayed, and I'm happy that I did, because I feel like I'm working with some of the best. OC Notes! Right now Seattle is getting a lot of attention for its music — and it's great — but at the same time there's a lot of people who want to keep it all about the art.

OC NOTES: I grew up in a military family, and then my parents split up, so I feel like I've never been from anywhere. This is home — this is the place where I've spent the most collective time — but I don't really feel like I have a home.

ANN POWERS: When did you two start working together?





Hear "Opium of Love" from 'Metal Chocolates'

RIK RUDE: It had to be 5 years ago. You were 19, bro. He's one of the true first cats I met here. I lived in this horrible apartment and I just had stuff cluttered everywhere. I'd moved out here from the Bay Area, on a whim, not knowing what I was gonna do one day to the next. I brought this guy into the crib, like, 'Man, I heard you do beats. I do rhymes, you should check out my stuff.' The first thing he said to me was, 'Rik, man, this rap stuff is cool, but I want to start a circus. I want to do something crazy.' Seriously, this dude's a visionary.

Purchase: Bandcamp

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ANN POWERS: How did your collaboration evolve into this current project, Metal Chocolates?

OC NOTES: I guess it's new because we dropped it, but it's old because we made it a long time ago.

RIK RUDE: Really Metal Chocolates is just the name of the record. We roll collectively as Rude Notes. Under that moniker there are several projects. Otis released an awesome house record called Dap Confuser, I'm on a few songs. And we've got more stuff in the works. It's not old or new, it's timeless.

ANN POWERS: Otis, you went to music school in Arizona for a while. Why train professionally?



OC NOTES: I always wanted to go to college and then my life got all weird with family s—- and I just wasn't able to go to college. Then my grandfather got cancer. I went to Phoenix to go be with him. While I was down there, a friend said, 'Go to this school,' and it just so happened to be a school I'd looked at when I was 15 or 16. It's one of the best recording schools in the country — the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences. It's like, ill gear, and you have 24-hour access to the studio. And i - NPR


"The Hiphop of Placelessness"

OC Notes demands our attention at this moment. He is a 25-year-old producer based in Pioneer Square who is on the verge of dropping a significant work of local hiphop—a collaboration with the rapper Rik Rude called Metal Chocolates. Rik Rude, of course, successfully collaborates with P Smoov as Fresh Espresso—the duo's 2009 album Glamour is a local classic, and all signs are pointing to a strong follow-up. Rude and OC Notes have known each other since the middle of the previous decade and started working on the Metal Chocolates project over a year ago. In late September, they had their first show at the Highline, a Capitol Hill vegan bar and restaurant.

Metal Chocolates is not, however, the first Notes/Rude collaboration. That honor belongs to Dap Confuser, an album released at the end of 2009, which is vastly different from the sound and feel of Metal Chocolates. Indeed, it's fair to ask if Dap Confuser is even a hiphop record.

With Metal Chocolates, we can safely say the music is a part of the tradition. Rude is rapping; Notes is producing beats for a rapper—that project is closed enough to be defined, categorized, and associated with other like-minded projects. Dap Confuser, on the other hand, is wide open—there isn't really any rapping (mostly chanting), the beats aren't hiphop-based, the rhythms and textures are drawn from a variety of sources and traditions. And this is really the main theme in Notes' work: openness. Many of his releases (particularly his instrumentals) present the listener with a sense of being open to almost anything that's out there—genres, sounds, ideas, beat innovations, instruments, samples. At the core of Notes' creativity we find a clearing that's open to experimentation and the production of exotic combinations.

Now, being open is not always a good thing. Any artist can be open, and many artists produce works that are vapidly eclectic—you only have to turn to many of the CDs of the illbient genre of the 1990s to find the truth in this claim. Also, openness—in jazz, techno, and hiphop—often means abandoning the pleasures of the beat for the excruciating freedoms of confusion. This was the direction the Jungle Brothers took on 1993's J Beez Wit the Remedy—the liberation of hiphop expressed as radical beat disassembly (the second part of Remedy was unlistenable). The Brooklyn rapper Sensational also took this complicated and often painful path into beat chaos. There's no joy (or jouissance) in Sensational albums such as 1999's Corner the Market and 2001's Get on My Page.

