Description:
Tableau by The Orielles, released 07 October 2022
1. Chromo I
2. Chromo II
3. Airtight
4. The Instrument
5. Improvisation 001
6. Television
7. Some Day Later
8. Darkened Corners
9. Honfleur Remembered
10. Beam/s
11. To Offer, To Erase
12. The Room
13. By Its Lights
14. Transmission
15. Drawn and Defined
16. Stones
The Orielles return with âTableauâ, their truly extraordinary third album. Released on October 7th.
The Orielles have created their first genuinely contemporary record - an experimental double album self-produced in collaboration with producer Joel Anthony Patchett (King Krule, Tim Burgess).
Tableau by The Orielles, released 07 October 2022
1. Chromo I
2. Chromo II
3. Airtight
4. The Instrument
5. Improvisation 001
6. Television
7. Some Day Later
8. Darkened Corners
9. Honfleur Remembered
10. Beam/s
11. To Offer, To Erase
12. The Room
13. By Its Lights
14. Transmission
15. Drawn and Defined
16. Stones
The Orielles return with âTableauâ, their truly extraordinary third album. Released on October 7th.
The Orielles have created their first genuinely contemporary record - an experimental double album self-produced in collaboration with producer Joel Anthony Patchett (King Krule, Tim Burgess). In doing so, the Orielles have utilised holistic jazz practices, oblique 21st century electronica, experimental 1960s tape loop methods, otherworldly AutoTuned vocal sounds, the downer dub of Burial, Sonic Youthâs focus on improvisation and feedback, and Brian Enoâs legendary Oblique Strategy cards.
Tableau is a double black vinyl release. The bandcamp vinyl edition will include a fanzine designed by The Orielles and Ben Thompson. Featuring photos by Neelam Khan Vela.
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At the end of 2020, the Orielles - vocalist and bassist EsmĂ© Hand-Halford, drummer Sidonie Hand-Halford and guitarist Henry Carlyle-Wade - regrouped to rehearse in Manchester, the city that the band have made their home across the last five years. When all of the bandâs live dates to promote their second album were scrapped due to the pandemic, the group instead spent 2020 creating La Vita Olistica, a high-concept art film directed and written by the Hand-Halford sisters which they toured in cinemas across the following year.
âWhen weâve talked about being influenced by film, people think we mean directors but itâs not that at allâ explains EsmĂ©, âitâs about trying to make those ebbs, and flows, and creating tension.â Ideas from scoring that film was beginning to filter into the bandâs rehearsals - this would be the beginning of a series of creative breakthroughs that would result in Tableau.
One such breakthrough came when the Orielles were booked to host a monthly show on Soho Radio. Broadcasts quickly became impromptu research and development sessions for the ideas that would feed into the album.
âDoing that monthly meant we had a reason to meet up, once a month in lockdown for workâ says Henry, âand bring two hours of music between us which weâd play, discuss, hold physically and share.â
âWeâve all felt a bit dissatisfied with modern music beforeâ explains EsmĂ©, âthen we discovered we were looking in the wrong places.â âWe switched from playing a lot of old stuffâ nods Henry, âand now weâre all buying stuff direct from labelsâ websites. Weâre tapped into contemporary shit now.â
A further breakthrough came whilst remixing another bandâs track in a studio in Goyt, on the edge of Stockport. This became the Goyt method, a central idea behind Tableau. âTo Goyt itâ explains Sidonie, âthatâs getting all these pieces and rearranging them. We had vocal melodies and ideas that weâd then run through and sample, and play them on sample pads. We were being editors, really.â
Where the band had previously only gone into the studio once songs had been tightly crafted at the demo stage, the Orielles began to consider new practices in line with the modern sound they were aspiring to. No demoâs. Heavy improvisation. And no producer - only the band collaborating with friend and producer Joel Anthony Patchett.
âI came up alongside them, engineering on their first two records and each record became more collaborativeâ explains Patchett, âand we grew closer when they moved to Manchester. It felt super natural working together in a scenario where they wanted a creative level playing fielding. I think thatâs a great way to make an album.â
That album would be mostly recorded across Summer 2021 holed away in the Sussex coastal town of Eastbourne. Its recording is a story of experimentation, improvisation and a band discovering how to create an entirely new sonic palette.
