(OVVN live at Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, photo by Leslie)

With members hailing from West Oakland and small, North Bay redwood enclave Guerneville, OVVN have spent the last year cultivating an edgy, provocative sound that is truly a breath of fresh air in a music landscape saturated with cookie-cutter pop and hardcore. Although some might find the effected vocals to be a kitschy calling card, I think they compliment OVVN’s bleak, and wiry brand of dissonance quite well.

Just last month the group released their second tape, entitled Two Lives. It’s a more upbeat batch of songs than last years b l o vv n, but a similarly noisy, “all is not well” bit of music. I’m reminded of East Bay peers Mansion and Lil Dowager, in their shared mission to play interesting, out of the box, linear songs.

(OVVN live at Atlas Coffee, Santa Rosa)

Last week the four piece shared a live video for Two Lives single “Stare At”, fittingly featuring them in the basement of the popular Phoenix Theatre (they’ve since played the actual Theatre). It’s a stark, black and white video that fits the anxious mood of the song’s spindly, pained leads and moaned vocals. Check it out below, and listen to the full EP as well.