OC Notes is not about noise or beat deconstruction. His openness does not push music to the point of pain. It's an openness that's never far from the dance, from the swing and sway of things. Dap Confuser has a lot of catchy hooks and no defining center, and it freely roams the world—we hear some Nigerian highlife ("Lately Times"), some Brazilian samba ("Buddy Guy House"), some North London broken beat ("Stutter Step"), some Central European new wave ("Danny Glover in the '80s"), and a touch of Philly soul ("Listeners Block"). Each track has no real direction, no narrative structure; the music starts, the music happens (synths shine, drums rumble, galactic sounds fall in and out of the beat, Rik Rude comes in and out of the mist), the music ends.

Metal Chocolates are not nearly as open. The rapper and producer work within a more restricted program that unifies all of the tracks into a distinct feeling. "Afro Egypt," for example, feels very built, though not with ordinary materials. Poetic associations link the rhymes, which suggest a number of wonderful imaginings: global desires ("We love ladies from London, Brazil, to Israel"), the Afrocentric fantasies of Shabazz Palaces ("I see kingdoms"), and b-boy mysticism ("There be breakers in the building/Have you seen 'em?"). The beat thumps, and strange birdcalls fill the oriental air. This is a trip down an electric Nile. A trip that has a beginning, a middle, and, with a majestic flourish, an end.

On October 31, OC Notes and Rik Rude appeared on KEXP's Street Sounds for a live performance. They revealed a batch of new tracks, my favorite of which, "Candy Store Controller," is a haze of strings and opiumlike enchantments. The host of Street Sounds, Stranger columnist Larry Mizell Jr., rated the performance as one of his favorite in-studios "by far." That praise is not surprising. OC Notes is a creative force, and his radical openness—the fact that nothing is alien to his imagination, and that this imagination can synthesize these bits and pieces of music from everywhere into the delicious and often erotic tracks—reflects a hiphop that has less and less to do with place and more and more to do with the placelessness of our global moment. OC Notes is truly a man of our times.
- The Stranger


"Review: OC Notes, Fergus Farley, City Hall at Hollow Earth"

Last night at the Central District's Internet-based Hollow Earth Radio, which looks and feels like a satellite living room at 2018 Union Street, about 20 people laughed, head-nodded and two-stepped to Seattle deejay/producer OC Notes, who played jazz, hip-hop and soul music of all types, pretending to count down his favorite 2011 songs of the last 2011 years. It was a web radio show that was also a real-world concert and party. Judging by the warm, buzzing vibe of the room, Notes said it was the best version of his monthly "Art Show" yet, which consists of him hijacking Rich Jensen and Jonathan Cunningham's weekly "Central Sounds" show, sometimes with guests.

After Notes warmed up the seated/standing crowd by layering John Coltrane over the Wu-Tang Clan, local teenage phenom (and Notes' protege) Fergus Farley took control of the speakers with his Ableton module and laptop, twisting knobs and touching buttons while original compositions swirled, hovered and dropped heavy beats. "He's a genius!" said Notes. It was Farley's first solo show outside his Greenwood basement, and despite an annoying hum from some electric issue during his set, Notes was right: Farley's music was brilliant. After one bleachers-stomping beat ended abruptly, a guy in a leather jacket said, "Keep going, I was about to rap on that!"

Tacoma hip-hop duo City Hall performed, too. Todd Sykes' jazzy tracks boom-bapped through the space, and he and rhyming partner Evergreen One waxed poetic. The same guy who was about to rap on Farley's tracks spoke excitedly into the bright light of his tablet device (not an iPad; I'm not sure what it was) during their songs, holding his head and rocking to the rhythm.

"That's that head-nod music! Real hip-hop!"

He was apparently live-streaming his own web show, which reminded me that in the near-future, we'll all be live-streaming our own web shows, all the time. I'm told that's part of what the book "Super Sad True Love Story" is about, which I've been meaning to read.

