Photo image by Aubrey Edwards.

The Octopus Project Stays Golden
It's been about 10 years since the The Octopus Project first started captivating and charming audiences with their experimental indie-tronic sound and lively stage presence. What have they been up to lately, you ask? Just the usual:

• A giveaway of their new EP, Golden Beds, on Twitter
• Visual Music, a sold-out multimedia show at Austin's Alamo Drafthouse Theater featuring new original music played live along to psychedelic short films
• An Austin City Limits Music Festival performance joined on stage by the Austin High School Band
• A feature in the upcoming All Tomorrow's Parties documentary

...and much more. Feel like you've missed out? We'll catch you up.

The Octopus Project is Toto Miranda, Yvonne Lambert, Josh Lambert and Ryan Figg. Don't ask which instrument each of them plays. Toto has an answer: "We switch around a lot."

The quartet is based in Austin, TX - a great place for touring and making it to festivals like Lollapalooza and ACL, both of which the band has played. "The East Coast and West Coast are pretty accessible from Austin - it's ideal geographically," explains Yvonne. "Austin's pretty cozy when you've been out traveling places, too," Toto adds.

When they aren't on tour (their US tour kicks off July 24), OP stays busy drawing outside the lines of music and media, producing offbeat but extremely memorable videos and records that feel like they were hand crafted personally for you.

We asked what kind of movie their music would be a soundtrack to, and Josh responded, "probably an adventure movie with lots of creatures and emotions - beautiful, happy, sad, colorful, loud." Better grab a seat early, because OP has a packed house nearly every night.

Images by Drew Reynolds, Erin Skipper, Timothy Norris and via The Octopus Project MySpace

Press Start Button
Toto, Josh and Yvonne all started playing in a band called Hidden Speaker. "We became interested in electronic sounds, as well as working on our own recordings - it was a lot of experimenting with different toys and instruments," Josh says.

"We really didn't know what we were doing when we played around. When it comes to reading the manual, that's the last resort," Yvonne notes. Or as Josh simply puts it, "The wrong way is better than the right way."

Around 2000, the group started playing Austin venues like Club DeVille and Beerland. "Bands like Cue and Black Lipstick would contact us and say, 'Hey, we booked you', and we'd be like, 'Sure...okay'," Josh notes (recall, this was before blogger tastemakers took over). "Seems like there's a lot more focus in Austin now - there's definitely a community that didn't exist at the time." On their first tour, which Yvonne describes as "kind of terrifying", they took to the DIY aesthetic, calling radio stations, sending posters and building a network all on their own.

Very Animated
When MySpace saw an uprising of bands and artists shooting the proverbial "Thanks for the Add" message back and forth, the group customized their own shout out with a simple-but-cute animated .gif image that had their own custom response: "ROO!" It spread like wildfire across the social community.

"Still when people add us today, I reply with the image. For us, it's much better to be simple, and do what we can to get people excited and not be annoying," says Yvonne. "That's the idea - you find it if you're looking for it," Ryan says.

With the new EP, Golden Beds (due out July 28 on Peek-A-Boo Records), you'll also get a collection of most of their videos since the second recording, One Ten Hundred Thousand Million. Here are a few to check out:

"I Saw The Bright Shinies". An illustration-filled video directed by Divya Srinivasan, who has done stuff for They Might Be Giants and also created the Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise album cover.

"Truck". Watch an air show beyond describing. This was the work of The Zellner Bros., who also directed the video for the OP's song, 'Wet Gold.' Now they have short films and features popping up at places like the Sundance Film Festival.

"An Evening with Rthrtha". This stop-motion video was directed by Double Triple and Ryan Junell. You can check out the production process on this Flickr set.

Armed and Dangerous
Golden Beds is a 5-song EP of tunes and videos ready to make you dance, rock and ponder life all at once. "Most of the record is stuff we haven't worked on in a while. Some of the material we either didn't finish or didn't feel like it fit on the other records, but we really liked these tracks," Josh explains. Yvonne elaborates: "One is a re-recording of 'Rorol' - a very Theremin-centric song that we wrote years ago - but changed as I eventually got better at using it."

"Some of our first recordings we made before playing shows. For instance on the song 'Rorol,' once you start playing it live, you think 'Oh, I wanna play this part on this instrument or play that' - it's always a bit more amped up. When it's live, you fill it in with more elements," Toto adds.

The band also strives to be as hands-on as they can with production before handing over to producers and engineers. "We have a tendency to meander with the tracks, while others put the polish on," says Josh. Golden Beds was worked on at home by OP, and with producer Erik Wofford at Cacophony Recorders who would bounce it back and forth with them for more sound tweaking and random adds.

DOWNLOAD THE OCTOPUS PROJECT "WET GOLD" MP3.

Buttoned Up
The Octopus Project's style is quite a contrast to their sporadic sound. You'll approach the stage to find Josh, Toto and Ryan each wearing white shirts with a black tie. Yvonne usually hits the color wheel with a classy '50s style dress you can't miss.

"We had a show where we wanted to just dress up," Toto recalls. "Now it's black and white. It compliments everything that's intense and nuts about the performance."

"Because we all dress the same, quite often people don't know that I'm in the band, which is kind of cool because it makes us more anonymous," Ryan notes.

Yvonne expands on her fashion angle: "My kind of fashion icons are Peggy Lee and Ingrid Bergman - beautiful and sexy without being overtly sexual. It gives off the dreamy and sweet image without being saccharine."

Get More On The Octopus Project
The Octopus Project embarks on a US tour July 24, and their new EP, Golden Beds, will be released via Peek-A-Boo Records on July 28. For more info, check out their site.

Style On Stage interviews various musicians and artists about their personal fashion tastes. Find out what they love to wear when they’re in action as the Dell Lounge takes a look at where fashion meets talent.