Orla Wren - The One Two Bird and The Half Horse

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)

The Sunday Experience
Orla Wren ‘the one two bird and the half horse’ (flau). 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 fainting 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. www.flau.jp Key tracks - The first born daughter of water, Book of frost, 33 fainting spells.

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…