| Loosing Today
& Sunday Experience
Arrived here packaged and bowed in a hand crafted textured tracing paper
like envelope, its contents I don’t mind admitting have had us mesmerised
and transfixed in a way that in recent memory only outings from Smile
Down Upon Us for Static Caravan and Susuma Yakota’s recent ’mother’ set
has come close to touching. From the moment ‘first wooden words’ creaks,
yawns and stretches into life your already lost to its enchantment, as
though arriving through some fog glazed day breaking haze, it falters,
stumbles as though uncertain of its surroundings, unsteady and shy eyed
it focuses itself - by then the magical dye is cast. ‘the one two bird
and the half horse’ is the second full length by ambient folk alchemist
Tui (Orla Wren) following his acclaimed debut for Expanding in 2006.
These days something of a nomad he’s since shunned the trappings of society
opting for a back to nature lifestyle or to quote the accompanying press
release who more pertinently describe him ‘a be dreadlocked, laptop wielding,
sounds cape creating neo gypsy’ who, if you keep your eyes peeled, can
be found relocating through the wiles of these fair isles with Rima (Staines)
in a converted Bedford TK horsebox. In some respects that may well account
largely for the mysterious spell charms that emanate with intoxicating
bewitchment from the grooves of this his first release for the small but
perfectly formed Tokyo based Flau imprint.
Featuring contributions from Keiron Phelan (who you may well have seen
briefly amid various record racks under his shared guise as Ellis Island
Sound, State River Widening and the aforementioned Smile Down Upon Us)
and Simon Scott (Slowdive, Televise, Seavault et al) and vocal accompaniments
courtesy of Clare Whyte, Jessica Constable, Joanna Joachim, Russudan Meipariani
and (Smile Down Upon Us’) Moomlooo, ’the one two bird and the half horse’
is an awakening, quite possibly unlike anything you’ve heard previously
in your life, it provides twelve fleeting moments or perhaps timeless
recitals captured and framed for posterity. Best appreciated and dare
we say enjoyed nay marvelled in the passing of a quiet moment that way
the intimacy and close attention it so richly deserves can be assured.
Bathed in pre natural raptures that tap into a long lain dormant collective
conscious as though some kind of hypnotic regression unlocking echoes
of distant long forgotten memories, these porcelain pirouettes are possessed
and woven of a beautifully demurred tapestry that‘s all at once untamed
and pure, not so much primitive but rather more natural, the melodies
appear like daydreaming serenades, barely there, as though like flickering
apparitions caught from the corner of the eye, willowy and fragile, partly
hazy and blurred seemingly just out of focus, their free spirited timbres
idyllically teased with an unreal arresting tenderness as they sway murmuring
like woodland opines caught adrift upon a delicate breeze - case in point
the chilled reverence applied to the spectral bowed chime cortege of the
haunting hollowness of the glassy ‘33 feinting spells’ with its seducing
ornate Japanese temple setting. Its to this end that makes this album
such a fascinating and richly rewarding adventure, adopting a less is
more approach, by way of the sparse rustic (lullaby) detailing Tui has
crafted something genteel, captivating and yearning, a beguiling ramble
up a secret path to some enchanted twilight world which acts as a safe
haven drawing a mid way point between the early career shy eyed faintness
of Mum and the dimpled delicate brushstrokes of Inch Time the former particularly
recalled mainly for Clare Whyte’s vocal on ‘tugboats and railroads’ casting
as it does a lulling lullaby like calm atop a seductive pastoral framing
that imagines both Nick Drake and Robert Wyatt rescoring elements of Giovanni’s
‘wicker man’ reprises.
Which leads us rather nicely to the vocal arrangements. What can we say
- but perfect, serving to enhance the overall effect and perhaps into
the equation add an air of mystery and ethereal spiritualism to the aural
canvas, each provides in their own unique way a sterling performance of
some measure, from the absolutely adorable child like chuckles and dizzy
murmuring of Joanna Joachim on ’two note winter’, the bracing birdsong
neo operatics of Jessica Constable on the accordion swathed ‘some tales
wait shy’ to the extraordinary ghostly cooing yodels of Russudan Meipariani
whose softly purred scale shifting shimmering and exquisite vocal quiver
as displayed on ’book of frost’ would put even Liz Fraser in an enviable
shade while her bashfully playful light headed navigation around the beautified
Oriental chimed motifs of the shanty like ‘the fish and the doll’ frankly
need to heard to be at all believed. Of course dare we forget to mention
Moonlooo’s brief but beautifully peek a boo hushed sensuality on ‘the
unbowed hand’.
Indescribably desirable.
