“Oakland’s Toby Oler may have played banjo for Bay Area country band TV Mike and the Scarecrowes and written traditional bluegrass for The Nashville Knives, but his brilliant new solo release, OVTOV, is far from traditional.

Oler wrote all eight songs on OVTOV, but brought in musicians from a variety of Bay Area bands to help record them, including Elliott Peck and Connor O’Sullivan of Dem Suite, Michael James Tapscott of Odawas, and Matt Nelson of tUnE-yArDs. He described the process as a musical version of “Stone Soup,” where Oler brought the songs (the pot) and let his fellow musicians put their own spin on things (the ingredients and spices).

On each track, Oler and his diverse team of musicians never manage to fall into a specific genre, which is a good thing. They are free to experiment and take chances at every turn, while managing to produce music that isn’t just listenable, but is pretty damn catchy…..Listen to it from start to finish – you won’t be disappointed. ”