Odonis Odonis

The brainchild of Toronto, Ontario multi-instrumentalist/filmmaker Dean Tzenos, Odonis Odonis began in 2010 as a noisy fusion of shoegaze, surf, garage, punk, and industrial before moving in a starker electronic direction. Introduced to '80s and '90s alternative rock such as the Jesus and Mary Chain, Big Black, and the Pixies by his older sisters, Tzenos converted his den into a home studio and recorded dozens of demos within a few months. Inspired by the name of his friend Adonis Adonis, he christened the project Odonis Odonis. In May 2011, Odonis Odonis' debut single, Busted Lip, was released as a limited-edition 7" on We Are Busy Bodies, and the lineup expanded to include drummer/vocalist Jarod Gibson and bassist/vocalist Denholm Whale for live performances. That June, after sending some demos to the eclectic U.K. label Fat Cat, Odonis Odonis signed to the imprint and traveled to Vancouver to record with Black Mountain's Colin Stewart; the following month, a split single with Lotus Plaza (aka Deerhunter's Lockett Pundt) arrived on Fat Cat's sister label Palmist. Hollandaze, the band's debut album, arrived that November. The Better EP, which featured a cleaner sound and more input from Gibson and Whale, was released in April of 2013. Arriving almost exactly a year later, 2014's Hard Boiled Soft Boiled featured abrasive, industrial-inspired music on its first half and lush dream pop on the second half. The album was nominated for that year's Polaris Music Prize. Odonis Odonis resurfaced in 2016 with Post Plague, a stark, synth-driven set inspired by science fiction and 21st century narcissism that brought the band's industrial edge to the forefront. Odonis Odonis went even further in this direction with the following year's No Pop, which used the name of an anti-commercial music movement as the title of its moody forays into darkwave and industrial. ~ Heather Phares