Fluid Radio
Full disclosure: prior to being asked to do this review I thought Orla
Wren was the solo work of a female artist, perhaps of Gaelic descent.
I imagined her as sort of pixie-like; a Kate Bush for the world of micro-minimal
folktronica if you will. The artist bio tells me I was wrong about a lot
of the above assumptions: Orla Wren is really a collaborative effort driven
by a guy named Tui. The point in mentioning this misconception of mine
is to draw attention to the fact that when it comes to Orla Wren the music
is the artist bio you need; all the personal and personnel information
you need is already laid out in the songs. ‘The One Two Bird …’ is the
second album from Orla Wren and it works as both an incredibly lovely
listening experience and the sound of an artist stepping into his own
unique musical identity.
‘The One Two Bird and the Half Horse’ begins with a lovely electric guitar
refrain playing over and over as a variety of instruments play around,
above, next to it. Some parts feel random, some feel intentional. Most
of opening song “First Wooden Words” feels like a mosaic of melodies.
Ethereal vocals kick in with lyrics in a language not easily identified.
Instantly we feel as though we are being dragged off to some other place,
but not just some other place, some place other worldly. And really that
word, ‘otherworldly’, tends to some up what makes Orla Wren works so magical
– and again ‘magical’ feels like an excellent word for it.
Second song, “Seven Papers Torn” is a melancholy number with some lovely
vocals to guide us into this strange new place. The voice is painfully
human, but the language is difficult to detect again, and that’s assuming
these are even words at all. The song begins in a seemingly traditional
way but slowly the structure becomes looser; it’s as if looking at a pastiche
where all the fragments are indiscernible, there is only the whole.
Two songs into ‘The One Two Bird…’ it’s clear that this is a different
animal altogether from Orla Wren’s debut, ‘Butterfly Wings Make’. The
songs of the debut felt like, well, songs. What we get here feels more
like sketches: it’s a bold way to begin a sophomore album.
By third piece “Tugboats and Railroads” Wren has completely transported
us. It’s as if wandering through some fairy tale land, some mystical place.
The song has some lovely acoustic guitar work, but by now it’s clear that
to focus on any single element of a song rather than the whole is a mistake:
there’s too much to miss.
One of the wonderful things about ‘The One Two Bird…’ is that it often
times feels like the less traditional the pieces become, the more enchanting
the album is. The thing is that when you operate in a musical language
as mystical as what Wren offers up here, a sketch is more than enough.
As an album it does not seem particularly interested in offering up songs
so much as it is interested in creating a whole document within which
each piece feels like it contributes more to an overall picture. One can
sense from the music itself that this work is about documenting a sort
of personal philosophy.
If debut album ‘Butterfly Wings Make’ was like that first great novel
and each song like a great chapter, then the ‘One Two Bird …’ is like
a dictionary and each song is a new word. Sure, in theory a novel may
sound like the more thrilling endeavour, but when you operate in a language
as unique as Orla Wren there are worlds to discover within each phoneme.
Orla Wren’s ‘The One Two Bird…’ is an important album for the artist(s)
and was an important hallmark for the underrated Flau label. It’s a sophomore
album where the work is more abstract, and yet, at the same time, the
artist’s message seems clearer than ever. It’s a bold second album, and
the sound of an artist confidently proclaiming his (or her!) own musical
identity. As an album it really is likely to affect most people in one
of two ways: you’ll get lost in it or you won’t. There aren’t many albums
that can do what ‘The One Two Bird…’ does; it has you enchanted as you
listen, and when it’s finished you walk away re-invigorated. And if you
listen really closely, I was right: Orla Wren is the solo work of a pixie-like
woman of Gaelic descent.
Foxy Digitalis
At first I was under the impression that Orla Wren was a young female
songstress, due to the drawing of a sad young girl on the front cover
of this CD, the presence of female vocals on most of the album's tracks,
and of course the name. In fact, Orla Wren is the work of a dreadlocked
nomad from Scotland who goes by the name Tui. Tui plays up to a dozen
instruments per track, while a rotating cast fills in other instruments
and vocals.
This album seemed really minimalist at first, so I kind of dismissed it
as something that was just kind of there. But the liner notes are so detailed,
it seems like something must be going on, and sure enough, put on some
headphones and turn it all the way up and there's a lot more going on
than it might seem initially. There aren't really any beats or any other
type of rhythmic structure here; the songs just sort of flow freely, with
various acoustic instruments, clicky fuzzy laptop sounds, and female vocals
in the mix. Quite lovely.
Barcode Magazine
You won’t find too many of these to the pound. Orla Wren’s sophomore
release to the excellent Butterfly Wings Make (2006) arrives in equally
impervious fashion.
