Various Artists – OIB Split Series Volume 4

Calories open this split with its most immediately accessible offering, three minutes of rousing rock with hooks-aplenty, an aesthetic continued by Tubelord’s Cows to the West, Cities to the East, a curiously absorbing but somewhat unbalanced take on electro infused powerpop. Brighton’s My Device serve up a swirling blend of post-hardcore, krautrock and distorted psych which is arguably the most ambitious track here but Oneida trump all in the weirdness stakes with Economy Travel 2, eschewing their usual psych-stoner leanings in favour of looped electronic ambience and a steady synth pulse. Taken individually the pieces aren’t hugely effective but in the context of this split they actually make sense, strange though that may sound.