Who, or what, is Odysseus' Dog?

Emerging from the sordid cesspit of the 90's, Odysseus' Dog was truly a band out of time. Inspired by 70's and 80's guitar driven rock with a dollop of caustic humour on top, it was a different voice to the sound that rock had taken at the time.

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And now, 25 years later, new music is emerging in the lead up to the release of a new EP, Elephantine Alloy.

 

Back in 1998, Ian Robertson gathered together various 4-Track cassette recordings from the previous five years, culled the more debatably salvageable, and released them on his own record label, Agnes Records under the ludicrously high-brow moniker of Odysseus’ Dog. That album, Demented Ravings Of A Middle-Class White Boy, was meant to act as a cleansing of his formative musical years from which he would spring forth with newer, more refined material. Heavily influenced at the time by Frank Zappa, the album was reviewed favourably by many media outlets including "Juice" magazine. It sold copies…albeit it actually sold more copies in Germany and the Netherlands than in his home country of Australia!

 

Billing the material as ‘Strange Rock’ seemed appropriate. While Odysseus’ Dog certainly tipped its hat to songwriting styles of the classic rock format, the lyrics and arrangements bent towards some stranger elements. “I always appreciated things that were a bit bent or not taking themselves too seriously. So, ‘Strange Rock’ always seemed to describe that for me."

 

Whilst writing and recording occurred following that album, the much maligned ‘second album syndrome’ affected Odysseus’ Dog to such a degree that it took 17 years for a new album to emerge. Life, children, work, family, malfunctioning recording technology – these things and more halted the release. Finally though, in 2015, The Return of the Inane emerged.

 

Not prone to rushing these things, it has been a further 8 years for new music to start coming out.