Containing not songs, but laptop-driven aural vignettes, the North East
bred Tui – living out of a self-converted horsebox – delights in combining
the ancient and modern.
Employing a cluster of organic instrumentation, from flutes, piano, whistles,
cello and horns to fiddle, accordion, trumpet, and the more exotic - uzbek
chang dulcimer, Tui then re-arranges via laptop, alongside environmental
found sounds and some rather alien-sounding female vocals.
The result is a modern tapestry of medieval values; starkly isolated in
its conception, yet instantly communicative due to its unique lifestyle-driven
sincerity.
It’s difficult to convey the effectiveness of The One Two Bird And The
Half Horse without actually listening to it yourself, except to say that
the album is a fully-realised expedition in hippie subculture, further
made viable through a full acceptance of modern technology.
Tui colourfully blends instruments and textures in a palette of digital
sound, where every fragment is made lucidly apparent – enabling the listener
to fully examine not only the recording process, but the artist’s environment
– and more to the point, persona. That’s the inescapable splendour of
the The One Two Bird And The Half Horse, it communicates emotion, a means
of existence, a person’s life – completely at one with nature, through
sound and method, it is, at times, beautifully isolatory.
For those who might struggle with that concept, two videos are included
– where the marriage of sound and vision certainly helps everything fall
into place.
If The One Two Bird And The Half Horse does have a negative, it’s that
the album is a bit repetitive throughout; it might have been more pleasing
on a purely commercial level if its various use of instrumentation was
sub-divided into separate tracks. There seemed to be more room for that
on the previous Butterfly Makes Wings, where individual ‘songs’ stood
out a lot more – but that’s the melody whore in me wanting to get his
own way. One gets the idea that Tui is so engrossed in what he’s doing,
the audience barely registers as an entity, which is exactly how music
should be made.
Boomkat
A graduate of Expanding Records, Orla Wren decamps to the Flau
label for an achingly lovely collection of waifish soundscapes and vaporous
vocals. It's an incredibly delicate blend of sonic elements, reportedly
influenced by indigenous musics from places as wide and varied as Japan,
the Georgian Republic and of course the UK, but in truth this really
doesn't sound like music that could be attributed to any real-life territories
or cultures.
Compositions like 'Book Of Frost' and '33 Fainting Spells' are remarkably
well-assembled, lifting field recordings from the natural world and
intermingling them with intimate snatches of abstract instrumentation
and human utterances. None of this is anything particularly new, but
the execution is uncommonly refined. Bring into the equation pieces
like 'Seven Papers Torn' - which occupies a more tangibly song-like
framework, complete with disembodied folksy instrumentation - and the
album begins to flesh out, becoming a deeply involving listening experience.
Recommended.
Vital Weekly
The second CD by Tui, who works as Orla Wren, is 'The One Two
Bird And The Half Horse'. Tui left the material (banks & buildings)
behind and has a gipsy life style, 'sleeping in forests' according to
the press text, which seems a bit difficult because it also mentioned
'laptop wielding' - but no doubt there are other ways of creating music
on the road. He plays a variety of instruments himself and various guest
players. I was kinda surprised that his first album was on Expanding
Records, but it surely fits well on Flau. Vocals play an important role
and add a certain folk element to the music. Tui plays keyboards, chimes,
violin, piano, zither, flute, field recordings and lots more in a very
melancholic mood, held back, controlled, and on top wave these femine
vocals, singing what seems to be most of the time wordless vocals. Flau
mentions David Sylvian as one of the things it may resemble, and that's
indeed a good point of reference - perhaps more than Fennesz, which
they also mention - but it doesn't have that some new age feeling that
I seem to be remember with the old Sylvian material. An excellent marriage
between digital music and traditional folk music. (FdW)
EtherREAL
Symbole de l’importance prise par Flau en à peine deux ans d’existence,
le label japonais se fait, en ce printemps 2009, l’hôte d’artistes déjà
confirmés par ailleurs, mais en rupture de ban avec leur premier label.
Ainsi, après Novisad, c’est Orla Wren qui se retrouve hébergé sur la structure
tokyoïte et c’est avec un plaisir certain que l’on entre alors dans le
successeur du très apprécié Butterfly Wings Make qu’Expanding avait publié
en août 2006.
Si la dimension onirique, particulièrement mise en avant dans ce précédent
album, se trouve un peu moins présente cette fois-ci, The One Two Bird
And The Half Horse convoque néanmoins quelques flûtes, sifflements semblables
à des piaillements d’oiseaux, clochettes, notes perlées de Glockenspiel
ou craquements que l’on pourrait rattacher à des pas sur des brindilles.
