-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Orange
ALBUM...: The Complete Recordings
GENRE...: Indie
STYLE...: Shoegaze
YEAR....: 2016
LABEL...: Saint Marie Records
ENCODER.: LAME 3.98.4 -V0 TRACKS..: 13
BITRATE.: 249 kbps avg SOURCE..: CD
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz/Stereo SIZE....: 98.84 MB
- TRACKLIST
1 Seahorse 4:16
2 Starwheel 3:24
3 Hindenburg 4:34
4 Feijoa 5:02
5 Swim 3:42
6 Heather 4:26
7 Daisy 4:39
8 Blue Budd 4:22
9 Against Nature 5:39
10 Gigantic 3:57
11 Dose Of Heaven 2:41
12 Moon Club 4:01
13 Figures & Landscapes 4:29
Total Playtime: 55:12
Orange was a 90's dreampop band with a full-length eponymous album on
Dewdrops Records and at least one 7" on Tangible/Bomp! Records.
*
Sometime it feels like we've experienced three musical erasùroughly speaking,
1966-69, 1978-81, and 1989-94ùwhere so much great music got made that decades
later people are still finding hidden gems from back then that got lost in
the shuffle. And even as Saint Marie spends 2016 blasts Dreampop into the
future with their current roster, their breathtaking excavations from the
early-mid 90's are staking a claim for them to also be known as the essential
Dreampop reissue label.
Their latest find is captured on Orange The Complete Recordings. Formed in
1992, Orange were a band out of step with their times. In the wake of
grunge's domination of the US marketplace, ethereal bands risked becoming
obsolete. Some, like the Cranberries toughened up their sound and emulated
the four-chord quiet/loud formula ('Zombie'). But when Orange, a San
Francisco band on an LA indie, were faced with the choice between conformism
or commercial death, they chose death.
Which is a tragedy, because with their mix of Sundays and Cocteaus, delivered
in a cinematic rush that was purely American. Orange's core members, singer
Sonya Waters and guitarist Michael Papenburg perfected an endless lugubrious
swoon that evokes trembling leaves, inverted skies, and chronic hypnagogia.
Hear how the melody of 'Seahorse' keeps ascending until it reaches the stars,
or how 'Swim' keeps spiraling down until we look up and can no longer see
sky.
There's a cinematic quality to Orange's music that separates them from their
peers, than transcends their influences. Just listen to the relentless
buildup of 'Daisy,' or the widescreen drama of 'Against Nature,' epic
depictions of life & death. Sonya Waters sings in a language all her own.
It's blissful & lilting, longing & lovely, party oracle and part myth.
The Complete Recordings does exactly what it say there in the title,
compiling the band's self-titled 1994 album along with some stray tracks,
including a total reimagining of the Pixies' 'Gigantic' that aches instead of
pounds, is lost instead of found.
Saint Marie continues to find so many great US bands who went unheard because
Dreampop wasn't cool at the time. Which means these bands only made this
music because they were truly in love with what they were doing. Their desire
to participate in the conversation, to get the sounds in their head onto
vinyl or polycarbonate, was greater than their desire to 'make it in the
biz.' At a time when seemingly anyone back then could don some Converse
One-Stars, a semi-ironic striped t-shirt, and slack their way into a
major-label record contract, these bands instead chose to create a music that
was cloaked in mystery, that spoke in the cryptic language of dreaming and
sex, that was a little less obvious and, for the most part, a lot more
interesting than what was championed at the time.
The Complete Recordings will make you believe that language is an illusion
and there is no death more blissful than drowning. If their music had a
ghostly quality at the time, hearing it reborn through Saint Marie records,
20 years down the line, only makes it sound, if anything, even more haunting.
-=- SHGZ -=-
P.S.
** Thanks ***
*** BCC FNT IPC SSR ***
*** For Knowing Where The Music Is At ***
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* NuHS we miss you! *
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