Josh Ottum - Edge Effects (2023) [Hi-Res]

Ottum wasn’t sure he’d even end up finishing another album. It’d been about ten years since he’d tried, during which he made the domestic-maturational rounds: Grad school, home ownership, professorship, parenting. “Along with that comes a lot of existential crisis stuff,” he says. “Who am I? I hope I can keep making music, but I’m afraid I can’t. You know, that type of fear.”

You know—who doesn’t? But behind every crisis is the need for expedient solutions and the release of ego that sometimes follows: Call it the edge effect at Thinking and Doing. Ottum and his band made the album in five days: two for basic tracking, one for overdubs, two for vocals and detail work—no preening, no vanity, no dicking around. What if you took the palliative sterility of ‘80s soft-rock and smeared the lens? What if you asked the prom band to play vaporwave? Can you squeeze jazz from a children’s synthesizer, or meaning from a battery-powered amplifier? Edge Effects.