The Octopus Project

All Music Guide:

Toto Miranda, Josh Lambert, and Yvonne Lambert came together as a junky, dirty, hook-heavy electronic trio called the Octopus Project in the late '90s. Their music caught the ears of the folks at Peek-a-boo Records in 2001, and the band released their first album on that label, Identification Parade, one year later. Their second album, One Ten Hundred Thousand Million, followed in 2004, and the Octopus Project went on to tour heavily over the course of the next year, appearing at festivals like Noise Pop, Wall of Sound, and SXSW, where the trio snagged the title of Best Experimental Band. The Octopus Project managed to make their way back into the studio amid all this touring, teaming up with Black Moth Super Rainbow for their third release, 2006's The House of Apples and Eyeballs. Also that year, unbeknownst to the band, they were nominated and won a slot at the Cochella festival as a result of a Myspace contest. Buzz like this grew the bands minions significantly and 2007's Hello, Avalanche was one of their best received works yet. They proceeded to tour tirelessly, supporting acts as divergent as Devo, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead and Aesop Rock. The band followed the commercial success of Hello, Avalanche with 2010's more ambitious Hexadecagon and returned in 2013 with the pop-friendly Fever Forms.

Wikipedia:

The Octopus Project is an American indietronica band based in Austin, Texas, active since 1999. Its unique sound, blending pop and experimental elements, is a combination of digital and electronic sounds and noises (including drum machine, keyboard, synthesizers and other devices) and analog equipment (including guitars and live drums). Its music is mostly instrumental.

On April 30, 2006, the band played the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. They were offered the opportunity after a fan, unbeknownst to the band, entered them in a contest held by the festival on MySpace in which voters were to "nominate their favorite band for an open slot at the festival". In 2007, the Octopus Project supported underground hip-hop star, Aesop Rock, and indie-elctronic icons, Stereo Total, on their national tours. In 2008, The Octopus Project performed at notable festivals such as Lollapalooza, All Tomorrow's Parties (music festival), and the Austin City Limits Festival.

The Octopus Project composed and performed a series of unique, individual scores for short films played at Alamo Drafthouse in Austin in February 2009. For their performance at the South by Southwest festival in their hometown in March 2010, the band put together a multi-media show which involved them performing material from what was to be their upcoming release, Hexadecagon. The band performed surrounded by 8 speakers, while 8 projectors projected videos corresponding to the music on tent ceilings above the stage and the audience. Later that same year, The Octopus Project played at Moogfest 2010 in Asheville, North Carolina. They were scheduled to play just prior to Devo's headlining set. Three days prior to the concert, Devo's guitarist, Bob Mothersbaugh, severely injured his hand and was unable to play. Since the band was receiving a Moog Innovation Award at the festival, and because they didn't want to disappoint their fans, the remaining two members of Devo enlisted the help of The Octopus Project, and together the two bands performed the Devo songs "Girl U Want" and "Beautiful World."

In 2011, the band snagged the opening spot on tours with Devo, Man or Astroman, and Explosions in the Sky. The band spent the rest of that year working on soundtracks for the feature film, Kid-Thing, and the video game, Thunderbeam. In 2012, The Octopus Project began work on what would be their fifth studio album, Fever Forms. The first single from the album, Whitby, was released as an EP in November -- complete with b-sides, a karaoke version, and a video directed by the band.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Members[edit]

All members are known to switch instruments live (for instance, Josh Lambert playing drums while Toto Miranda plays guitar, or Yvonne Lambert playing guitar while Josh Lambert operates the electronics), but each member can be said to play a primary instrument.