Formed in 1997 by John Dwyer, the band’s guitarist, vocalist, and sole constant member, Oh Sees started out as Orinoka Crash Suite, a nom de plume for Dwyer’s solo material. Though he seeded only a few tracks to compilations originally, in 2003, he’d change the name to OCS and use it as an outlet for his experimental home recordings. Given Dwyer’s main focuses being the garage-punk band Coachwhips and the Locust-like Pink and Brown, it was easy to see OCS as ancillary. These first few OCS releases fit with the emerging freak-folk scene, but the material was slight, and it was only once Dwyer’s main bands packed it in that the Oh Sees would start in earnest. By bringing in Brigid Dawson as a vocalist-keyboardist and Petey Dammit on both guitar and bass, Dwyer had found collaborators that brought out his best tendencies and would serve as necessary foils as the years went on.

It was then that they started playing around with the Oh Sees moniker, throwing a The or Thee in front of it, or just pushing all the words together. This change also happened when the band’s sound began to coalesce. Though they’d get lumped in with other lo-fi, garage-rock bands, there was a fearlessness to change course that helped them stand out. Even now, their willingness to amble outside of genre confines, and shift up their approach, is what has kept them setting the pace in this world instead of merely falling in line.