One Eyed Oracle has greatness in his sights on his vibrantly dynamic, socially conscious debut LP Really Small Town — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
Five years in the making, Really Small Town may be focused, but the ground covered is vast: The brainchild of enigmatic singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Boris Rene Buhot ushers in a multi-genre odyssey of heavy alt-rock, explorative pop, eastern European folk, tropical reggae and more. The ultimately danceable release is also politically charged and was created — according to Buhot — with “the intent of stirring an unsuspecting public, one that’s strung up by class and form, to the greater aspect of our parts hidden beneath the waves of our unconscious mind.”
Among the album’s nine tracks, stand-out singles include the capitalistic shakedown and reggae-dipped title cut — featuring Toronto and Jamaica-based artist Kalask (David Dawkins) — and She’s Everything, a touching tribute for the late spiritual guru Rev. D. Bauld. To fashion those two — along with the album’s remaining songs — Buhot worked tirelessly with Jeff McCulloch (Wellesley Sound Studios) and Musicians Institute of LA alum Matt O’Rourke. His motto: “Love doesn’t just make the world go ‘round, it holds it together … You have no idea what you will find until you look within.”
That’s precisely how Buhot Really Small Town was constructed. “At an early age, I saw the ghostly shadow of a fully grown bear, standing on its hind legs with both paws outstretched high over its head,” he recalls. “As a child, a branch I held strongly reacted toward an underground stream and twisted in my palm. The pain from the friction stuck in my memory until I realized: water plays a song and all life is tuned to its frequency. Recently, I heard the words ‘one eyed oracle’ spoken into my waking conscious mind. All in all, I’ve always kept an open tuning to all naturally unexplained phenomena.”
If Really Small Town fails to fit in one genre category, that means it has succeeded in bringing to life Buhot’s creative ethos and energy. “I used to tape songs every Thursday night during CFNY’s Top 30 Countdown to learn new songs on bass,” he recalls. “They were the first radio station to broadcast punk and new wave in Toronto. This thirst for new music led me to places like Nuts n’ Bolts and The Domino Club where I was exposed to carefree people ‘dancing’ with themselves. They didn’t fit into any of the stereotypes I’d seen before. That became the ‘primordial stew’ whose metamorphosis imprinted deep within my songwriting.”
Listen to Really Small Town below, check out the video for All I Am above, and keep up with One Eyed Oracle via his website, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
