- Named is the second full-length album from Brisbane-based musical spoken-word artist Orlando Furious. The collection of songs on Named chronicles triumphs, love, failure, interpersonal political reflections, and candid introspection, evoking a gamut of raw emotion akin to a one man classical ballet.
The style of confessional and personal but deeply measured lyrics, the delivery that borders on antagonistically cathartic, but is held in place with palpable, respectful restraint, and the distinct absence of masculine posturing has always reminded me of BARR - the very political meets interpersonal spoken-word-song project of L.A. based artist Brendan Fowler; while the similarly heaping portion of weirdness and musical anarchy reminds me of Calvin Johnston’s Selector Dub Narcotic.
There’s a lot more going on throughout. The musical influences are highly varied from track to track. There’s a particularly strong and pleasantly unexpected element of industrial drone and darkwave synth music, while some tracks are dominated by booming experimental hip-hop style beats or lo-fi, kitchen sink acoustic instrumentation. The latter is most prominent on the first track, the acoustic guitar and handshaker led Rage. The vocal while calm, is embedded in deep in a cave of echo, with the rhythm held by the shaker losing pace at times.
Parmesan leads on a sinister, crushing hip hop beat that’s kind of reminiscent of a Death Grips instrumental. It’s a disconcerting take on a love song, evoking both a complex image of devotional love and emotional attachment. The juxtaposition of affectionate and personal lyrics countered with the harsh industrial hip hop instrumental is disarming, and works to really hokey interpersonal politics and the lingering sound of dripping taps.
Ballet is a manic and introspective confessional story told with a nursery rhyme like chorus with swirling synths, and flat pulsating bass, and a high filtered drone. Don’t Try brings in the doubtful and evasive side of a relationship, the communication breakdown that begins to break individual minds. The instrumental is reminiscent of some early Xiu Xiu with a deeply suppressed pulsating bass line that sounds like its hammering from an adjacent room, a quickly pulsing shifting monomorphic synth, and loose, faintly animal cry sounds in the distance.
The animalistic synth sounds make a reprise on Sedyouse, with tribal and polyrhythmic percussion a spiritual anthem of sorts from a place of hardship. Belong is something of a pulsating high-pitched pseudo-breakbeat instrumental that lingers and builds to a cacophony of cowbells, rototoms and mismatched snares. Collapse reminds me of the rhythmic drone of Coil. Emergency has more classic synth pop sounds and just a very refined rhythmic sensibility. Bother is more of the confessional poetry, combined with undulating synths and squelchy bass. Orlando furious’ songs are highly personal without being overstated or dramatic, they demonstrate a keen sense of interpersonal politics that avoids being hokey and played out and the variety of styles incorporated into his music feels natural and satisfying.
- Jaden Gallagher.