OTEP 'The_ Ascension' album

Capitol recording artist OTEP has announced the release of the highly anticipated new album, “The_ Ascension,” which is slated for unveiling on March 20. Produced by Grammy-winning producer Dave Fortman (Evanescence, Mudvayne) and recorded throughout 2006 in New Orleans, the album is the band’s fourth label release, following 2004’s celebrated “House of Secrets.”

“Dave was an amazing guy to work with,” says Otep Shamaya, the namesake and creative heart of L.A.’s OTEP. “He has such a gift for tonality and rhythm and he really became a fifth member of the band. He helped us manifest a sound that allows each instrument to play a vital role in every song. The strength of this album is sexier and more seductive, but is still just as powerful and emotional as our live shows.”

On working with OTEP, Fortman remarks, “To work with musicians of this caliber was an honor and an inspiration for me. OTEP is a force to be reckoned with in the music world. I feel very lucky to be a part of a record this original and that sets the bar for women in the heavy music scene.”

Unrelenting yet vibrant and utterly musical, “The_ Ascension” features the aggressive rhythms and defiant vocal performances – on such tracks as “March of the Martyrs” and “Crooked Spoons” – that fans have flocked to throughout the band’s more than five-year history. The album also reflects the band’s ever-present drive to challenge genre conventions, as with the stirring, delicate sounds of “Perfectly Flawed” – a melodic gem that places Otep’s compelling vocals at center stage. The multifaceted album is further highlighted by the explosive dynamics and looming drama found on songs including “Milk of Regret” and the band’s inspired rendition of Nirvana’s “Breed.”

“We recorded ‘Breed’ to celebrate an inspiration that means so much to me,” says Otep of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain in particular. “His death left a huge vacancy in this world and I wanted offer a tribute to a band that had done so much for music. Our version still sounds like an OTEP song but honors the original, which is exactly what we wanted.”

In addition to writing with longtime comrade and original bass player, eViL j, the band recruited guitarist Karma Cheema and drummer Brian Wolff. The multitalented Otep teamed with Grammy-nominated Mudvayne guitarist Greg Tribbett in composing “Invisible,” “Crooked Spoons,” and the powerful protest anthem, “Confrontation.” She also collaborated with Grammy-winning songwriter, Holly Knight, to create the hauntingly beautiful “Perfectly Flawed.”

In the meantime, OTEP is leading the way in developing new ways to engage their fans utilizing various communication technologies. The Los Angeles-based quartet is already stirring anticipation for “The_ Ascension” by hitting the road in late November on what will be the first-ever fan-generated tour. The tour, which sees OTEP partnering with Eventful.com, Snapvine.com and Umundo.com breaks new ground in the music industry by allowing fans to determine the tour route. In addition to selecting the venues, OTEP fans can also help determine the band’s set list by voting for songs via cell-phone during select shows.

The release of the band’s Paul Brown-directed companion video to “Ghostflowers” coincides with a fan-generated video contest. In conjunction with SingShot.com, OTEP will offer their fans the chance to create personalized versions of OTEP’s “Ghostflowers” video, with OTEP personally selecting the winner.

“We have always encouraged our fans to explore their uniqueness and creativity,” says Otep of the “Ghostflowers” contest. “The beauty of web 2.0 and citizen marketing empowers them to be even more active and allows us to reward the people that support our music and message the most.”

Future endeavors include collaborations with ChipIn.com, in which OTEP will utilize ChipIn’s innovative donations widget to allow fans to donate to Otep’s own philanthropic venture, “You Are Not Alone,” as well as other charity organizations via the Internet.

OTEP is used to defying the norm. They were signed without a demo (purely on the power of their live performance), and played the eighth show of their career on the very prominent stage of OzzFest 2001 – after accepting an invitation from Sharon Osbourne to join the enormously popular traveling festival. Later that year the band released their “Jihad” EP, before stepping out in 2002 with their full-length debut, “Sevas Tra.” A return trip to OzzFest in 2002 found the band making further creative and performance inroads, earning a dedicated and popular following along the way. 2004 saw the release of “House of Secrets,” which spawned a hit single and companion video with “Warhead.”

Last year, the road-ready OTEP headlined the “Alliance of Defiance” multi-artist U.S. tour, which featured such musical allies as bloodsimple, Candiria, and the Autumn Offering. With 400,000 units sold worldwide, the band is now preparing to bring “The_ Ascension” worldwide.

Biography

You think you know OTEP? Think again. With the release of ‘The_Ascension,’ their third full-length outing, the band challenged themselves to avoid clichés and classifications and find a new landscape of sound and vision. “We said ‘genre limits and music fads be damned, let’s write music that is important to us and that motivates us,” explains Otep Shamaya, the band’s namesake and driving force. “I wanted to write songs we believe in and let nothing stop us from building the album we want to make.” OTEP doesn’t merely make records, the band creates musically intricate soundscapes of the soul and society. On “The_Ascension” frontwoman Otep is both inciteful and insightful, with songs ranging from the aggro call to arms of “Confrontation” to the vulnerable ‘Perfectly Flawed.’ “The_Ascension” is infused with a meticulous care to detail, the CD’s 13 songs both free and freeing for the listener and the band. Otep explains: “I set out to reclaim the mindset I had when I wrote the first record (“Sevas Tra”). Bands have another level of intensity and risk-taking when writing their first record. I wanted to recapture the sound of that hunger and infuse it with as much raw passion and purpose as possible.”

