Itchy-O

Itchy-O

Söm Sâptâlahn

Alternative Tentacles

Itchy-O is an experiential performance ensemble that has mesmerized audiences across the U.S. and beyond since 2009. The beating heart of this fifty-plus-strong performance troupe is a batterie of percussionists accompanied by an orchestral arsenal of avant-instrumentation. Weaving a synergistic spell, the ensemble dismantles assumptions of traditional performance models to break down the barriers between audience and performer, administering a bombast of ceremonial chaos; baptizing the audience—body, mind, and collective spirit—in an elaborate, pan-sensorial ocean of music, mystery, and transcendental spectacle.Itchy-O has shared the stage with legends such as David Byrne & St. Vincent, while luminaries like JG Thirwell and Dan Deacon have opened for the humbled brigade. Over the years, they have energized crowds as the opening act for a slew of iconic artists including DEVO, Beats Antique, and Wooden Wisdom (Elijah Wood). Their unforgettable private engagements include a legendary performance at Maynard Keenan’s Merkin Vineyards while delighting festival audiences at Riot Fest, Biennial of the Americas, the Underground Music Showcase, and Tasmania’s world-renowned Dark MOFO with enveloping processionals, pop-up performances, and staged spectacles.In 2024, itchy-O debuted Söm Sâptâlahn, a sold-out collaboration with the Fiske Planetarium. Named for an epic set of custom-crafted gongs cast from six hundred pounds of reclaimed brass at the School of Mines and tuned to a bespoke seven-tone scale, this project birthed this latest double album. Accessible, mysterious, and meditative, it is a bold addition to the itchy-O catalog, sure to appeal to connoisseurs of the experimental, the contemplative, and the avant-garde.

Itchy-O

Sypherlot / Hallowmass 2020

Alternative Tentacles

The 57-member neural necromancers Itchy-O have returned to unleash Sypherlot / Hallowmass 2020, a double-live album recorded during the chaos collective’s groundbreaking 2020 drive-in concert series. It was against this backdrop of isolation and suspended reality that Itchy-O heeded the call for a radical evolution in shared catharsis and new sonic experiments: short-band radio broadcast turned each car interior into a private listening experience for a post-apocalyptic simulation, while roving bands of mysterious beings opened a temporary escape portal with contactless chaos, engulfing each and every vehicle in rite and ritual for the ages. As the blaring car horns attested, these incredible live performances delivered a needed spirit-lift in the absence of concerts as one knew them amidst shuttered music venues, lighting a proverbial—and literal—torch during one of the darkest moments of modern history.

Itchy-O

From The Overflowing

Alternative Tentacles

If one hasn’t experienced the disorienting power of this throbbing fifty-piece troupe of masked chaos, this is another chance to join the apocalyptic party that is Itchy-O. Infamous from Colorado to Tasmania for astounding unsuspecting audiences with their aural and visual insanity, the band returns to unleash a fresh new album to add to their legendary live spectacle. They are the most unique band Jello Biafra has signed to Alternative Tentacles in many years! Based in Denver, Colorado, their percussion-centered electronic performance hive-mind has declared war on today’s predictable mediocrity and blindsided fans with their unique music and astonishing performances since forming in 2009. From The Overflowing is the follow-up to their full-length debut Burn The Navigator which was released in 2014. This new album is charged with the same sonic fury of their live shows delivered by a driving drum corps battery and taiko drummers along side Spaghetti Western guitar licks, snake-charming bass lines, and a rich arsenal of dark electronics including synthesizers, theremin, and vocoders. The troupe completely engulfs and immerses the listener from every angle in a pounding electric bog of music and ephemera.

Itchy-O

Burn The Navigator

Alternative Tentacles

This throbbing 32-piece band of masked chaos invites all to dissolve the performer / audience divide and melt into the bedlam. Denver’s Itchy-O Marching Band is a percussion-centered electronic ensemble and the mobile arm of the experimental film / music troupe Itchy-O. The group brings their sophisticated, savage sound to Alternative Tentacles, home of the weird and unruly!  With a driving tribal drum corps complemented by an arsenal of special surround sound effects units (including synthesizers, theremin, vocoders, and several other hand held electronic devices), Itchy-O immerses the listener from every angle in an electric bog of music, ephemera and spectacle. On their debut LP Burn the Navigator, Itchy-O provides the soundtrack to the End Times, a grand apocalyptic party that invites one to leave the world behind. From the opening fireworks of “Orange Dev” to the explosive blasts of “Jaywalker” and the jungle calls of the “Dance of Anunnaki,” the reality-defying Itchy-O dashes all expectations.