The Magic that is Ohgr

Yeah, I remember purchasing the first Ohgr release waaay back in what I think was 2001. If I'm not mistaken an old friend introduced me to the project while I was visiting my home town for the holidays or something like that. Now if you are unfamiliar with Ohgr, Ohgr is a collaboration between Nivek Ogre (of Skinny Puppy), and Mark Walk. Here's the wiki's if you are interested on Ogre and Ohgr!

My interest in Ohgr initially was that a friend of mine thought my second release had similarities to Ohgr's album "Welt". At the time I could hear some of the similarities... and after hearing Ohgr for the first time, I thought that it was a great project! I think the one thing that attracted me to actually purchase the album, was there was a lot of pop structure in the songs, while still having a bit of the Skinny Puppy sound. It sounded "lighter" but still had that industrial stream of thought vocal play that Ogre was known for in Skinny Puppy. If you did take a look at the above wiki's you would know that Ogre structured the music around the lyrics when creating the songs on "Welt"... which I think makes Ohgr, Ohgr. There is a "magic" to it... the way the words are strung together... when listening to it, it's like opening a gift or watching a magician perform an illusion, or sleight-of-hand trick. Everything is strung together in such a way, that it is like magic. You wonder how the music fits so well with the lyrics, but they do!

I remember purchasing it and opening up to find the weird artwork... what was the inspiration for this album... there were no lyrics in the CD booklet, just artwork and credits... It's only as of recently that I've looked up some of the lyrics for the songs... is he telling a story..? are these life events..? I don't know, and can't seem to find any interpretation of what they are online! Still excellent lyrics though!

Over the years I've picked up the various albums "SunnyPsyOp", "Devils In My Details", "Undeveloped", and "Tricks"... each of them having their own characteristics, I will say as time has gone on, the albums seem to have gotten darker, and maybe more aggressive. I love each album, but if I were to pick one, I think "Welt" is probably my favorite!

So, what is it about Ohgr, what makes the project sooo captivating... is it his vocal delivery..? the pop elements..? the way the songs are structured around his lyrics..? the orchestration of the whole thing, and how each song is constructed..? the sound design and programming..? Is it the way Ogre presents the project in the live spectrum..? I will say, I was fortunate to see Ohgr perform a show here in our city, and it was an amazing show (although, I will say, it wasn't very well attended... odd being that it's fucking Ogre, as well as Lead Into Gold, and Omniflux on the bill, but maybe not enough people in our city know of Ohgr [or Ogre], or of the history of Lead Into Gold, and that whole era of industrial music). The funny thing about all of this, when Ogre was younger, he wanted to be a magician, apparently he wasn't very good at it, but he went on to create the magic that is Ohgr... with his wordplay in his lyrics and the amazing music. The one thing about magicians is, we always ask... how do they do it? Often times, we are left with no answers... all that we are left with is awe and amazement... and that my friends is magic!

So, what do you think of Ohgr? Do you think the music and lyricism are magic? Have you seen the project perform live? What were your thought's on the performance?



P.S.: ...and if you are curious what we sounded like in our early days (around the "Welt" era)... check out our second album "We Are Here To Dance!"



... maybe you hear similarities..?