o13 creates an evolving texture of music, a piercing electronic post-punk, a future that never manifested itself, spectral, uncompromising portals of electronic dread.
For the better part of the '80s, Mark C was leading legendary New York noise band Live Skull as they were deconstructing the rock song with thick gritty bass and streety guitar. Among their eight releases on Caroline and Homestead, Live Skull's "Bringing Home the Bait" has been deservingly referred to as the "Best Noise Rock Post Punk New Wave No Wave Experimental Indie Emo Goth Album Ever."
Meanwhile, Stuart Argabright was sketching his sonic vision of gothic futurism in Ike Yard, the first NY group on Factory Records America, also one of the first true purveyors of experimental, time-shifting electronic music. It is a torch that they still carry today with a searing pyre. Stuart continued his visionary pursuit as a founding member of Death Comet Crew, Dominatrix, and Black Rain, as well as the galaxy-striding Bi-Conicals of Rammellzee.
After releasing four acclaimed albums with The Holy Ghost, the last on Fargo Records, bassist Kent Heine met up with Stuart and Mark to form o13.
In 2010, o13 produced Vandal Tribes, an audio movie EP with guests Judy Nylon & Jamie Teasdale, aka Vex'd. o13 also began preproduction of a video for a series of events based on author JG Ballard's works. Along with a live score, the band eventually offered o13 Presents: The Atrocity Exhibition to audiences. The video/audio experience was last presented at the Serralves Foundation in Porto, Portugal, and continues to be part of the band's live arsenal. In addition, o13's music was recently featured in BAM150, a documentary celebrating the historic Brooklyn Academy of Music. Following a couple of European tours, o13 has now finished its first album Time Wave Zero to be released on desire. Time Wave Zero glides through time and space like a lucid dreaming dragonfly, settling on songs, scenes, and improvisations from a new post-modern American songbook.
"Though some of the textures that made up Ike Yard and Live Skull are here, the sound is effortlessly contemporary. Minimal, hypnotic bass (courtesy the fantastic Kent Heine) and drum grooves (sometimes live, some times sampled, sometimes a machine) set a rain slicked tone for which the Ballardian sci-fi synths and occasional guitars skitter across like neon reflections of some dystopian city scape. The vocals are ghostly chants wafting through like Doppler from a black sedan with conspiracies plastered on its doors. " Signal Graffiti
"[o13] are an entirely unique hybrid, steeped in NYC lore, a strange alchemical melding of electronic futurism, poignant frazzled and blitzed avant-rock and thick fluid basslines. A glacial, dubby, haunted and dangerous futuristic post-punk." Resonance FM
"layering guitar, bass, and occasional live percussion over laptop loops and electronic clamor, the New York trio painted soundscapes that were part sci-fi, part film noir... fold[ing] flailing guitar and floor-shaking pulses into surprisingly poised songs." Washington Post
Time Wave Zero will be out vinyl, CD and digital.