“The_Ascension” marks the debut of two new OTEP members, guitarist Karma Cheema and drummer Brian Wolff, who join Otep and founding bass player eVil J. Otep formed the band in late 2000 with a focus on finding dynamic musicians with diverse musical backgrounds and a passion to play live music. The singer praises eViL j (Jason McGuire) as a “remarkable musician. eViL j is the Apollo to my Dionysus. He’s a classically trained musician with a natural feel for improv, and it’s in that place where we bond the most, creatively. On stage, he is the maestro, keeping the soundscape pulsing. So while I’m off exploring the boundaries or the worlds of the seen and unseen, narrating what I see and feel, we work together as the navigators of the trip. He becomes the anchor so I don’t float too far away.” Also contributing to “The_Ascension” is co-writer Holly Knight (“Perfectly Flawed”), and Grammy-nominated Mudvayne guitarist Greg Tribbett (co-writer on “Invisible,” “Crooked Spoons” and “Confrontation”).

Grammy-winning producer Dave Fortman (Evanesence, Mudvayne) was also a crucial ingredient, as Otep explains: “Dave makes powerful records with a sexy tone, but when it needs to be aggressive, it’s explosive and blistering like an inferno, and when it needs to sound soft and beautiful, it twinkles like a constellation.” If Otep herself waxes articulate on sometimes-ethereal and heady ideas, she skillfully translates her inner and outer workings into wildly potent sounds and lyrics that are relatable to the band’s legion of fans. “I write lyrics the way that I like my art—the way I like to see a painting, or read a story,” Otep explains. “I hope that there’s some vulnerability, honesty and authenticity, but at the same time, presented in such a universal way that I can find myself in it as well. I hope our work provokes, motivates and inspires—that’s the definition of art for me.”

OTEP does not merely pay lip service to the ideas of provocation and inspiration, as the band’s relationship to their audience proves. OTEP’s November 2006 tour, in partnership with several Web 2.0 companies, allowed fans to determine tour routing and venues and shape the band’s setlist via cell-phone voting, while a contest encouraged fans to create a video for “Ghostflowers,” with the band picking the winner. Otep is the first 2.0 activist and actively adopts new social media technologies to connect to her fans in this webolution. OTEP encourages fans to claim ownership over the band—and “all art they support.” Likewise, Otep supports fans in personal ways, notably through “You Are Not Alone.” This information clearinghouse began on the band’s website as a resource guide for people in need of help with depression, suicide, pregnancy, rape, domestic violence and other issues. Otep says, “Maybe ‘You Are Not Alone’ will help just one person. Maybe people just need a point in the right direction. It’s building toward philanthropy.” She is currently using an innovative charity widget on her various websites to make it easy for fans to donate money to charities she feels are important (i.e., Save Darfur). And she is dedicating 13 songs on the album to 13 different charities. Otep has also worked with moveon.org to encourage voting.

That she’s a self-described “proactive reactionary” is clear in the lyrics of songs like “Confrontation,” a political battle cry that is a call for people to stand up and speak, to do their part. Recorded in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, the song’s lyrics took on a new meaning, as Otep explains: “The energy of the city seeped into what we were doing, the reality of what was going on in the world crashed down upon us. New Orleans was very immediate, now and contemporary, which anchored us emotionally, consciously and as activists, so that we remembered that suffering is happening.” Other songs, like “Perfectly Flawed,” are more personal (“I’m rejecting my reflection / cuz I hate the way it judges me”) while “Noose and Nail” started with one of Otep’s poems, and is about what she sees as the hypocrisy of the pharmaceutical culture in America, or as Otep puts it, “‘pilling’ the pain away… the holy panacea.”

Otep channels her pain into art, and the band’s incendiary live shows are proof positive. Her drive is likewise legendary. In fact, she was merely a fan at Ozzfest 2000 when she told a friend, “I’ll be here next year playing with my band.” He laughed. At that point, she’d never been in a band, but two months later she’d formed OTEP, and seven months earned a record deal without a demo, solely on the strength of the lineup’s live show. What was OTEP’s eighth live gig ever? Ozzfest 2001. In addition to their own headlining tours, OTEP has played on Ozzfest 2001, 2002 and 2004.

That’s only part of the determination and power Otep brings to the band. She observes, “it’s easier for people to curse the darkness than to light a candle. I prefer to do the opposite. ‘The_Ascension’ is a message to rise above whatever limitations, obstacles, or social identities are placed upon us.” “The_Ascension” is also a natural progression from 2004’s “House of Secrets,” as Otep relates: “As with any offspring, you’re going to see the genetic traits of its parents. So in ‘The_Ascension’ you’re going to see the DNA combination of ‘Sevas Tra’ and ‘House of Secrets,’ but as with any child, it’s going to have its own experiences, its own identity and its own behavior. I think fans will hear that it’s a true blending of the fist record and the second record, a powerful spawn of those two striking creations, but also feel the excitement of something brand new and mysterious.”

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