Orphax – Piano Music

Artist: Orphax
Title: Piano Music
Keywords: ambient experimental drone field recordings minimal psychedelic Amsterdam
Label: Moving Furniture

There is piano music and there is piano music. In the last category we have this lovely personal sounding works by Orphax. It’s piano music but not as the main mainstream knows it, in fact they might even be slightly confused by it when they try figuring out the compositions on this artist’s 7inch release. I had to write ‘release’ otherwise there could be a chance that we had been chatting about Orphax penis with piano scores written all over it. Not claiming that Orphax is small endowed but you know for comic relief I thought it would be funny to include this notion in this ‘review’.

The release is a typical case of devotional music that comes across as if it is channeled on the spot and recorded in one go. Knowing this artist, I have the slight feeling to doubt this hinge, as there might be a huge change that he had spend many hours getting it al right, fully focused on all the details and with an excellent eye on the sheer sound design of it all. Our favorite ambienteer simply seems to be the kind of person who doesn’t do anything rushed, an delicate ant fucker who has put many hours and devotion into his own work, so even though this sounds like it’s improvised; it might as well be an execution of something that is extremely well thought through in its composing ways.

Orphax made everything sound like a blissful drone, still kindly having the tonal artifacts of the piano down as the rightful aesthetic, but avoiding the hard sound of the ivory piano keys in the recording. A thing that I believe is quite nice, a choice of sound that comes across nice and bendy, as if it is well lubed for a gracious intake through our raw ears. Even if in ‘Elisabeth’ (one of the names of these two compositions) has a tiny sniff of recognizable piano bits in it, the kind that you could actually imagine Orphax’s fingers sliding over the playable interactive piano side. It’s all very nice and kinda cute actually. It didn’t touch me on an emotional level but musically it felt very devoted and personal. An intimate release that would be nice to have for anyone who likes the music to be kind and flowing out like a sweet harmless cloud of piano tones.
https://orphax.bandcamp.com/album/piano-music
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Vital Weekly
http://www.vitalweekly.net/1173.html

On many occasions where I review 7″ releases, I say something along the lines that I think ‘this’ kind of music I am writing about is not really the kind of music for a 7″ record release. The format is too brief to be fully explored and usually, the pieces sound like something that has been cut out of a bigger segment; quick fade in and fade out and there you have it. I do understand why musicians want to release a 7″; the format is pretty cool. Orphax is also the label boss for Moving Furniture Records, has released a lot of long-form pieces of drone music, but also a great lathe cut 7″ (see Vital Weekly 1091), in which he proofs to understand the nature of the format; it was an almost pop-like record. This is not the case on ‘Piano Music’; it is not pop-like, but on both sides, Orphax shows us that he can keep his drone music within the limits of a 7″.

Both pieces are around four minutes and whatever piano is played, we hardly recognize it, although in the opening of ‘Elisabeth (Rework)’ there is some, as it throughout stretched around a lot and it becomes rather (dark) ambient and not strictly speaking his usual drone music, even when I realize that this is merely all-semantic musical terminology. It sounds great; perhaps not as different as his previous 7″, but Orphax does a great job at this concise format. One wish, there we go again, it was longer, perhaps even a 10″ of it. I understand that is the format of doom; too expensive to make and not enough customers to buy them. Which is a pity, as that would seem even better for Orphax to explore such things as heavily processed piano music. Everyone should buy a copy of this and maybe Orphax can be convinced to venture out into 10″ releases. (FdW)

Luminous Dash
https://luminousdash.be/reviews/orphax-piano-music-moving-furniture/

Orphax aka Sietse Van Erve, labelbaas van Moving Furniture met een uitgesproken eclectische en heel erg te waarderen muzikale smaak, brengt voor het eerst een vinylsingle uit. Eentje van zichzelf om mee te beginnen.

In de digitale tijden van tegenwoordig vinden mensen het altijd leuk om bij een digitale release iets extra te krijgen. Hier is de bonus de originele versie van het nummer Elisabeth, dat voor de kopers van de fysieke single als downloadcode wordt meegeleverd.

Het oorspronkelijke nummer duurde net geen zes minuten. De herwerking ervan die op de single staat, duurt een minuut minder. Ook De Steiger Met Uitzicht Op De Sint-Urbanuskerk haalt de vijf minuten niet. Het is nieuw voor Van Erve, die tegelijk zijn vertrouwde drones grotendeels laat voor wat ze zijn. In plaats daarvan speelt hij mooie en lieflijke pianomuziek waarin zowaar melodieën zijn te ontwaren.

Er zit uiteraard nog altijd een fractie ambient en drones in de muziek. Dat kan ook moeilijk anders na het parcours dat Orphax al aflegde. De twee nummers op de single werden opgenomen in De Ruimte in Amsterdam, een plaats waar op regelmatige basis artiesten die op zijn label werk uitbrengen of eraan verwante muziek maken, mogen aantreden. Die opnames vormen slechts de basis van de herwerkingen, die tot het meest persoonlijke werk horen dat Orphax ons tot nu toe liet horen.

PATRICK BRUNEEL