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Osees are John Dwyer's restless garage-psych machine, born in San Francisco in 1997 and now running out of Los Angeles under a name that has shifted a dozen times (OCS, Thee Oh Sees, Oh Sees, and on). The classic-era lineup of Dwyer, Brigid Dawson, Petey Dammit, and Mike Shoun welds garage rock, 1960s psychedelia, krautrock, noise, and lo-fi punk into something fast, loud, and endlessly prolific, with well over 20 albums to show for it.
Dwyer is family to us. We have hosted this band across Austin Psych Fest 2012, Levitation 2015, Levitation 2018, Levitation 2022, and Levitation 2024, watching the live set mutate every single time. Pressing Dog Poison as a Levitation Edition is us closing a loop with a record that has lived in our rotation for years.
Dog Poison is the strange, soft underbelly of Osees, a 24-minute set of ten short songs that trades the year's heavier garage for acoustic guitar, hazy folk drift, and the occasional flute. It is the sound of a band that never sits still choosing to whisper for once, and it lands as one of their most quietly hypnotic detours. Songs end before they overstay, the textures stay woozy, and Dwyer's melodies feel closer to the bone.
Pitchfork gave it a 6.8 and framed it as a softer, sloppier acoustic turn, noting that the switch from electric to acoustic gives the familiar formula a genuine new wrinkle. We agree. Our one honest gripe: at this brisk length, a couple of sketches fade out just as they start to take hold, and you wish they breathed a beat longer.
That brevity is also the point. Dog Poison is a complete little world, and on wax those acoustic and flute-touched arrangements bloom in a way streaming flattens. That is exactly why it earns a Levitation pressing.
Recommended if you like: Ty Segall, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Fuzz.