Légèrement trop discrètes, les compositions d’Orla Wren frôlent par moments
l’affectation, par exemple quand une guitare acoustique toute mignonne
fait son apparition (Words of Finn, The Unbowed Hand) ou lorsque les clochettes
et autres percussions métalliques se superposent.
De purement instrumentale, la musique de l’Anglais a évolué vers une electronica
chantée dans laquelle des voix féminines opèrent dans un parlé-chanté
qui sied plutôt bien à la délicatesse timide de l’ensemble. Peut-être
un rien systématiques et un peu trop soulignées par l’instrumentation
cependant, leurs interventions sont l’occasion d’un beau voyage puisque
les jeunes femmes invitées viennent aussi bien de Géorgie (Russudan Meipariani)
que du Royaume-Uni (Clare Whyte et Jessica Constable) ou du Japon (Moomloo).
Quelqu’elle soit, chaque participante s’insère sans difficulté dans l’univers
mis en place par Orla Wren qui, malgré une petite baisse de qualité, confirme
avec ce nouvel album le talent démontré dans son premier long-format.
Autres Directions
Ce grand gaillard aux allures de hippie à dreadlocks qu’est Tui arpente
les chemins d’Ecosse au volant de son van, vivote de ses passions que
sont la photographie et la musique, lesquelles trahissent ouvertement
une attirance pour la nature et ses versants bucoliques. Saisissant
les moindres chuchotements que la nature a à lui offrir, Tui alias Orla
Wren en parsème son univers musical, que l’on situe volontiers entre
l’ambient électro-acoustique de The Green Kingdom, le folk chimérique
de Lau Nau, les douceurs arythmiques aux saveurs nippones de Smile Down
Upon Us et les divagations un peu plus structurées de State River Widening
(notamment sur les titres Tugboats & Railroads et Words Of Finn,
parés du délicat fingerpicking de l’ami Keiron Pheilan).
En dépit d’une palette sonore étoffée, mettant à l’honneur flutes, clarinette,
violoncelle, boîtes à musique, mélodica, glockenspiel, mais ne négligeant
pas les saveurs inhabituelles apportées par autres zither, dulcimer
et bols tibétains, l’humeur générale est à la retenue et à la divagation.
Et de cette peinture pointilliste retravaillée à l’outil numérique,
il se dégage une sensation de bien-être diffus, des bribes mélodiques
qu’on peine à saisir.
Bénéficiant de contributions vocales féminines diverses, ces ambiances
microcosmiques mi-naturalistes mi-digitales sont souvent rendues scintillantes
à petit renfort de cloches et glockenspiel, se parent de babillages
enfantins (Two Note Winter), de voix doucement excentriques et voltigeuses
(celle de Russudan Meipariani dévoile une lointaine parenté avec celle
de Juana Molina), vacillantes et stratifiées, fluettes et hors d’âge,
aux allures féériques (Book Of Frost) ou vaguement hallucinogènes, dès
lors qu’elles entament un dialogue avec une kyrielle de bols tibétains
(33 Fainting Spells).
En pourvoyeur de musiques pour doux rêveurs, flaü continue son bonhomme
de chemin, et Orla Wren l’y aide bien.
Delicious Sculpture
Si comme moi vous n’êtes pas très calés en prénoms, au vu de la petite
fille crayonnée qui sert de pochette, et à entendre la voix fébrile,
haut perché, qui s’échappe des morceaux, vous allez penser qu’Orla Wren
est une fragile petite fée, qui dépose ses disques discrètement sur
le rebord de nos fenêtres. C’est presque cela. A un détail près: Orla
est Tui, un grand bonhomme barbu aux longues dreadlocks, mais aussi
Jessica Constable, Russudan Meipariani, Moomlooo et Keiron Phelan.
Trois voix, un musicien et un compositeur, qui retranscrivent à chaque
morceau des contes inédits tout juste découverts sous l’écorce d’un
vieux hêtre. La pluie recouvre encore les plantes, la lumière est diffuse
dans le bois. Et revoilà la fée, que l’on sait plurielle, mais il faut
bien trois voix humaines pour en mimer une magique. Insaisissable, elle
apparait derrière la dentelle des fougères, laisse des empreintes molles
dans la mousse. Les pattes craquantes des insectes s’occupent des percussions,
tandis que les toiles d’araignées se tendent dans le vent pour vibrer
doucement, harpes minuscules.
Tui planque ses micros un peu partout au milieu de cette agitation,
et les voix sans paroles viennent compléter les histoires. Les titres
seuls confirment cette omniprésence ténue du magique, de l’inventé,
de ce qu’on se raconte sous la nuit épaisse pour rêver sans avoir à
s’endormir de suite…juste encore un peu…garder les yeux ouverts…voir
l’ombre de la fée… |
