Today I snagged a sealed copy of Mission of Burma’s ONoffON while perusing the weekend intake at Sonic Boom.
Released on Matador in 2004, ONoffON was M.O.B’s first record since 1982’s Vs.
Mission of Burma disbanded shortly after the release of Vs. due to guitarist/vocalist Roger Miller’s debilitating tinnitus. The band had been inactive in the intervening twenty odd years.
Returning from hiatus, it must have been strange to find a music scene where numerous bands heavily indebted to M.O.B. and rooted firmly in the ground made fertile by M.O.B’s efforts were comfortably established as indie rock favourites. When M.O.B. started out in the late-1970s, their avant-garde art punk was largely met with incredulity, blank stares and complaints about noise by audiences. Much of the band’s popularity (to the extent they achieved much of it) came after they had retired.
Fortunately, the band lost little, if any, of their old magic. (This was certainly not an example of a band mailing it in to cash in on past glories.) ONoffON is an outstanding record in its own right but it’s particularly satisfying when you consider and appreciate it as the follow-up to Vs that fans had always wanted. Best of all, it’s a double-LP so there’s plenty of new tunes to soak up.
The only shame is that tape loop manipulator Martin Swope didn’t return with the other three members of the band. In his place, Bob Weston, also of Shellac, takes the on the tape manipulation/mixing reigns, this time using digital technology.
It’s especially exciting for me to get a still sealed, mint copy of this 180-gram release on Matador given that it’s been out-of-print for a while now. I spent this afternoon enjoying it thoroughly.
Leave a Reply