IVAN THE TERRIBLE W/MIKE WATT – OUT OF SEASON

For Out Of Season, his first full band project since last year’s Rations, Oli Heffernan says he wanted to make something that was ‘Somewhere between Faust and Sun Ra, but still sound like me’. He asked regular collaborator Karen Schoemer to provide the words and then asked another regular Mike Watt (yeh, that Mike Watt) to provide the voice (I really needed an American voice for the words and Watt has the best American voice’, Heffernan points out.) Heffernan recorded most of it himself at home, with contributions from Mees Siderius (King Champion Sounds, drums) and Elsa Van Der Linden (sax). Ajay Saggar (KCS, Deutsche Ashram and Bhajan Bhoy) mixed it and mastering ninja Anthony Chapman worked his magic. Out Of Season covers a lot of ground, from cleansing skronk to jittery post punk to unsettling soundscapes. Watt’s spoken vocals ride above the often anxious settings, intoning a series of unnerving and surreal stories full of nightmare logic and dream-noir atmosphere. It’s a long way from Rations but then it seems the Ivan The Terrible modus operandi is that there is no Ivan The Terrible modus operandi.