Orcha: Reflections | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- The violin-toting producer thing doesn’t seem to be as prevlaent as it used to be. Notable examples like Lupa J or LUCIANBLOMKAMP have forsworn the fiddle for the largest part, focusing on the synths and beats exclusively. That being said, Matt Shears, for his Orcha project, is holding on to his, although it can be a little difficult to tell. His debut album, Reflections, creates a lush, soft-edged world of sound, musical colours oozing over the borders into each other so that you can’t work out what’s what in the rainbow river. Perhaps it’s his way of dealing with this objectionable year: just drop a tab of acid on it and record the carnival funhouse mirror images that ensue; sometimes reflections are just better than the reality.

It’s quite different from where Orcha was at on 2017’s B O D Y B O U N D EP, which is weird, because that was still smokey, pleasantly toasted, downtempo-to-midtempo beats. Yet Reflections has changed a lot, perhaps thanks to something as simple as dialling up the reverb. Shears has said he adheres to the Japanese aesthetic principle of Yūgen, eschewing garish gestures in favour of a subtly profound grace. You can see how both the gently melting sound and the minor adjustment with which it is achieved -one which actually turns out to be the fulcrum on which the record turns- are both evocative of the idea.

Nice thought, but although it might present with an elegant simplicity I know there’s a huge amount of legwork been done to get here. To begin with, a range of producers have their fingerprints on Reflections. James Cecil of Architecture In Helsinki worked hand-in-glove on large parts of the record and -listening to Shears talk about his work on one of the cuts, Depths- it may be that some of the new, fulsome quality of the sound is down to him. “[It] was quite a basic sort of mix when I took it to him, and he added a lot of energy and some interesting textures into the track. The reverse reverb effect on the vocals was something that he added in to create the dream-like quality to the sound.” It’s not only Cecil either: Luboku’s Luis Kennett also brought his soundscaping sensibilities to bear, while Hemm’s Robert Downie contributed his experience making crystalline dance-pop. Still, the largest amount of sweat expended behind the boards must have dripped from Shears’ own brow. Cooped up in a Melbourne warehouse that he first converted into a studio and then, during the pandemic, lived in, he experimented endlessly with effects. It transforms what is -it’s difficult to believe- ninety-five-percent raw violin recordings into the blooming, synthetic world you hear on Reflections.

While he laboured, Shears found a rich source of inspiration in the work of Surrealists, like Dali. I’m not sure anyone ever accused Dali of being aesthetically subtle, but his mind-bending influence is clear here too. It’s interesting, these sort of head-trips tend to find their way into today’s music via psychedelia rather than surrealism per-se; the one being fuelled, originally, by the drugs of the ‘60s and the other by the Freudian/Jungian landscape of dreams. For Shears it may be a combination of both: the soft-focus psychedelic music and the ethereal lyrics, which often seem like they’re evoking a dream-state. Talking about the experiences which led him to create the single Reverie he describes self-medicating to cope with the anxieties of waking life and only finding true peace in sleep, “where our dreams are an amazing escape from the pressures of everyday life.” Or, as he puts it in the song: “Breathing in and breathing out / Finally feel alright / Start to rise above the clouds / Floating in the night.”

This quasi-dream diary of Orcha’s is much more lyrically involved than his previous work. A gentle flood of words accompanies the music, shifting the feel a bit further away from artists like Bonobo, Caribou and Fourtet and closer to Washed Out, someone he namechecks a lot. If I had to have a gripe with Reflections, it might have something to do with this. In the rush of lyrical psychoanalysis, or the endless hours spent cooped up in his studio / headspace, I wonder if Matt Shears got a bit lost in the detail: forgetting what was happening in the bigger picture. There’s such a flurry of lyrics and such a lot of sound that it blurs, every now and then, into a haze and you lose track of what's going on. The whispered words whir like a moth’s hypnotic wings and you’re absorbed in the glaring colour, completely unaware of all the studio wizardry and contemplation that got us here, or even what they're trying to get across.

It might be that this brain-breaking year can only be mirrored by a similarly tripped-out artwork. Trapped in our headspaces, cut loose from reality and trying to recreate in life the solace we can only find in oblivion. An intense and surreal reflection of the times they’ve grown out of, Orcha’s intimate gestures have grown into a wall of sound and an ocean of colour.

- Chris Cobcroft.<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=763974942/size=large/bgcol=ff…; seamless><a href="https://orcha.bandcamp.com/album/reflections">Reflections by ORCHA</a></iframe>
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