Odonis Odonis

Odonis Odonis emerged in 2010 as the project of Toronto, Ontario multi-instrumentalist and filmmaker Dean Tzenos, initially blending shoegaze, surf, garage, and punk into a raucous sound that later hardened into industrial territory. The shift toward a more abrasive aesthetic first surfaced on the Polaris Music Prize-nominated Hard Boiled Soft Boiled from 2014 and crystallized on the politically charged No Pop in 2017, an album that foregrounded Tzenos’ biting perspective and biting delivery.

During his youth, Tzenos absorbed ’80s and ’90s alternative rock—records by the Jesus and Mary Chain, Big Black, and the Pixies—from his older sisters. He channeled those sounds into Ten Kens, the group he launched in 2003 while attending art school; the band secured a deal with FatCat Records and issued its self-titled debut in 2008 before Tzenos departed. Around the same period he also ended a relationship and left his position as a computer animator. Seeking recovery, he devoted much of 2009 to solitary recording, turning his den into a makeshift studio and producing dozens of demos in short order. Taking the project name from a friend called Adonis Adonis, he settled on Odonis Odonis.

The outfit’s first single, “Busted Lip,” appeared in May 2011 as a limited 7-inch on We Are Busy Bodies, at which point drummer/vocalist Jarod Gibson and bassist/vocalist Denholm Whale joined the lineup. After signing with FatCat that June, Tzenos headed to Vancouver to work with Black Mountain’s Colin Stewart and the New Pornographers’ Kurt Dahle and Kathryn Calder. The following month FatCat’s sister imprint Palmist issued a split single pairing Odonis Odonis with Lotus Plaza, the alias of Deerhunter’s Lockett Pundt. The debut album Hollandaze followed in November, retaining the raw, low-fidelity character of the early home recordings. The Better EP, documenting the band’s initial sessions as a trio, surfaced in April 2013. One year later the Vancouver material surfaced as Hard Boiled Soft Boiled on Tzenos’ own Buzz Records, its tracklist divided between a caustic, industrial-leaning opening half and a dream-pop-informed second side; the release earned a Polaris Music Prize nomination.

Post Plague arrived in 2016, a sparse, synthesizer-focused collection drawing from science-fiction themes and contemporary self-absorption while underscoring the group’s industrial direction. The following year’s No Pop pushed further into that realm, its title borrowed from an anti-commercial movement and its moodier excursions rooted in darkwave and industrial textures. While supporting the album on tour the musicians kept writing and tracking, ultimately releasing the Reaction EP in April 2019.