Odyshape is the second album by the Raincoats, released on 1 June 1981 by Rough Trade.
The album was reissued in 1993 by Geffen Records, inspired by Kurt Cobain's public praise for the group.
Odyshape was recorded after Palmolive, the band's original drummer, had left the group, leaving the band to write without a drummer in mind; later the Raincoats hired Richard Dudanski (P.I.L.), Charles Hayward (This Heat) and Robert Wyatt (Soft Machine) to contribute percussion parts. Palmolive's original replacement, Ingrid Weiss, left during the start of the recording of Odyshape.
The album cover was based on the painting Peasant Woman by Russian artist Kazimir Malevich.
Reception
Pitchfork reviewer Nick Neyland said, "This album has little in common with anything else around at the time, other than the feeling that you're hurtling relentlessly forward into a previously unmapped musical space... It's a very intimate recording, full of sounds they wisely never tried to recreate again, and vocal takes that are often inflected with a heart-crushing vulnerability." Noel Gardner of Drowned in Sound described the "new instruments" as essential to the recordings, noting that "you'd never call any of it 'prog', really, but the spirit of the commie beardos that comprised the Seventies Canterbury scene is being carried here nevertheless."