Orchestra Of Spheres
New Album ‘Mirror’ Out Today
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EU Tour Begins Today
New ‘Mirror’ live video on Radio New Zealand:
https://youtu.be/WSf1Lf8_Ky4
Live Dates
02 Nov: Festival Rituel 2, Rennes, France
03 Nov: Le Festival Invisible, Brest, France
05 Nov: Supersonic, Paris, France
07 Nov: L’Usine, Geneva, Switzerland
08 Nov: Le Bourg, Lausanne, Switzerland
09 Nov: Musiques Volantes, Metz, France
10 Nov: Le Guess Who?, Utrecht, Netherlands
13 Nov : Loppen, Copenhagen, Denmark
14 Nov: Sörängens folhögskola, Nässjö, Sweden
14 Nov: Roots Bar, Halmstad, Sweden
15 Nov: Arkaoda, Berlin, Germany
16 Nov : TransCentury Update No. 3, UT Connewitz, Leipzig, Germany
17 Nov: Schüxenhaus, Ins, Switzerland
18 Nov: Treppenhaus, Rorschach, Switzerland
23 Nov: Trieste, Italy
8/10 Norman Records
“On their fourth album, the New Zealanders reach a new plateau of ingenuity, balance and coherence.” The Quietus
“Playful personas and oblique strategies power the ecstatic jams of New Zealand’s Orchestra Of Spheres” The Wire
“Minimal disco, post-punk a la Rough Trade, African groove and even a little out-jazz” The Vinyl District
“Drawing on the band’s shared love of Tuareg, Niger musician Koudede of legendary collective Group Inerane, Orchestra Of Spheres lay down a massive groove to impel listeners on a reflective voyage of sonic discovery.” Under The Radar
Orchestra of Spheres welcomes you on a journey through the looking glass.
Mirror, a double LP and the band’s fourth release on Fire Records, is an exploration of energies and atmospheres, from intense futuristic funk and sonic tape assemblages to windswept reflections from a far flung corner of the world. It combines Orchestra of Spheres’ ecstatic rhythmic power and ritualistic vocals with an expanded orchestral palette including bassoon, harp, viola, bass clarinet, soprano sax, flute and bowed ektars.
The album was recorded at Building M, an old corrugated iron warehouse down the end of an industrial lane in Newtown, Wellington. Nestled between a cattery, a bowling green and the Wellington Zoo, Building M is the home and studio of Warwick Donald, a musician and engineer who’s been recording underground local bands for many years. Sounds of revving motorbikes wafted through the studio’s open windows, mingling with late summer cicadas and hungry lions at feeding time. The band set up in Warwick’s big open recording room which doubles as the kitchen, living room and occasional gig space, and put his collection of old New Zealand amps, mics and homemade reverb plates to good use.
The open recording setup and group interplay nods towards psychedelic jazz explorations, with drummers Woild Boin and Farmerboy laying down deep grooves from which spring forth the syncopated bass lines of EtonalE, quicksilver synths of Mos Iocos and fuzz laden guitar of Baba Rossa. OOS dipped into Wellington’s deep pool of creative musical talent to gather the additional timbres that take this musical journey into new sonic realms. Peter Daly’s beautifully tense viola playing on the title track conjures a dark shadowy world while shawm-like reeds gives a funereal tone to Koudede, a lament for the great Tuareg guitarist and singer, who tragically died not long after Orchestra of Spheres supported Group Inerane in Utrecht. Another highlight is Black and White, where Mos Iocos’s bell-like vocals create a whirlpooling sonic dreamstate.
“Out of the post-apocalyptic wastelands of cultural blandness, OoS bring their utopian sound of DIY instruments, world music and experimental joy” – Alexander Tucker (Grumbling Fur)
“Music from a distant planet. Eastern drones and fractured rhythms make this a heady mix. When I saw them live it was an out of body experience” – Robert Scott (The Clean / The Bats)
Mirror single audio links:
https://soundcloud.com/firerecords/orchestra-of-spheres-koudede
https://soundcloud.com/firerecords/orchestra-of-spheres-ata
‘Āta’ video:
https://youtu.be/OmNXq4KSk0E
Order link;
https://fire-records.lnk.to/oosmirror
