Likely the last gig for the year, as I’m on tour with Scotch and Soda and Lah Lah and there are only a few breaks here and there. Back to our regular spot at 505, new music is on the way.

Friday 1st July – Lazybones Lounge – Marrickville, SYDNEY

Saturday 3rd September – Venue 505 – Surry Hills, SYDNEY

Friday 16th September – Cool For School (SIMA) @ Sound Lounge, Seymour Centre – Chippendale, SYDNEY

The last Mister Ott show for the year will be Friday 13th November at Venue 505.

If you haven’t seen the band live yet, this is your chance. Due to current various commitments with other bands this will be the only Sydney performance. There will be new music on show as well as all the hits from Drop It Like It’s Ott. Check out the reviews to see how we fared in the press and jump on to Bandcamp to buy a copy of the album if you haven’t already.

Sydney Morning Herald

September 11, 2015

Shortlist album reviews: Paper Kites, JD Souther, Mr Ott, Flying Saucer Attack and the Maccabees

Mr Ott
DROP IT LIKE IT’S OTT (Earshift)

★★★½

It even had its own name, “Ethio-jazz”, a unique jazz offshoot that Mulatu Astatke nurtured in Ethiopia in the early 1970s, and it soon became a benchmark of hipness. You can hear why in Matt Ottignon’s band Mr Ott, which plays original music drenched in Ethiopian rhythms and textures that is so infectious as to erode my suspicion of projects so subservient to idiom. The grooves, a jigsaw of minimal contributions from horns, guitar, keyboards, bass, drums and percussion, have an edge of exoticism as well as creating surges of energy. Wah-wah guitar, almost the style’s birthmark, is here supplied by Ben Panucci, who also produces some startling solos. Ottignon’s tenor and baritone saxophones intermittently blaze like bushfires through rhythmic thickets in which Eden Ottignon’s bass plays a hypnotic part. Ellen Kirkwood provides slicing trumpet, Daniel Pliner the chunky or slippery keyboards and Dan Kennedy and Steve Marin hold down the all-important drums/percussion duties. JOHN SHAND