Title : Soil Steps
Artist : Orla Wren
Formats : Field Recording, Digital
Date : 2014
”Following swiftly on from 2013’s ‘Book Of The Folded Forest’ (Home Normal) and 'The Blizzard That Birthed Her' (Facture)
the new Orla Wren album ‘Soil Steps’ finds the ever itinerant tui divesting himself from his usual cadre of musical collaborators and travelling, solo, into the Spanish wilderness with a tent and a portable recorder.
Recorded during months of wandering isolation in the Iberian fastness, a process only concluded when our hapless traveller
contrived to break an ankle (high in the Sierra Nevada and minus any painkillers, a logical point at which to call time),
‘Soil Steps’ shifts focus from the enveloping ruminations of ‘Folded Forest’ to the more spartan and spacious tones of the field recording discipline.
Orla Wren devotees will not be disappointed, as tui refines and reduces his atomistic approach to composition in order to reveal
its luminous essence.
Inspired by and taken almost entirely from the natural sounds emanating from his chosen environment; recordings of insects, snakes,
street musicians, the movement of warm wind through bamboo on a dry river bed and broken only by Eva Puyuelo’s occasional narration of tui's words (suggestive that a handful of thoughts could last all day).
Creating, in the studio environment, a rich tapestry from the collected sounds, thoughts and feelings of the journey,
tui conjures a music that is not at all lonely yet is profoundly alone”
Keiron Phelan|Delusions Of Adequacy
”God knows I've been a lazy (or, rather, tired) soundboy in 2014.
I haven't dug thru a 10th fraction of records many of my music loving friends have, not speaking of professional critics.
So I definitely missed A LOT. Instead I've been relistening, rediscovering and buying quite a few of old stuff.
And catching up with some of the brilliant releases from 2013 (which I will continue doing in 2015)...
Still, I thought it would make sense to list some records that really mattered to me in 2014 - and for that reason I split it in two parts,
including the older stuff that I couldn't stop returning to over and over, or those late discoveries.
Not pretending to being a tastemaker or diligent crate-digger, I still hope this list might help anyone to discover something new”.
Gosh Snobo|The Cup Of Silence
BEST OF - RELEASED IN 2014
Orla Wren - Soil Steps (Oak Editions) :: ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Fatima Al Qadiri - Asiatisch (Hyperdub)
Ian William Craig - A Turn Of Breath (Recital)
Grouper - Ruins (Kranky)
Bing & Ruth - Tomorrow Was The Golden Age (RVNG Intl.)
Melodía - Saudades (Kaico)
Hatti Vatti - Worship Nothing (New Moon Recordings)
Rain Dog - Two Words (Project: Mooncircle)
Ana Caravelle – Benthic (Non Projects)
Sound Meccano / Evgeniy Droomoff – Walking Through (Naba Music/Melo)
Wesseltoft, Schwarz, Berglund - Trialogue (Jazzland)
Deru - 1979 (Friends Of Friends)
Miguel Isaza - Uji (Eilean)
Richard Ginns – Fall, Rise (Twice Removed)
Piiptsjilling – Moarntiids (Midira)
Twincities – Variations for the Celesta (Eilean)
Jo Johnson – Weaving (Furtherrecords)
Stūrī Zēvele – Labrīt! (Naba Music/Melo)
Andrea Belfi – Natura Morta (Miasmah)
My Brightest Diamond – This Is My Hand (Asthmatic Kitty)