In one instance, to create a state of almost total improvisation, Patchett blindfolded the band and asked them to pick up an instrument that they would not ordinarily use.
âWe didnât know who had picked up whatâ explains EsmĂ©, âHenry went onto the fretless bass, I was on piano and Sid was on the Wurlitzer, which Joel was echoing live but we couldnât hear that.â That became the exploratory, even mournful track Transmission. In line with contemporary dance music and the sour, other-worldly vocal production of acts like FKA Twigs and Burial, the band began experimenting heavily with treating EsmĂ©âs vocals (just listen to the outro on the remarkable, near 8 minute Beam.) Likewise, Sidonieâs drums transformed from previously having been recorded as an acoustic instrument to simply another sound to be electronically treated, often sped up to something closer to jungle or UK Garage.
As well as the adoption of contemporary 21st century production, the Orielles used concepts from the world of art and minimalism in creating Tableau. Sidonie had researched the graphic scoring method of Pulitzer Prize nominated trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith.
âItâs like automatic writing but with drawingâ Sidonie explains, âheâd show them to players and theyâd just play that, just playing the imagery. We did a similar thing for the modular synth thatâs on Beam. We drew Joel a graphic score to follow, showing where we thought the ebbs and flows should go.â
The band also utliised Oblique Strategies - the playing cards designed to aide creativity created by Brian Eno and artist Peter Schmidt in the early 1970s. âWeâd been speaking about wanting to use them for ages, and then we found a set of cards at the studio in Eastbourneâ explains Sidonie, âbefore each song, weâd pick out a card and that would be our motif for playing that take.â On another occasion, when a brush broke suddenly during a drum take, Sidonie began playing the snare with her fingers - something she had seen legendary soul drummer Bernard Purdie do. This speaks to an album thatâs fixated on chance, automatic processes and alternate methods of editing.
The result is a double album that rewards serious immersion, as complex as it is diverse. Initially, there might appear to be little that links the Sonic Youth dirge of Television with the spectral, beatless Some Day Later. Or tracks like Hornflower Remembered and The Room, which carry the influence of the 21st century dance the band have been devouring, with the challenging extended song suite that makes up the albumâs A-side. Further listening, however, reveals recurring motifs and sonic ideas that bind the albumâs sixteen tracks together closely.
Perhaps the most succinct explanation of the albumâs aims is in the standout Darekened Corners. A repeated organ motif circling around a dense Yo La Tengo guitar groove, the track was inspired by EsmĂ© visiting a 2021 Berlin retrospective of American photographer Lee Friedlander. What if, thought EsmĂ©, a photograph was speaking to its maker?
âThe exhibition had these monuments, and it was photographs and the photographer speaking to each otherâ explains EsmĂ©, âand that felt quite apt for this album.â As such, all three of the band take vocals on the track for the first time, representing different aspects of the photograph in dialogue.
Another first would be the band using strings on the album, inviting the Northern Session Collective - led by celebrated violinist Isobella Baker, who worked with Patchett on scoring the strings. At the end of those sessions, when the collective had recorded all the tracks scheduled for the record, the band asked the players to improvise over a song they had not previously heard - The Improvisation, reflecting the working methods that had produced that track.
âWe said weâre not going to judge, just listen and react to itâ remembers Sidonie. âThey said theyâd worked with big pop artistsâ says EsmĂ©, âbut that was one of the most spiritual and exciting things theyâd ever done.â
Though Tableau is likely to challenge preconceptions, this is something the band suggest they have been doing for quite some time anyway. âAll through our whole career weâve had to prove ourselves so, so muchâ explains Henry. âYou canât disconnect the age and the gender thing eitherâ adds EsmĂ©, âPeople belittle your age because they see women in the band. Whereas lad bands, if theyâre eighteen itâs apparently exactly what people want to see.â Being from a small town in West Yorkshire may have added to that also, but Sidonie counters that âbeing from Halifax has also been a blessing, itâs kept our egos in check.â
Perhaps more than any of this, though, Tableau is also simply the product of the unique telepathy between three singular musicians that have grown in symbiosis for over a decade now - simply the three of them in a room.
âAs creators, for the fact weâve produced it ourselves, it feels like a starting pointâ suggests EsmĂ©, âeven though everything thatâs going previously has counted, this now feels like Ground Zero.â For the future, now, itâs all gates open.
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