Orbury Common is described as a place rooted in the collective imagination of Bristol & Stroud-based Emlyn Bainbridge and Josh Day-Jones: a warped parallel to our own world, with its own strange cultures, customs, landscapes and landmarks, drawing “…parallels between ancient rituals and raves, between holy temples and the dancefloor.”
It’s not the first time that parallels have been drawn between ancient dawn rituals and rave culture. In 2020, LAU’s Martin Green released The Portal, a Featured Album of the Month on Folk Radio and described by Thomas Blake as “…a staggeringly ambitious multi-media creative endeavour….a love letter to the great British tradition of standing in a field, dancing like a lunatic and generally losing your mind. Green explores the importance of trances and trancelike state and the music that accompanies them, from morris tunes to rave anthems, and he does it all through a strangely captivating narrative involving a pair of sound recordists who never met but who spoke to each other through the secret messages in their recordings. The story seemed to grow organically, and in the form of the podcast, it became a kind of invented oral history, a beguiling mixture of the contemporary and the traditional.”
Orbury Common worship at a similar altar, as you can hear on The Traditional Dance of Orbury Common, their debut release for PRAH Recordings. Of the EP, they say:
“This record is an imagining of how the traditional ‘dance’ music of Orbury Common would sound: songs to accompany ecstatic ceremonies and strange, fire-side customs.
“It’s a bleary stumble through the nightlife of Orbury Common and aims to draw parallels between ancient rituals and raves, between holy temples and the dancefloor. It explores the primitive and visceral impulse to dance, and imagines scenes of communal frenzy, flailing limbs and vague humanoid shapes partaking in warped, beat-driven worship in the dark.”
Their lead single ‘The Crooked Bayleaf’ features Bristol artist Tenchpress and is driven by a walking beat and sampled Gaelic song.
“A group of lassies enter stage left but the whole room is a stage and you’re the main character now. The backdrop – an empty hillside of too-green grass; projected shadows thumping along to the steady pulse of our narrator Tenchpress’s depraved patter.”
Another personal highlight is Devil Gurning featuring Mermaid Chunky who hail from Stroud – ‘Ceremony is something that helps us exorcise the weight of Popey pagan guilt we both felt from a young age’. Mermaid Chunky have become renowned for their large-scale events with lavish decorations and collaborations with multiple artists.
They are celebrating the EPs launch from this evening through to May Day on Monday, 1st May. The event: The Traditional Dance of Orbury Common: Around The Maypole, kicks off today at 6pm at Stroud Valley Artspace’s Brunel Goods Shed, which will play host to immersive installation, 360 degree sound, live music and dance, DJ sets and large-scale visuals, blending May traditions with the esoteric themes of Orbury Common’s newly-hatched release.
The Friday night will focus on bespoke installation art from Mould Collective and Thistle By Nature, performances from Boss Morris, immersive soundscape and visuals from Orbury Common, and curatorial contributions from Dougal Kirkland and Polly Armond.
On Saturday, Orbury Common will perform their Traditional Dance songs, amongst others, alongside special guests Mermaid Chunky, with support from the beguiling and ethereal Dear Laika and the primal electronic improvisations of Unicorn Ship Explosion, with DJ sets from Dekalog and NTS Radio’s Spirit Blue, all set to the backdrop of multi-directional video art. More live acts and DJs are to be announced. Get your tickets here. Facebook Event Page here.
Buy the album via Bandcamp: https://orburycommon.bandcamp.com/album/the-traditional-dance-of-orbury-common