Ololon returns with new album ‘Fazu'ulian Exiles’
The independent release follows up 2025’s ‘Oximia'ades Nepos & the Fasijik College of Fazu'ul’.
★★★★☆
Photo: Ololon
This is it. You have entered a fever dream. It’s not your fever dream, though. This is Ololon’s fever dream. We’re all just living in it.
His latest album, Fazu'ulian Exiles, is a sequel to last year’s Oximia'ades Nepos & the Fasijik College of Fazu'ul. If that all sounds a little offbeat, then it’s probably because it is. Fazu'ulian Exiles is full of raw, chaotic energy. Not in the controlled, manufactured sense. It sounds like someone’s Casio keyboard is glitching and spilling sounds out all over the place. It’s chaotic in a primal and genuinely exciting and interesting way. Its lo-fi songs were all recorded on a Zoom R24 before being mastered on a Tascam 414 cassette 4-track. It is distorted, abrasive and yet impossible to turn away from.
The album is an absolute hurricane of sounds and sonics firing off in all directions. Whilst it certainly takes influence from the lo-fi, cobbled together, loose and spontaneous energy of Guided By Voices, it always manages to sound unique and wholly original.
Album highlight, Desperate Dan, is full of all sorts of strange sounds. Like much of the record, it’s oddly and unsettlingly infectious. The cry of “let me escape into those eyes” over and over towards the end of the song is eerily hypnotic and trance-like in much the same way as Seventeen Seconds era The Cure.
The screaming that punctuates much of Sunkeni is nothing short of being absolutely, blisteringly terrifying. It’s all so distinctly unique. Salt On Ulcer is the sound of a song dying in real time with its haunting, detuned, distorted guitars. Triple Tau has trance-like beats that constantly fall apart before putting themselves back together again. I could go on. Each and every song on Fazu'ulian Exiles is packed full of distinct and unique character and personality.
What makes Ololon so endearing and interesting is his entire do-it-now and do-it-yourself approach to making music. His approach to songwriting stems from having “no discernible talent with any instrument” and leads to albums that are “a record of learning how to write songs and play instruments in real time in a hands-on manner.”
In a world where there is so much endless music and not everyone is brave enough to swing big and take risks, it is incredibly refreshing to hear something this unique and creative. It might not be for everyone; the album is a challenging 51 minutes long, but those who are drawn to the weird and wonderful will surely enjoy taking a ride in Fazu'ulian Exiles.
Fazu'ulian Exiles is out now.