After City Hall finished, Notes got back on the computer/turntable combo and freestyled for a while, coolly making up verses on the spot. When he put down the microphone, several hands grabbed for it and a few verses were kicked, but it was a real treat to hear the live-streaming leather jacket man shoot quick-fast lyrical darts. He had a slicing/precise rap style that reminded me of Seattle rapper Candidt, and over Notes' instrumentals, got in and got out with no wasted space, like it was his honor to bless the mic and the music and he didn't want to wear out his welcome. Besides all the great tunes, he embodied exactly the energy and respect that made the night feel special. - Seattle Times


"OC Notes Picks Up the Guitar; La Can't (and Shouldn't) Put the Mike Down"

Navigating OC Notes' bandcamp page is like browsing 7-Eleven in a late-night haze. At every turn in his e-catalogue, you'll find something interesting; something brilliant and tasty; something you can just stare at and appreciate. Maybe you don't want to consume every last crumb in the joint, but it's sure fun to pick up and inspect each little piece of well-packaged shiny stuff.
That's you, though. I happen to like nearly everything the multi-instrumentalist Otis Calvin VIII has uploaded, and enjoy getting lost perusing the isles. Last week, OC released a 20-track album called The New Generation (embracing the new age), which is some of his most laid-back yet strangely accomplished songwriting to date. As a guitarist, he's got a Latin kind of flavor: quick finger-picking over a reliance on strumming, and he proves astoundingly proficient at it. Check it out for yourself. - Seattle Weekly


"OC Notes: The New Generation (embracing the future)"

My man Otis, a.k.a rising Seattle producer OC Notes, continues to push boundaries with The New Generation, “a collection of favorite songs written on his acoustic guitar.” The tracks reveal yet another dimension of OC’s musical range – Blues and melodic bossa nova-style strings drive most of the songs, but there’s plenty of fresh keys and dope sampling that you would expect from OC. I am very much feeling the soulful, song-cipher-on-the porch with the homies-while-sipping a cold one mellowness of this Record. Perfect soundtrack for a beautiful 85 degree Seattle Day. Holler. - Last Nights Mixtape


"Pinkies Up: High Tea with OC Notes."

Otis Calvin III, or OC Notes, is becoming a Cairo regular. Well, why wouldn't he? He's fucking cool. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing OC3 here at Cairo, and we discussed everything from the magic of cable-knit sweaters to Funkedelic's One Nation Under a Groove.
As 1/2 of local hiphop group Metal Chocolates with rapper Rik Rude, Otis produces psychedelic beats for "the whole world. Everybody, really." Yeah? NPR and The Seattle Times think so, and so do we! So much in fact, that OC Notes will be performing at Cairo's winter music fest, EXPO89! Woot.

So check out those photos, and read that interview. Or look at more photos. - Cairo


"24 More Unmissable Records From The Pacific Northwest In 2011"

OCnotes - Medicine (Self-Released)

“If you haven’t listened to OCnotes Medicine, you are probably an idiot.” - Neil Degrasse Tyson (Writer’s Note: This quotation might be fabricated…might be.)

I potentially agree with Mr. Tyson. This album is solid gold. Greatness that is good for all occasions.

Are you walking around in Pioneer Square in an area that smells like a perfect combination of vomit induced by malt liquor and piss from a man who has no self-esteem? Yes.
Are you enjoying a Seattle summer afternoon hiking alone in the mountains? Yes.
Are you just waking up and are deciding to eat pumpkin pie topped with ice cream…for breakfast? Yes.
Are you reading about interior design on the internet? Yes.

Each song feels like a separate episode. “Chill Pill” is a 4/8 godsend that will keep your head nodding. Not only is “Mr. Randolph’s Sex Magic” a great song title, the content that lies within is even better. That’s what happens when keyboards surround you like a pack of wolves and decide to make you dance instead of be their prey. “Mind Body Interventions” reminds me of old DJ Shadow (Which is awesome because I’ve been on a huge DJ Shadow kick during the past year. Hello 1998, good to see you again…).

“I’m a music lover too, gadget.” (Phil) - Sound on the Sound


"OC Notes' Emerald City Sequence Is A Grade-A Album Disguised As A Soundtrack"

Artist: OC Notes
Album: Emerald City Sequence
Label: self-released
Release: out now
Emerald City Sequence is a twenty-five minute audio and visual remix of 1978's Afrocelebratory Wizard Of Oz spin The Wiz, that starred Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, and Richard Pryor, with a soundtrack that featured the likes of Quincy Jones, and of course Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. Seattle's OC Notes provides the flowing soundtrack to the new creation, and, by the looks of it, the visual edits as well.

