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Behind the monicker Orcas, a project sponsored by Morr and based in Seattle, lie the composer Rafael Anton Irisarri and the singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Benoit Pioulard. Far more than just an occasional collaboration, the project lands on its second work "Yearling," after the self-titled debut two years ago managed to arouse interest and accolades in the circles of good music. With this 2014 release, Irisarri and Pioulard succeed in further blending the components that distinguish their respective paths, crafting what will probably be the dream-pop album of the year.
That we are far above the average is evident from the inspired partitions of the introductory "Petrichor", visionary ambient that recalls certain atmospheres dear to the Cure of “Disintegration” as well as the more dreamy Badalamenti: a worthy premise for an album made of liquid sounds poised between a decadent spleen of eighties memory and the electric regurgitations typical of the following decade, which will certainly appeal to lovers of classic shoegaze (evoked more in moods than in the impetuous sound layers, which are indeed almost absent). Fans of Slowdive, Low, and Sigur Ros will thus remain satisfied, although the music reproduced here is not exactly traceable to this or that artist.
The beginning of the first real song (also the lead single) "Infinite Stillness" triggers a real heart drop, between dry beats and the melancholy fluttering of soft keyboards, soon joined by Pioulard's subdued singing. The subsequent "Half Light," another rarefied pop-song that evokes Porcupine Tree's "stupid dream", is pure magic, with a chorus that in its simplicity knows how to touch the deepest strings of the soul ("It's haunting me in the way things do when they are gone / It's killing me in a way I can't do on my own"). This initial trio of tracks alone would be enough to bring the listener most willing to surrender before the free flow of emotions set to music by the duo to their knees. Twilight scenarios made of the very stuff of dreams: an oneiric journey crossed by the red-orange and oblique light of a setting sun, slowly drowning behind the horizon line, merging between a sea and a sky that are mirrors of each other.
Suspended between intimate singer-songwriter style and elegant “furniture music”, the subsequent compositions flow smoothly in the name of an evanescence that confuses introspection with the most seductive romanticism. Whether the song in its canonical format prevails (the talktalkian "Capillaries," based on piano and reverberated sounds; the pinkfloydian sketch of the folkish "An Absolute"), or the pathos of the ambient dimension (the eight minutes of the concluding "Tell": an instrumental in which Irisarri's cinematic aspirations converge with the droning, almost fenneszian, derivations of Pioulard's guitar). In between, we find two blatantly depechemodian episodes such as "Selah" (three-quarters instrumental with a minimal-electro stride, enriched only in the final part by ethereal vocalizations) and "Filament" (boasting majestic orchestrations marked by solemn electronic tolls): art-pop that would not look out of place on a masterpiece album like “Violator”.
In just forty-four minutes and eight tracks, the two authors shape their refined artistic vision, made of images with soft, blurred colors and frayed contours: a union of talents in perfect symbiosis that we hope can continue happily.
That we are far above the average is evident from the inspired partitions of the introductory "Petrichor", visionary ambient that recalls certain atmospheres dear to the Cure of “Disintegration” as well as the more dreamy Badalamenti: a worthy premise for an album made of liquid sounds poised between a decadent spleen of eighties memory and the electric regurgitations typical of the following decade, which will certainly appeal to lovers of classic shoegaze (evoked more in moods than in the impetuous sound layers, which are indeed almost absent). Fans of Slowdive, Low, and Sigur Ros will thus remain satisfied, although the music reproduced here is not exactly traceable to this or that artist.
The beginning of the first real song (also the lead single) "Infinite Stillness" triggers a real heart drop, between dry beats and the melancholy fluttering of soft keyboards, soon joined by Pioulard's subdued singing. The subsequent "Half Light," another rarefied pop-song that evokes Porcupine Tree's "stupid dream", is pure magic, with a chorus that in its simplicity knows how to touch the deepest strings of the soul ("It's haunting me in the way things do when they are gone / It's killing me in a way I can't do on my own"). This initial trio of tracks alone would be enough to bring the listener most willing to surrender before the free flow of emotions set to music by the duo to their knees. Twilight scenarios made of the very stuff of dreams: an oneiric journey crossed by the red-orange and oblique light of a setting sun, slowly drowning behind the horizon line, merging between a sea and a sky that are mirrors of each other.
Suspended between intimate singer-songwriter style and elegant “furniture music”, the subsequent compositions flow smoothly in the name of an evanescence that confuses introspection with the most seductive romanticism. Whether the song in its canonical format prevails (the talktalkian "Capillaries," based on piano and reverberated sounds; the pinkfloydian sketch of the folkish "An Absolute"), or the pathos of the ambient dimension (the eight minutes of the concluding "Tell": an instrumental in which Irisarri's cinematic aspirations converge with the droning, almost fenneszian, derivations of Pioulard's guitar). In between, we find two blatantly depechemodian episodes such as "Selah" (three-quarters instrumental with a minimal-electro stride, enriched only in the final part by ethereal vocalizations) and "Filament" (boasting majestic orchestrations marked by solemn electronic tolls): art-pop that would not look out of place on a masterpiece album like “Violator”.
In just forty-four minutes and eight tracks, the two authors shape their refined artistic vision, made of images with soft, blurred colors and frayed contours: a union of talents in perfect symbiosis that we hope can continue happily.
Tracklist
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