.O.rang, Fields and Waves (Echo/Hit It!) 9+
I am amazed that this band came from a former Duran Duran rip-off. Talk Talk was just about the worst thing British New Wave could offer, going from vapid pop dribble to the pretentious, empty tripe of their last few albums. In 1991 when I heard their last album, Laughing Stock, I thought it was a hilarious low point of lifeless sub-ambient art rock and they would never be heard from again. Surprisingly, people started name-dropping them as early "post-rock" pioneers. Intelligent, respected musicians like Jim O'Rourke listed the album as a favorite classic! While I still disagree with the hype, I can see how their rhythm section was onto something, employing a battery of exotic instruments. While their percussion was barely perceptible on the last Talk Talk records, rhythm is king in Lee Harris and Paul Webb's new band. .O.rang debuted their unique ethno-acoustic ambient music with Herd Of Instinct, in 1995. Acoustic is an important word, because ambient is such a loaded one, which immediately brings to mind the cheesy new age as represented by post-70s Tangerine Dream and Windham Hill. I firmly believe that New Age music is a force of evil. Fortunately, .O.rang have more in common with Miles Davis' early 70s fusion than with any electronic based muzak. Lee Harris exercises his electronic muse elsewhere in the creative drum 'n' bass project Boymerang. The free-form exotica of their first album has since evolved into a more restrained, structured effort. Fields And Waves refers to a discovery in quantum physics that describes how particles can behave like waves. Just as we are bombarded endlessly by waves of particles that actually pass through us, the album reflects the diverse cross-cultural particles of sounds that we are exposed to. .O.rang continue to feature instruments like the zin, didgeridoo, harmonium, zurna, Thai harp, mouth flute, Bali-phone, Italian accordion and sitar. While their source materials are very outward looking, the music seems to be made for a very personal, solitary experience. Perhaps this is what K. Martin (Techno Animal, Ice, God) alluded to when he titled his 1995 compilation, Isolationism, which featured .O.rang. They introduce vocals on this album, though I'd rather they hadn't. However, they are no more obtrusive than David Bowie's on his 1977 classic, Low. This is meditative yet involving music that you'll swear was stolen from your dreams.