In case you forgot, Notes, A.K.A. Otis Calvin VIII, is a borderline genius and a studio wizard who pretty much takes life, in all its disjointed glory, filters it through his brain, and uploads it onto his Bandcamp page (and various other internet housings) for us to enjoy. Watch/listen to Emerald City Sequence here. You won't regret it. - Seattle Weekly


"OC Notes' Emerald City Sequence Is A Grade-A Album Disguised As A Soundtrack"

Artist: OC Notes
Album: Emerald City Sequence
Label: self-released
Release: out now
Emerald City Sequence is a twenty-five minute audio and visual remix of 1978's Afrocelebratory Wizard Of Oz spin The Wiz, that starred Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, and Richard Pryor, with a soundtrack that featured the likes of Quincy Jones, and of course Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. Seattle's OC Notes provides the flowing soundtrack to the new creation, and, by the looks of it, the visual edits as well.

In case you forgot, Notes, A.K.A. Otis Calvin VIII, is a borderline genius and a studio wizard who pretty much takes life, in all its disjointed glory, filters it through his brain, and uploads it onto his Bandcamp page (and various other internet housings) for us to enjoy. Watch/listen to Emerald City Sequence here. You won't regret it. - Seattle Weekly


"Stranger Genius Awards: The Shortlist"

OC NOTES

This year alone, OC Notes (Otis Calvin III), a local hiphop producer, has released four superb albums: Metal Chocolates (with the highly regarded rapper Rik Rude), The New Generation (embracing the new age), Medicine, and Secret Society. As a local hiphop album, Secret Society (the first of OC's rock-influenced recordings, the other being The New Generation) is second only to Shabazz Palaces' Black Up—and it's a close second. (True, if THEESatisfaction had released their sophomore album this year, Secret Society would be third—but, again, a very close third). OC Notes, who recently moved into Vitamin D's former recording place in Pioneer Square, is a genius, and like all true geniuses, he is generous. OC Notes is a pure giver; he is always giving beats to this city. - The Stranger


"Stranger Genius Awards: The Shortlist"

OC NOTES

This year alone, OC Notes (Otis Calvin III), a local hiphop producer, has released four superb albums: Metal Chocolates (with the highly regarded rapper Rik Rude), The New Generation (embracing the new age), Medicine, and Secret Society. As a local hiphop album, Secret Society (the first of OC's rock-influenced recordings, the other being The New Generation) is second only to Shabazz Palaces' Black Up—and it's a close second. (True, if THEESatisfaction had released their sophomore album this year, Secret Society would be third—but, again, a very close third). OC Notes, who recently moved into Vitamin D's former recording place in Pioneer Square, is a genius, and like all true geniuses, he is generous. OC Notes is a pure giver; he is always giving beats to this city. - The Stranger


"The Wiz"

OC Notes , or Otis Calvin III, is spinning from side to side in a black leather swivel chair at the medical marijuana dispensary where he works. His boss appears in the doorway of the small gray office, gushing.

“We all just really love this guy,” he says with a big, dopey smile.

The prolific 26-year-old producer is immediately disarming, and he exudes calm, positive vibes.

“Anything you do in life—if you go for it, the universe will provide. You just have to believe,” he says, tugging at his goatee.

Notes believes in music. He’s one half of the experimental hip-hop duo Metal Chocolates. He frequently collaborates with Fresh Espresso and THEESatisfaction. And his recent solo work includes a remix of The Wiz called Emerald City Sequence, a trippy, 25-minute instrumental hip-hop suite that Notes layered over chopped-up video from the 1978 movie (which is based on the The Wizard of Oz). He made the entire thing in three days.

“I’m not making music for money or fame or to get girls,” says Notes, who’s the father of a two-year-old daughter. “If I don’t do this, then I’ll be miserable—you feel me?”

