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YORDAN ORCHESTRA Psych Introduxeon/Bringing Ingredients Together Megatier Productions (2010)
Yordan Orchestra's 'Psych Introduxeon/Bringing Ingredients Together' is essentially a piece of performance art best approached by letting the slow moving post psychedelic musings wash over you. Each musical idea meanders like a stream of water cutting through the sand with no apparent bigger picture in mind. In fact the Yordan Orchestra do not really breaking new ground in terms of psychedelia and most of their appear to be prepared rather than spontaneous. The mix of warped themes, moods, tensions and their partial resolution is almost a slight of hand rather than a weighty piece of music.
Just like the album's phonetic title 'Psych Introduxeon - Bringing Ingredients Together' suggests, Yordan Orchestra draw on the basic ingredients of a psychedelic cake, comprising elements of space rock, experimental and post psychedelic musings and a Grunge vocal style. There's even some Eno style ambient/free form on the closing two part 'T-Borne Egg'. But always at the centre of the musical vortex is the voice and multi instrumentalist Jack Aleister who manages to drag up a wide range of emotions in both his performance and in the recipient listener.
On the opening 'Kapt'n El HansIG' he is at the core of a psychedelic wave comprising fazed guitar, bells, percussion and distorted/processed voice that builds up an intricate musical pattern from a core guitar line.
It's a multi layered kind of sound that pushes in different directions but ultimately comes back to the source. There's a similar underlying structure to the quiet-loud arrangement of 'Faced You in a Neon Light', a piece that features plenty of vocal angst over some delicate percussion, sonorous trumpets, repeated cod piano lines and an ever present cymbal splashes.
Like some oblique lyrics from a mid-career Amon Duul album, the vocals are an apparent adjunct to a series of musical moods and fleeting dynamic explorations.
Occasionally as on 'RMDK' there's a little more clarity with a slow building piece full of cameo musical vignettes from the vibes to the acoustic guitar break. No layer of sound overstays its welcome because ultimately the core of the album is too closely tied to the voice of Jack Aleister. In this case a distorted rapped outro offers some sort of resolution. But having pushed himself into the realms of performance art, Aleister voice comes too close to crossing from angst to parody, especially on the post Floydian thematic development of 'Radiator Lamp'.
Put simply you either commune with his screaming Grungy wail or you walk away. The contrasting screech and cool horn arrangement epitomises the dichotomous nature of much of the album
What are we too make of the opening sonorous cello line, the bogus pomp and unfettered Keith Moon style cymbal splashes of 'Marjolyne' or indeed the Eno style ambient end piece 'T-Borne Egg'? Whatever the answer you suspect that those listeners who made it to the other side of the couple of minutes of silence in the middle of the concluding track will have been charmed by the 'psychedelic indie rock ritual'. Alternatively those less patient listeners who missed the unexpected coda might also have missed the more uplifting moments of an album apparently born of conflicting and at times frustrating, but ultimately rewarding musical dynamics.
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Review by Pete Feenstra
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***** Out of this world | **** Pretty
damn fine |
*** OK, approach with caution unless you are a fan |
** Instant bargain bin fodder | * Ugly. Just ugly |
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