Writer, musician and visual artist Mary Ocheretianskaya was born in Moscow and abbreviated her surname to Ocher when she was 18.
At the age of 20 she moved to Berlin, a city that she found welcomed her outsider status and eccentricity.
In her essay 'Approaching Singularity', Ocher wrote about how easy it is to lose a meaningful sense of place in the world.
Her music strikes me as an attempt to humanize the anonymity of the digital experience by revelling in unpredictable combinations. For instance, Sympathize is like a disco take on Krautrock.
The Rubaiyat Melody is divided into three parts and, among other things, features some kitsh Indian-style harp doodling, funky basslines, squelchy synths and some Grace Slick-esque vocals. The words come from the poetry of Persian polymath Omar Khayyam (1048 – 1131) and the music is by Dorothy Ashby. It all has echoes of Laurie Anderson’s cut and paste experimental approach.
The final two tracks are entitled Museum Of Childhood Terror and For All We Know (The World May End Tomorrow), thus evoking trauma as a timeless concept.
This is music as art performance: quirky, self-indulgent and fascinatingly odd.