Notes initially learned music as a kid in the Tacoma church where his dad was the preacher and Notes played guitar, bass and piano alongside a choir of little kids. After high school, he wound up at the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Phoenix, where he honed his profound production chops. Today, he spends as much time as possible in his “lab”—the studio he keeps in Pioneer Square’s storied OK Hotel. Notes plays SXSW this month and Sasquatch! Music Festival in May. He’s also working on some solo material and another Metal Chocolates release—but he’s cautious about describing his forthcoming records.

“I want to drop everything as a finished art piece,” he says. “I’m sitting on a lot of stuff so I can release it in a certain way.”

Once a month, Notes invites his fellow music makers to Art Show, a two-hour public radio show he hosts on Hollow Earth Radio in Seattle’s Central District. It’s a theatrical experience. Pretty much anything goes.

“I’ve always envisioned radio like it was when I was a kid, where you could hang out and DJs were fun, but it was still about the music,” he says. Fundamentally, Notes is a soul man whose greatest idol is Marvin Gaye. He fingers the curls of his hair as he waxes poetic about trying to live an organic, creative life and his breath halts for a moment when he thinks about the work he and his community are generating right now.

“I listen to it and I tear up, it makes me so happy inside,” he says. - City Arts Magazine


Discography

This is Your Brain on Drugs (2005)
OCnotes is....At it Again (2006)
Black Diamond & Blueberry Blunt (2006)
Gems & Hymns vol. 1,2, & 3 (2006)
Nathaniel Nathaniel, True Tales of a Narcoleptic (2007)
Greetings from the Ninth Dimension (2007)
OCnotes in...the Nomadic Period (2007)
Ill G Sektion (2008)
Yes...it Hurts (2008)
Alien Taxi Service (2008)
Room Service (2008)
We Made it! (2008)
Crater Nate (2009)
Random Happenings in Space & Time (2009)
Dap Confuser (2009)
No Bake Cookie Mix (2009)
Linus Aristotles Hydroponic Explosion (2009)
Smoke Shop Sessions (2009)
Daddy Does Disney (2009)
Christmas on the Moon (2009)
Doo Doo (2010)
Cover Me...I'm Goin In (2010)
Juice (2010)
The Glamour ReWorks (2010)
Metal Chocolates (2011)
Medicine (2011)
Secret Society (2011)
The New Generation (embracing the new age) (2011)
Emerald City Sequence (2012)
Moldavite (2012)
Pre Future Post Modern Love Songs aka AlienBootyBass (2012)

Photos

Bio

OCnotes, AKA Otis Calvin III, is a Seattle-based producer/singer/MC/multi/multi/instrumentalist (playing 12 instruments at last count)—in the past described in local press as a cross between Madlib and Mos Def, a reductive tag (you'd probably want to add equal parts Daedelus, Dungeon Family and Cody ChesnuTT to get closer to the fact) but a handy enough reference. His solo work and collaborations with such Seattle vibe-setters as THEESatisfaction have made him a darling of the Emerald City's most forward-listening. The latest (and greatest) addition to his already sizable, self-released catalogue is Pre Future Post Modern Love Songs AKA AlienBootyBass.

The titular genre premise implied by AlienBootyBass is a playful jab at the minds that have to swaddle art in preconceptions and labels for them to feel comfortable around it in the first place. Far from such, OCnotes is in fact one of Seattle's most genre-flouting artists—and Pre Future Post Modern Love Songs ambitiously (not to mention credibly) weaves acid-house workouts ("Bayside Funk"), scratchy basement-demo alt-rock ("Red Alert Song"), and psilocybinized trip-pop ("The Science") into a cohesive, half-instrumental-mental headtrip straight to the depths of OC's innerspace. That's just scratching the surface—easily a half-dozen dizzying new dimensions are glimpsed throughout it's 32-minute running time.

The artist's yearning for connection and understanding is palpable, though, even through his music's obscurant waves of sweet, purplish haze; "please get yourself together", he winsomely drags, over the hypnotic opener "A.S.P.O.W.T." It's in these smoky, freaky serenades ("Morgan Free & ODB", "Why Do Birds") where OCnotes' fractured, dreamy brilliance is the most accessible, on this, his brightest and tightest work yet.