Ouba - ST

Tracks

Side 1

		Track Name	Length
	1	Premiere partie	11:49

Side 2

		Track Name	Length
	1	Deuxieme partie	15:56

Photos

Videos

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Information/Write-up

Born out of Montréal’s late-1960s psychedelic underground, Ouba were an offshoot of the same free-wheeling creative circle that produced Reels Psychadéliques. The project united Tony Roman, Michel Pagliaro, Denis Lepage, and Andy Shorter—four musicians already pushing the limits of pop form and studio experimentation. In the summer of 1968, they entered Stereo Sound Studios for what began as a private, after-hours jam. Fueled by acid and instinct, they recorded one continuous improvisation with no plan, no overdubs, and no intention of releasing it commercially.

What resulted was a half-hour of pure, unbroken delirium: two long sides titled simply “Première partie” and “Deuxième partie.” The session unspools as a hallucinatory storm of fuzz-soaked guitar, screaming organ, pounding drums, and slurred, half-spoken vocal fragments that surface and dissolve like dream fragments. Somewhere in the chaos, the band members begin to chant their own name—“Ouba, Ouba, Ouba-bop-bop!”—as if summoning the music itself. For 1968, it was remarkably audacious: a free-form fusion of rock, jazz, and proto-Kraut improvisation that paralleled what European groups like CAN and Soft Machine were just beginning to explore.

Pressed privately that same year on the A1 / Canusa label (LJ-33-213) and distributed in microscopic quantities by Trans-Canada, the Ouba LP became one of the most elusive Canadian psych records of its time. Although it shares the same players and “Freak Out Total” spirit as Reels Psychadéliques, it is an entirely separate recording—its darker, more abstract sibling. Where Reels Psychadéliques toyed with distorted folk motifs, Ouba dives straight into the void, an improvised exorcism of feedback and rhythm recorded in a single sitting.

All four musicians soon carried their experiments into other realms: Pagliaro as one of Québec’s defining rock voices, Roman as producer, songwriter, and film composer, Lepage as the future architect of Lime, and Shorter as a respected jazz musician in Montréal. The album faded into obscurity until Gear Fab Records reissued it in 2001, restoring the sound and including liner notes by Tony Roman himself.

More than half a century later, Ouba remains a startling document of freedom and madness—a snapshot of Montréal’s psychedelic underground at full combustion, when four of its brightest minds abandoned all restraint and let the tape roll.
-Robert Williston

Tony Roman: guitar, vocals
Michel Pagliaro: guitar, vocals
Denis Lepage: bass, drums, percussion
Andy Shorter: keyboards, organ, violin

Produced by Tony Roman
Recorded at Stereo Sound Studios, Montréal, July–August 1968
Published by Canusa Music
Distributed by Trans-Canada
Reissued by Gear Fab Records (GF-174, 2001)

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