ONYON - LAST DAYS ON EARTH LP

German post-punk band Onyon shook our brains when we first heard them last year, so much so that we signed them and released their eponymous debut cassette EP (originally released in limited edition by was released on the Flennen/U-Bac labels) in June '22. "Last Days On Earth" is the band's latest and first proper album for Trouble In Mind. The bizarre, synthesizer-infused world of Onyon is confusing at first glance - the band's herky-jerky rhythms may be familiar to bands like Devo, Kleenex/Liliput or labelmates LITHICS, but Maria Untheim's confused synth flourishes that characterize the songs of the Populate the band and provide background music, keeping everything at a distance. They flirt with the primitive coolness of 80s minimal synths and the wiry madness of 60s garage, especially on tracks like the manic 'Dogman' or the first single 'Alien, Alien'. Guitarist Ilka Kellner's six-string volleys rage unpretentiously with torn and frayed edges, she rarely (if ever) solos but is never afraid to unleash a spindly lead line over Florian Schmidt's rubbery bass lines and Mario Pongratz's stuttering drum patterns that shift imperceptibly moving in and out of rhythm like drunks doing their best to appear sober. Kellner and Untheim share vocals (in English and German - sometimes in the same song), but the real magic happens when the two sing together, their voices melding in loosely harmonious gang vocals; one calm, the other slightly disturbed. The group's beguiling lyrics add to the mystique - inscrutable New World fables about egg machines, ghosts, talking worms and the urge to consume newspapers that exude a rural, old-fashioned understanding of life and the imperceptible spaces between reality and fiction that flow through a modernist sci-fi lens. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Martin Müller at the end of 2022.