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ARTiST....: Raz Ohara And The Odd Orchestra
TiTLE.....: II
LABEL.....: Get Physical Music
GENRE.....: Electronic
SOURCE....: CDDA
ENCODER...: LAME
SiZE......: 49,2 MB
REL.DATE..: nov-20-2009
Catalognr.: n/a
Quality...: VBRkbps / 44,1kHz / Joint
Url.......: http://www.physical-music.com/#news.pl?id=283;releases
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01] fragment i 01:15
02] the burning (desire) 04:47
03] losing my name 06:05
04] varsha 06:32
05] wildbirds 05:26
06] fragment ii 00:39
07] the day you suffered helpless out ... 06:34
08] kingdom 05:38
09] fragment iii 01:21
10] praise the day (no one owes you nothing) 07:44
TOTAL TiME : 46:01 min
Raz Ohara and his Odd Orchestra return for their
second album for Get Physical, II. It's a warm,
organic collection of avant-garde, open-hearted
pop music which positively teems with life; a
forest of pleasures and possibilities which you'll
want to lose yourself in indefinitely.
The origins of the album are in summer 2008, when
Raz embarked on some informal jam sessions with
guitarist Tom Krimi on the latter's outdoor
terrace. This relaxed, natural approach to
music-making suited the duo perfectly, and they
soon decided to take it one step further: to
escape the city, and write and record out in the
countryside. You can almost hear the fresh air
blowing through II, the insect life teeming in its
undergrowth.
The process was simple: Raz would program rhythms,
simply to give himself and Tom a "clock" to jam
around, and play some loose chords on acoustic
guitar or bass; Tom would join in with
effects-laden guitar and a 4-track loop machine.
These sounds were then developed, re-arranged and
finessed by Raz with his long-term collaborator
Oliver Doerell (who worked on Raz Ohara's previous
album, and is also known for his productions as
Dictaphone and Swod on the City Centre Offices
label - giving them the real Odd Orchestra touch.
Raz was also inspired by some of the folk and
gypsy-style music that he was hearing at small
festivals outside Berlin, music that wasn't
expressly clubby but which nonetheless enchanted
and entranced people - and made them dance, made
them jump for joy. Raz journeyed deeper into the
woods and set about exploring the full range and
dynamics of his voice, developing a more organic,
expressive and plain joyful style of singing for
II. Letting the melodies come to him naturally,
rather than mechanically seeking them out, the
composition process was simple and direct; within
a few days half the album was on tape. Throughout
the album the vocal parts you hear are usually the
very first take - Raz was keen to capture the
magic of a newly formed melody, that fleeting,
powerful feeling which tends to erode when you
re-record and re-record.
Opening with the plaintive, cinematic scene-setter
- the first of three gorgeous bridging
instrumentals - we're drawn straight into æThe
Burning (Desire)', which matches jazzy shuffling
drums and double-bass with crisp digital edits and
a multi-tracked vocal from Raz that is more open,
more vivid than anything we've heard from him
before, but no less intimate. The loop-heavy,
classic-sounding psych-pop of Losing My Name and
the beautifully arranged, tumbling ballad Varsha
are just incredible: shimmering, shifting pieces
richly evocative of an idyllic woodland hideout.
Wildbirds is perhaps the most unusual and
overwhelming tune here, a blindingly colourful,
dense tapestry of zig-zagging vocal harmonies,
guitars, keys and strings. Kingdom with its
backwards FX, martial drums and pretty xylophone
loops is similarly impressive. The album ends with
the plaintive but optimistic Praise The Day (No
One Owes You Nothing).
II is certainly less melancholic than its
predecessor - it's imbued with good feeling,
energised by the rhythms and cadences of summer
and the great outdoors - but it's not euphoric;
there is an underlying note of caution, of
trepidation. This emotional mix is what makes the
record so powerful, especially when allied to a
similarly ambiguous musical mix: one which
imperceptibly melds folk, classic pop,
electro-acoustic experimentation and modernist
electronics.
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