The Year Zero is Rodney Sellars, Lili de la Mora and a Tascam 424. Their debut album, Oceania, I Will Return, pushes the limits of a four track and weaves together layers of guitars and vocals to create futuristic dream pop soundscapes reminiscent of early shoegaze.

Rodney Sellars developed his aesthetic growing up with a healthy fear that California will sink into the ocean and playing in abandoned factories as a kid in Long Beach, CA. Rodney emerged from the Southern CA punk scene to play drums in Reason To Believe, who released two albums and toured nationally with seminal punk bands Fugazi, 7 Seconds and The Dickies. Influenced by The Pixies and My Bloody Valentine, the musicians branched out to form Sense Field, one of the first emo bands in the 1990s. Releases on Revelation and Nettwerk were followed by shows at the Vans Warped Tour in front of crowds of up to 100,000 and a performance at the Reading Festival. CMJ wrote that the band, "sets itself apart … with its ability to strike a near-perfect balance between conventional rock melody and punk energy without a hint of contrivance." After a 2003 world tour, the band parted ways, most of the members continuing with other music projects.

Lili de la Mora is a "guitar-toting pixie" whose soft voice has been captured in releases from the slow-core musings of Robert Deeble to the "soul-hop" of Josh One. She has also worked with Elvin Estela, aka DJ Nobody in Los Angeles and Kenny Negrete of Time Release Records as part of a collaborative which produced the album "Songs from Another Cupboard" by Sidecar in 2001. Lili has played guitar for years in the Long Beach, CA area, in diverse venues from friend's living rooms and coffeehouses to Timothy Leary's birthday party and opening for Allen Ginsberg at the Viper Room. She is currently working on a solo album which will feature guest artist Joanna Newsome.

Oceania, I Will Return, combines a myriad of influences to create light and ambient rhythms with spaced-out effects, taking cues from Cocteau Twins and Sigur Ros. Singer Lili de la Mora's lullaby sighs lilt and sway over shimmering guitars with ebow effects created by Rodney Sellars. The music is complimented by the original artwork of Rodney Sellars, evoking imagery like scenes from a film.

The listener is drawn into hypnotic, ethereal melodies with mesmerizing lyrics inspired by a parallel universe. The album flows like a fable, the songs building a vision of a post-apocalyptic world; ancient concrete, factories and dirigibles. Epic stories of love and timeless longing for a simple life invoke an existential dilemma between progress and entropy. In "Dreamers Under the Sky" two lovers set out on a journey across the wasteland, waiting at the train station. The lyrics capture both the fear of a post-war world and the exhilaration of being free from the restraints of the work grind: "I was alone / I was a nation / I wasn't anything … Saturday waits for the nowhere life / Now we're left free for the nowhere life." Instrumentals transition between each vision, like robot anthems or sleepy messages sent from a distant outpost.

The Year Zero conjures stories and images like a soundtrack for the future, the post-apocalypse what if, just you and me. When the earth is born again, dream along to the past and the future, to the year zero.

“great (indie) pop sensibilities with an ambient touch” Lost Music (UK)

“gleaming lo-fi ambient anthems that suggest My Bloody Valentine with an elegant hangover” Editor’s Pick, music.download.com

Visual Influences: Blade Runner, Road Warrior, Battlestar Galactica, Castles in the Sky, 1984, Dune