Oddyssey
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Oddyssey

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Band Alternative Pop

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Music

Press


"Dazed and Confused"

the group's eclectic tunes and persistant gigging has won fans across the country. Frequently compared to Ian Dury and The Blockheads, due to their infectious up-beat melodies, sleazy guitars and Rosie's lyrical tendency to regale the audience with comic tales of everyday life, they poses a rare quality in todays music, namely the ability to tell a good story. - Dazed and Confused


Discography

Black America - EP

Photos

Bio

ODDYSSEY "We want to do everything!"

Meet Rosie Oddie corkscrew-haired, bright-eyed and dirty-mouthed. She
sounds like the raspy, cheeky cousin of Karen O and Amy Winehouse,
and the songs that she writes sputter with the ebullient life of
new wave and rock and roll. Her band, Oddyssey, are a delicious,
dangerous collection of art-punks, and they plan to re-write the
rules of pop for the 21st century. Rosie demands nothing less.

"We live in weird times, and there's this warped peculiarness to
music right now", croaks Rosie, all husky and lovable. "When people
go with that feeling and throw insane things together, brilliant
things happen. That's what we try to do, by experimenting with
visual ideas, and thinking of new ways of doing music that's fresh
and exciting. We also keep everything ours – our artwork, our
videos, our image, our mentality – because, fuck, you have to!
Otherwise you'll be one of those bands that get caught up in the
whirlwind, that get signed, then get dropped, then disappear into the
murk, not knowing what they want to do, or why they wanted to do it in
the first place." She cackles. "We know what we want to do, and
there's no stopping us!"

Oddyssey is a mob, a cabal, a proper gang of a band, but Rosie is
their irrepressible, insatiable loudhailer. Born in the late 80’s, she grew
up listening – "and miming!" – to '60s, '70s and '80s pop, and she
quickly fell in love with great pop singer-songwriters. She still
loves the Beatles, Bowie, Prince and Randy Newman – "he's a weird one,
but the best one" – and she adores Michael Jackson so much that she
wants a tattoo. And although she's not a huge fan of Madonna or Debbie
Harry or the Gossip, she finds it funny that she naturally writes
spiky, feisty pop in their glittering tradition. "I'm just a tomboy,"
she laughs. "But that's the way it comes out!"

Last year, driven by her enthusiasm for music, Rosie dropped out of
art school to work on it full-time. She did so with her parents'
approval, although they told her not to come knocking on their door
for money. You might have heard of her father – Bill Oddie, the
comedian, bird-watcher, and musician himself, who released singles
through John Peel's label, Dandelion, in the late '60s. He always
encouraged Rosie to follow her heart, so she did, with bassist and
co-songwriter Johnny, guitarist Stuart, multi-instrumentalist Simon
and drummer James, by her side. They started working on the fusion
of music and art straightaway that would make Oddyssey different,
and they haven't looked back.

Does Dad's name help or hinder, however? "I used to think it was a
problem, but, then I got over it. Why? Because love my Dad, and I
am who I am! Having him as a parent drives me to prove people
wrong, too. It makes me want to make everything crazier, and even
better!"

Over the last year, Oddyssey made their first album in brilliantly
bizarre circumstances – in the Norfolk stately home of Justin
Hawkins from the Darkness ("It was amazing – we kept nosing about,
opening cupboards, hoping for lots of explosions"). Then they went
back to Camden, where they all live in "a mad basement flat backing
onto a brothel", and here they started collaborating with young
directors and photographers. The results are weird and wonderful.
In one video, Rosie and Johnny wear business suits that they cover
with paint, before stripping off to their underwear, to show how
corporate creatures have been brought down to earth; elsewhere,
they have have started working on art shows to accompany their
songs.

And what songs they are, too. Black America is the band's calling
card – a instant, lightning bolt of a pop song that Beth Ditto
would kill for. It's about nothing less than the Western world of
money swirling down the plughole, kicked off by children's voices
and screams, urgent drums, hooky strings, and one of pop's sexiest
ever intakes of breath. Another track, Companion, is a rockabilly
charmer about the apocalypse, topped off with a dirty bassline and
Rosie whispering a cheeky " cha-chicky-cha-cha, chicky-cha-cha"
rhythm. Alan is a wild, spunky song about a man who hates his job
that shimmers with theatrical pianos and eerie strings. All three
crackle and glimmer with visions of "white legs and carousels",
"bright lights and silhouettes", white teeth that wink at us, and
killer, crazy lines like "What do you want to be, baby? Mother
won't wash your knickers any more!" Intense, theatrical and
addictively poppy, hey create a brilliant world that we want to be
part of.

"All our songs are about little moments within chaos", laughs
Rosie, "and that's why I hope people will like them. They're about
wanting to be with others when everything goes wrong; about sex and
victory; about pulling