And deep inside the Jura hinterland, a bovine shakes off the flies, flies are everywhere. The bovine stares from dim lamps at an old shooting range. The shutter goes up, yielding the view: Omni Selassi and their humming electric − in principle, struggling to shed their skin:
«We wanted to bring together the ideas from the early days of the band and thus at the same time dispose of them on vinyl,» they said, pleased that, for once, there was a coherent plan.
The formulae of letting go: as a distinct live band and after spending two years on the road it would just be a matter of saving that chaotic energy that Omni Selassi have wrested from the principle of overtaxing themselves on stage onto a sound carrier. That’s what they thought. Dance Or Dye was supposed to be a live album captured in a row of ad hoc studios, raw and organic, recorded naturally, as a matter of course. It turned out differently: a layered work of back room, studio, and field recordings, at times close to pop, then again just past it, with a strong affirmative towards experimentation. Music overgrown by the desire to go astray. A somewhat maimed kind of pop.
«Nothing on the album is how we wanted it. Nothing is how it actually is − and probably that’s why we like it quite a bit. But we don’t know anything about it either. Maybe Elischa Heller knows more. He’s the one who did the mix for it.» – Omni Selassi
Perhaps this album is a misunderstanding with a constructive outcome, the simultaneity of opposing forces, in the end a draw. Before that, Rea Dubach (voc, git, efx), Mirko Schwab (dr, autoharp, git) and Lukas Rutzen (dr, perc, synth) breathe, cheep, tap and gallop through seven at times cryptic, mantra-like songs and scraps. Take ‘XVT (Onîhanîghâ)’ for instance, a Dionysian tapeworm framed by a synthpop track, sung in French and titled «frenchsong.» without detour – and this, in all briefness and barrel-chested, «Horses They Run Too». Perhaps Dance Or Dye as a whole is also the following true short story, as only alluded to in the intro to the closing «A Child In Its Water»: «As soon as you touch the tree, the birds stop singing. It’s like the circuit is broken.»
What was supposed to be a raw, live album has become a polished stumbling block. So, is it pop in the end? Why bother?
