Hello and welcome to Cult Value, the new album from Manchester-based band Oort Clod, released by Safe Suburban Home in the UK and Repeating Cloud in the US. It's a mercurial and unique collection of songs. The album includes garage stompers such as “#7”, off-kilter indie whining like the title track “Cult Value”, perfect indie pop songs like ‘Car Talk’ and much more.Featuring members of Unpaid Intern, the Hipshakes, Jeuce and the Early Mornings, Oort Clod was originally conceived by songwriter Patrick Glen as a fluid project with shifting members. Over the course of pandemic-era practices above the empty Peer Hat pub (the epicentre of DIY music making in Manchester) the current line-up solidified. In 2021 Oort Clod released a split E.P. with fellow Manchester band Priceless Bodies, pursuing a darker and more experimental sound. The EP received international airplay including BBC6 Music and KSFX.After playing gigs with bands like Porridge Radio, Jeffrey Lewis, and Garden Centre and even more practices above the Peer Hat, Oort Clod have mounted up once more to make Cult Value.The album’s sound is hard to pin down but it is Oort Clod’s most accessible and complete work so far. The band finds common ground in the alternative rock bands of the 1980s and 1990s, the post-punk and indie bands on Flying Nun Records and trashy compilations of post-British Invasion 60s garage gems like Nuggets. All of which come through, warped by Oort Clod’s particular sensibility, on this record made at Delicious Clam studios in Sheffield under the watchful eye of Ed Crisp. You’ll even get their cover of ? &the Mysterians “96 Tears” - rated the best ever cover of the song by the Blanketing Covers podcast, beating Jonathan Richman, Aretha Franklin, the Stranglers and Suicide (this actually exists, honestly).So there you have it the short and sweet lowdown on the new album Cult Value by Oort Clod.
