"..extremely delicate and relaxing, they will eliminate all your stress, put you in a better mood (maybe..) and put your ears/brain in a trance given the right conditions (your ears work).."
Orcas
Hypnotic Miasma
Orcas Bio:
Orcas is a band by haze-pop auteur Benoît Pioulard and post-minimalist composer Rafael Anton Irisarri. Theirs is a style deeply rooted in personal variations on songform and ambient craft, and as a duo they bridge the furthest outlying aspects of their previous solo work published on Kranky, Touch, Miasmah, Room40, and Ghostly International. On their debut album as Orcas song and abstraction become one entity.
Hello, how are you?
Yeah, not bad, thanks. Greetings to you, too.
What are you currently listening to?
Tom: The gentle crackle of a fireplace in the massive, oaken hall of an English castle, with rain hissing against the windows.
Rafael: Rain, torrential down pouring outside my house. Ahh, the Pacific Northwest!
LOVE, love, love this project. How did it begin/who's idea was it?
Oh, thank you very much indeed… We originally crossed paths in 2009 at the Decibel Festival in Seattle, where it was discovered that we’d been listening to each other’s works for quite some time. Following that we kept in touch and began experimenting with guitar setups at Studio Irisarri a few months later, which then led to adding vocals and aiming for more ‘proper’ compositions. Because of such a natural process, there is still a major improvisatory influence on the outcome, and most of our songs are born from just a few wandering notes, or sometimes from absolute nothingness.
Care to shed some light on the band name?
Orcas (the creatures) are a classic emblem of the American Pacific Northwest – as well as its history and culture – which is where we made the album; as hunters they’re methodical and ruthless, but they also evoke a quietly powerful nature. We aimed for fluidity in the sound of our recordings while using disparate elements like pop hooks and spatial ambience, so we find such a balance to be quite fitting. As an acronym, it also stands for “ORegon + CAScadia”.
What's your favorite song from your debut LP?
Tracks 1-9 (or in the case of the digital version, 1-11)
Will you be touring as Orcas?
We’re currently arranging a tour as a trio (completed by a pianist) in the UK and Europe for later in the spring, and have discussed a stateside trip, too – though we’re not sure when that will actually happen since we may be on different continents for a while, and those cross-Atlantic flights tend to drain the resources pretty quickly.
Have you guys decided if this project will carry on or remain a "one off" yet?
We keep in quite close contact and have been sending files back and forth ever since completing the first LP, so we’re already creating demos of new pieces. We don’t yet have a particular goal or framework in mind, but for as well as we work together, there’s no reason to let things rest anytime soon.
What movie/TV show would work best on mute while listening to your music?
Either Aleksandr Sokurov’s 'Mother And Son' or… I don’t know, anything by Michael Bay.
You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
Rafael: Harold Budd & Brian Eno's 'The Plateaux Of Mirror'
Tom: If this were to be the case, the rest of my life would only be as long as it took me to find a suitable weapon with which to do myself in. But I’d probably keep 'Geogaddi' (Boards of Canada) to put on in the background.
Are you living your dream?
In a certain way, yes; though in order to live it to completion I’d rather not have to make a daily choice between food and new music gear. Or food and anything else, for that matter.
Yeah, not bad, thanks. Greetings to you, too.
What are you currently listening to?
Tom: The gentle crackle of a fireplace in the massive, oaken hall of an English castle, with rain hissing against the windows.
Rafael: Rain, torrential down pouring outside my house. Ahh, the Pacific Northwest!
LOVE, love, love this project. How did it begin/who's idea was it?
Oh, thank you very much indeed… We originally crossed paths in 2009 at the Decibel Festival in Seattle, where it was discovered that we’d been listening to each other’s works for quite some time. Following that we kept in touch and began experimenting with guitar setups at Studio Irisarri a few months later, which then led to adding vocals and aiming for more ‘proper’ compositions. Because of such a natural process, there is still a major improvisatory influence on the outcome, and most of our songs are born from just a few wandering notes, or sometimes from absolute nothingness.
Care to shed some light on the band name?
Orcas (the creatures) are a classic emblem of the American Pacific Northwest – as well as its history and culture – which is where we made the album; as hunters they’re methodical and ruthless, but they also evoke a quietly powerful nature. We aimed for fluidity in the sound of our recordings while using disparate elements like pop hooks and spatial ambience, so we find such a balance to be quite fitting. As an acronym, it also stands for “ORegon + CAScadia”.
What's your favorite song from your debut LP?
Tracks 1-9 (or in the case of the digital version, 1-11)
Will you be touring as Orcas?
We’re currently arranging a tour as a trio (completed by a pianist) in the UK and Europe for later in the spring, and have discussed a stateside trip, too – though we’re not sure when that will actually happen since we may be on different continents for a while, and those cross-Atlantic flights tend to drain the resources pretty quickly.
Have you guys decided if this project will carry on or remain a "one off" yet?
We keep in quite close contact and have been sending files back and forth ever since completing the first LP, so we’re already creating demos of new pieces. We don’t yet have a particular goal or framework in mind, but for as well as we work together, there’s no reason to let things rest anytime soon.
What movie/TV show would work best on mute while listening to your music?
Either Aleksandr Sokurov’s 'Mother And Son' or… I don’t know, anything by Michael Bay.
You can only keep/listen to ONE album for the rest of your life ..which album would it be?
Rafael: Harold Budd & Brian Eno's 'The Plateaux Of Mirror'
Tom: If this were to be the case, the rest of my life would only be as long as it took me to find a suitable weapon with which to do myself in. But I’d probably keep 'Geogaddi' (Boards of Canada) to put on in the background.
Are you living your dream?
In a certain way, yes; though in order to live it to completion I’d rather not have to make a daily choice between food and new music gear. Or food and anything else, for that matter.
Thanx Flow, Tom & Rafael!
Orcas are currently touring (A few spots in the US and a few in Europe), be sure to check them out live if you can...
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