On May 2018 post-industrial obscurists O Yuki Conjugate played a show in Barcelona in which they debuted their alter ego group Ocean Youth Club. Intrigued, we asked them for music related to the project. The outcome is ‘Divided Self’, their first ever release of this new OYC incarnation.
To fully understand Ocean Youth Club we need to look back 35 years. In 1984, O Yuki Conjugate had completed their first album ‘Scene In Mirage’. At a turning point in their development, they released one side of their electronic sound and one side of their ambient explorations. They had a choice of a musical route forward. They chose to pursue ambient/fourth world music and garnered a reputation for that particular sound, which they later dubbed as ‘dirty ambient’. Now, three decades later, O Yuki Conjugate have come to reflect on their choice through asking themselves a question: What would they sound like now if they had taken the electronic route? To find out, in the summer of 2018 they created Ocean Youth Club.
‘Divided Self’ is a highly conceptual release that explores the concept of duality; the self and the false self, the tension between an authentic identity and the false sane identity we all present to the world. As OYC themselves explain, it connects the ideas of Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing with Borges short story ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’ to examine the idea that alternate realities exist at the same time”. To comprehend and hold these parallel universes in the mind, they add, is to flirt with insanity, logic has no place here.
‘Divided Self’ is a collaboration between current OYC members Roger Horberry and Andrew Hulme with DIY legend and producer Colin Potter. It was recorded live at Potter’s IC Studio in a semi-improvised manner. Because, as they put it, Ocean Youth Club may be conceptual, but it’s also an open and playful entity?
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released March 18, 2020