When you call your project Person of no Importance – or PONI when you write the acronym – you kinda put yourself on a lower level. But the music you write is independent of how you see yourself. Because it’s not who you are, it’s all about what you say. Those were a few of my thoughts when I listened to this album by one of my favourite drone artists, ORPHAX and his brother, whom I had never heard of before. What do these two guys who have known each other all of their lives say as a duo, and how do they influence each other musically? Of course, they had the same first musical experience by being raised by the same parents. But after a certain point, their ways went in different directions.
So here is a vinyl release on Moving Furniture, which holds the outcome of these experiments and mutual compositions.
The album opens with “As Received”, which covers the whole first side of the vinyl. What triggered the creation of this track was a project by Tjeerd (still available at the PONI Bandcamp) where he would send music to befriended musicians who would rework the rough recordings without any restrictions. The result is a 19-minute composition which opens with a drone (by Sietse, without a doubt) with so many layers and dynamics. It’s so gorgeous! And when it reaches the 7-minute point, the guitar layers of Tjeerd are added, and it gets even better. It’s a perfect build-up if you ever heard one. At the 10-minute mark, entirely in the back, vocals are added as a separate layer. At 12 minutes, the drones/noise and vocals are elevated into a post-rock composition that would be amazing to see live at some point, after which the massiveness is slowly lowered into the clicking of the needle in the final locked groove.
“Sunburns” that opens side B has an intense post-rock feel and reminds me a bit of the Swans during their ‘Soundtracks for the Blind’ period. “Tears are Necessary” has the same ‘Swans’-feeling. More depressive than sad, with a piano tune leading Tjeerd into doing his vocals in the latter part of the track. With more than enough electronics from Sietse to create chaos in the end. “Lockdown” is a 2-minute little thing to close the very erratic album, but it has its charm.
The album is not what you would expect from Orphax and probably not from PONI, but it’s worth the vinyl.
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