Originally formed by Hydrahead Records owner Aaron Turner, Isis began life as a fairly straightforward sludge/stoner metal band. Their first two EPs "The Red Sea" and "Mosquito Control" presented a brutal and loud form of heavy metal which quickly gained them a following, making their debut album "Celestial" a hit in metal circles. The first signs of what they would eventually become emerged on the "SGNL>05" EP, where their intense guitar grooves began to additionally incorporate mellow, spacey segments.
2002's "Oceanic" would prove to be their breakthrough album, perfecting the band's combination of post-rock buildups and explosive, slow metal. Their evolution came into full circle with 2003's "Panopticon", which relied more on atmosphere and gradual progressions than musicianship and technicality…

If the glacial dynamics of previous metal and hardcore abstractions Celestial and Oceanic didn't prove that Isis was a heavy band in every sense, then Panopticon should do the trick. The title comes from 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham's prison design, which was later referenced by Michael Foucault in the 20th century. The idea is that a centrally placed guard or watcher can keep track of a large number of prisoners, and it excited Bentham and concerned Foucault. Heavy stuff for a metal band, huh? Both are quoted in the liner notes, bookended by aerial industrial photos laying out society's open sprawl. It fits perfectly with the epic music on the disc itself, which is as angular as post-rock forefathers Slint and as cosmically expansive as Neurosis, yet closer to the intensity of hardcore than either of them…

Isis plays metal. But it's no stretch to consider the group alongside devotees to drone, sludge, noise, or blip - all those artistic sublevels spill out on the papery fringe, anyway. And that's why Oceanic: Remixes/Reinterpretations is such a powerful project. The collaborators here are continuing Oceanic's restless evolutionary cycle, so their results are free to be loud, soft, or somewhere in the foggy between. Of the 13 tracks featured on this two-disc set, 12 originally appeared on a series of 12" EPs; disc two's second version of Tim Hecker's "Carry" interpretation is exclusive. Hecker's "Carry [First Version]" elongates the seesaw notes in Isis' original, stretching them with ropes of warping electric guitar and letting a soft ambient texture sift in toward the end…