Empty Cellar Records

Shaun O’dell of Sword & Sandals’ Busy Week (Sonny Smith guest appearance)

Last night in Berkeley, Shaun O’Dell of Sword & Sandals and WR/DS (words) debuted a series of new prints on paper at Paulson Bott Press. The opening was accompanied by a live musical performance by WR/DS (Shaun O’Dell, Randy Lee Southerland & Jeff Anderson) pictured below at an opening for Daniel Higgs and Kyle Ranson. You can read more about the opening and the prints HERE. If you are in the Berkeley area then make your way over and take them in.

Then on THURSDAY January 20, 6-9pm, Gallery 16 will “attempt the improbable”. In their left hand they will present a new exhibition of prints by artists Amy Ellingson, Stefan Kirkeby, Shaun O’Dell and Inez Storer. While those balls are in the air, their right hand will attempt the ambitious book signing for the release of the long awaited book, These Are The People In Your Neighborhood, also featuring Shaun’s work. Empty Cellar artist Sonny Smith will provide the sonic backdrop for the evening.

Read more about that opening and book righta here.

Shaun O’Dell of Sword + Sandals and WR/DS Book Release Tomorrow

San Francisco artist Shaun O’Dell painted the monad-aperture that was reproduced for the Endless Nest logo. Thank you Shaun. Here we are transporting the piece between his house and ours.

He is also one of the three eminent forces on, and album artist for, the Sword & Sandals debut LP, Good & Plenty.

Tomorrow, Thursday 10/30, he will be celebrating the arrival of his new artbook. This book is the culminating project of his Tournesol residency. O’Dell is 7th artist to receive the prestigious award, which provides a Bay Area painter with a year-long residency at Headlands. You can preview the book and read an excerpt from Shaun’s interview with curator Tara McDowell HERE. The book (initial press limited to 1000 copies) will be available for purchase at the event and will also be available at the Park Life Store.

Shaun O’Dell, Co-published by The Headlands Center for the Arts and Park Life, Design by Boon. 7.5″ x 9.5″, 64 pages, prefect bound.

Shaun will be performing at the event with Randy Sutherland (also from Sword + Sandals) in their two-piece WR/DS.

Official Book Release at Park Life Gallery
Thursday, September 30, 6 – 8PM
220 Clement Street
San Francisco

Finally… we thought we would attach last week’s San Francisco Bay Guardian interview/feature on Shaun O’Dell, Sword + Sandals and WR/DS: Horns of plenty

“Good & Plenty is definitely channeling the spirit of those BYG Actuel release from the late sixties from the likes of Don Cherry, Sun Ra or Sunny Murray. The dueling dynamic of O’Dell and Sutherland’s horn interplay is not one of willful free jazz cacophony, but a means to reach a harmonic connection through disparate starting points, often sounding like the horns are worrying back and forth over the same small tonal point creating a tense movement of sound. But unlike their live shows and recordings, the horns are not always locked in battle. The overall flow of the record tempers the noisy urgent moments with quieter moody tracks of looser and more playful rhythms, sometimes ramshackle and other times more marital with strange washes of bell sounds, out of tune piano, weird bleeps, and minimal plaintive horn drones. It’s one of those records where the band has finally come into their own, harnessing the ferocious energy of their live shows into something deeper and more reflective and at times quite beautiful. Highly recommended!” – aQuarius recOrds

Introducing: Sword + Sandals on Empty Cellar

John Dwyer
traps.flute.bass string

Randy Lee Sutherland
alto.bass clarinet.traps

Shaun O’Dell
tenor.alto.keys

Sword and Sandals emerged through the vision of founders John Dwyer and Randy Lee Sutherland. Within the intense interplay of Dwyer’s blurred wrists and strobe-like fills caressing the cry of Sutherland’s horn, the possessed pair incorporated second horn Shaun O’Dell and initiated a trail composed of both conjured soundscapes of euphoric beauty and signifying shrieks of postmodern existence (thus far). As an improvisational trio—with guests sitting in occasionally—Sword and Sandals provide an existential outlet for those seeking connections beyond peripherally materialist arrangements and toward closer, more cerebral intimacies. Their sound envisions the metaphor of their Ben Hur-esque name: while wearing sandals into combat enables a graceful interplay with one’s adversaries, the sword (let alone the opponents) remains razor sharp, reminding the participant of the thin line between achieving transcendence and triumph and the brutal reality of second guessed timing, and unfocused adherence or intent as one waltzes through moments and situations—improvising for survival and renewal. Trust forms the blue print for Sword and Sandals, sealing their execution, empathy, and a progressive existence within the interplay of their music. As economist Jacque Attali once noted, music is, “by its very presence, a mode of communication between man and his environment, a mode of social expression, and duration itself. It is therapeutic, purifying, enveloping, liberation; it is rooted in a comprehensive conception of knowledge about the body, in a pursuit of exorcism through noise and dance.”

Empty Cellar’s upcoming release for Sword + Sandals stemmed from one all-day 16-microphone recording session, with Anthony Petrovic sitting in on synth, captured on 1-inch tape.

Coming September 28th:

SWORD + SANDALS – GOOD & PLENTY