From the opening off-kilter percussive stabs of Migrating Geese Overhead, you’re never quite sure how the track will develop and progress. It builds slowly and subtly, emphasising the considered vocal delivery of Oliver Catt’s poetic lyrics (calling to mind Bill Callahan’s Smog). Catt is then joined in harmony by Eleanor Rudge who together, make up Orpine, before building to a final musical crescendo, ending as suddenly as it began – on a beat.
Leaving in the dead of night
With the motor running and bright headlights
The exhaust fumes pouring into the moon so white
Until I turn the corner and fade from sight
Migrating Geese Overhead, also our Song of the Day, is taken from Orpine’s debut album ‘Grown, Ungrown’, produced by Jonathan Coddington (The Magic Gang, Cardiff’s Joanna Gruesome). The story is that both Eleanor Rudge joining Oliver Catt served brief stints in bands and singing on one another’s records, the pair lost touch. Ceasing to make music, days punctuated by silence, Eleanor made contact.
Having not seen one another for years, they ventured to a cottage in the Scottish Borders at the foot of Black Hill. With only a stove for heat and a car full of groceries for sustenance, four days of writing passed. Those days were clearly fruitful, the results speak for themself in what is a refreshingly strong and original debut.
The album is described as delicately branching and bereft of irony and cynicism with the songs given room to inflate and deflate, to meander, and shake loose like an antidote to sagging spirits. Harmonies wash against gentle strums and climb from the ambient to the anthemic as Orpine turn their backs on modern absurdity with nerve and solemnity.
The record’s title is taken from the Walt Whitman poem ‘On The Beach At Night Alone’ and is intended as an expression of being between two things; the theme of duality characterises the work: knowing and not knowing, understanding and not understanding. A state of flux that Orpine have imbued into their live shows; depending on the performance, they have the ability to call upon drums, strings and horn sections, or opt for the simplicity of two voices and two guitars.
Their album Grown Ungrown is out now: https://orcd.co/grownungrown