Bay Area dark post-punk trio Ötzi are sharing with us “The Ballad of Oiwa”, one track of four featured on the band’s upcoming Part Time Punks Session.
“The song is about Oiwa, the vengeful ghost of a betrayed wife from the kabuki play Yotsuya Kaidan,” explains Ötzi singer and bassist Akiko Sampson. “She’s an immensely relatable character like Frankenstein, one that lives on in the popular imagination. She expresses anger at the way she’d been treated in life, and becomes more powerful after death. She instills terror in those that took advantage of her, essentially haunting them to death. In a lot of ways, she personifies the effects of patriarchal societies on women’s daily lives.”
A Part Time Punks session—an somewhat modern day analog of a “Peel Session” for post-punk acts who pass through the Los Angeles area.
“I’m a huge fan of Peel Sessions and have been loving the recordings Part Time Punks have been doing,” says Ötzi drummer Gina Marie. “So this was extra fun.”
Ötzi’s Part Time Punks Session is out February 28, 2019. Listen to “The Ballad of Oiwa” below:
