Audiopile Review: Nearly lost to time, the short-live San Jose outfit Ozean only issued a three track cassette in 1993 and played two live shows. The cassette may have been a nearly forgotten footnote in shoegaze if it wasn’t for Moon Sounds Records, who reissued the cassette as a 12” EP back in 2017, bringing new attention to a group that barely existed in the first place. Those few pressings from Moon Sounds have been OOP for a few years now, garnering some notable sums online. Hell bent on preserving the dustiest corners of the 90’s indie, emo and alt rock scenes (among many other pursuits), Numero Group keep the vinyl pressing of this from becoming an unobtainable artifact. Of course, shoegaze is a varied sound that can be as driving and forceful as bands like Ride and Swervedriver or as delicate and precious as Slowdive or Lush—Ozean fall decidedly to the latter. Gently swirling guitars, cavernous drums and the hushed, lost-in-a-snowstorm vocals of Lisa Baer are very of their time—a sound heard across hundreds of bands forming in the wake of Loveless. But there is enough warmth, intimacy and depth to soften even the hardest to please, heard-it-all-before shoegaze nerds. Time to fall in.

Set your shoes to gaze mode and rip into this king size cloud of ethereal dream pop. Inspired by the spate of Brits leaning into swirling distortion and punishing volume, San Jose’s Ozean played just two shows in their brief existence, dissolving before the Scene That Celebrates Itself ever broke the silicon barrier. The quartet’s 1993 self-titled demo cassette has been remastered and pressed at 45RPM, a timeless document of late adolescent wonder and experimentation.