The popular Chapel Hill-based prog-rock outfit Octopod Blue created a stir on Tuesday with the release of its latest album, Mustachio Tapdance. The highly experimental recording contains no hidden track.
“The first time I heard it,” said Pitchfork editor-in-chief Ryan Schreiber, “I was like, ‘Wait, where’s the hidden track?’ But then it hit me: there isn’t one. Not one hidden track, or skit, or interlude, or bonus DVD. Since then, man, I’ve just had it on repeat nonstop.”
Amoeba Music clerk Geofrey Caruso offered similar acclaim. “We’ve had a lot of people coming in and returning the CD, saying it’s a ripoff and what have you. But, you know, that’s just the price of art. I think it’s gonna take five or ten years for the mainstream audience to really be ready for this record.”
Octopod Blue singer/lutist Damien Alvarez remains unfazed by the controversy. In a statement posted yesterday on the band’s website, he wrote: “We are about growth. And if that spirit of growth takes us to a place where we include only eleven songs on a CD that claims to have eleven songs, then so be it.”
