Big Black Eyes Remix Comp Winner Announced!

Orfeo 5 are an electro-acoustic duo consisting of saxophonist Keith Jafrate and Shaun Blezard on electronics.  I've really struggled to find the words to write this review.  I've deleted, I think, three rough drafts before starting this one.  I'm doing this one 'blind' so to speak, the album's not even playing as I type (the new Sonic Youth one is).  I'm going to stream of consciousness this review and hope it's readable and says what I want to say.

Inspired by, amongst others, the Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble,  the two members of Orfeo 5 have created an album that has haunted my seedee player this last month.  You can hear their influences (especially that of Parker) but not in any way that's distracting or demeaning to either party.  Jafrate's saxophone alternates between atonality and lyricism with sublime ease and Blezard's noises can be both unobtrusive and leading depending on the particular compositions, and I'm pretty sure they are compositions as nothing here feels particularly improvised.  Both players interlink almost seamlessly with things only hiccupping once when they try their hands at a more restrictive, almost dance music like, format.  let's just say it's not a great success and leave it at that as it really is my only complaint with what is a mighty fine melding of breath, circuitry and oodles of ideas.  Recommended.

so the duo version of orfeo 5 finally played its first live gig, on 16^th April 2009 at a private party at The Brewery Arts Centre in Kendall, a leaving party for Ann the Poet aka Ann Wilson (who was leaving her job, not the country). we were asked not to play too loud or too aggressively, because we were really there for background music, not as the main event, which was a celebration of Ann’s achievements. because of this, or maybe anyway, this sort of abstract dub set emerged from which the track hunger is taken. while we were playing, people were blowing up, playing with and occasionally bursting balloons, talking, drinking and eating. in some ways, being the background and playing some sort of improvised music gives you huge freedom: only about a quarter of the people in the room were actually listening to us, there was no pressure to perform, and the need to play fairly quietly meant in a way that whatever we did no one would really register it, so it was almost like playing privately, playing for each other, a conversation overheard rather than a performance. this is ok up to a point, but no matter how hard you try to fit into this kind of situation, i think pretty much any musician will eventually get a little impatient and try to make themselves heard, if not by the volume then by the content of what they play, and this is what happened for us, playing the tension between background and foreground, attempting to sneak a message into the subconscious of the listeners.

listening back, with compression added, the music doesn’t sound like background at all, and something about the experience really struck me: no matter what we did, Shaun and i could only play ourselves, and the particular situation of the gig in no way stifled that or made it quiet. if anything it made it louder the way a colour is loud silently, not louder like a shout, and it occurred to me that what we were playing was our hunger, the need we have to make music whatever the circumstances. then it occurred to me that all the musicians i admire express that same hunger, whatever else their music contains. and i thought that there are all kinds of hunger: some kinds are glorious, some kill us, and some inspire others to kill us, some senses of hunger are innocent, and some are not. i thought that musicians have the power to bring that sense of hunger into any room, and that they should, always.

beyond the surf has been featured on the current episode of Phantom Circuit as part of an Earth Monkey Productions special....

Phantom Circuit visits Earth Monkey Productions, a prolific and highly regarded net-label based in Cumbria.

“Capt. Earth Monkey” himself, Shaun Blezard, talks about his solo project Clutter and other work, and, with additional contribution from Janice Benson, about some of EMP’s educational and community projects.

The music is mostly taken from a handful of the experimental, ambient or just plain unusual releases on Earth Monkey, along with a few illustrative interlopers to spice the pot

Phantom Circuit features music that is alien, electronic, exotic or neglected... along with some familiar objects viewed from unusual angles... All of it is worth a try, so we hope you will listen in.

Find out more about the programme and how you can hear it HERE!

Features plays from Shaun Blezard, Pandacetamol, Clutter, Good Noise Bad Noise, orfeo 5, Chris Lynn & Evan Morris