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Orpine Set To Release Debut Full Length ‘Grown Ungrown’ May 15th Via Heist Or Hit | Album Feature

May 4, 2020

Orpine Set To Release Debut Full Length ‘Grown Ungrown’ May 15th Via Heist Or Hit

Produced by Jonathan Coddington (The Magic Gang, Joanna Gruesome), Orpine are set to release their debut full-length ‘Grown Ungrown’, due May 15th via Heist or Hit (Her’s, Pizzagirl, Nature TV).

Orpine is Eleanor Rudge and Oliver Catt. Separated by 300 miles of British countryside, the pair spent brief stints in different bands and singing on one another’s records, but they lost touch. Ceasing to make music, each spent solitary days punctuated by silence, then Eleanor made contact.

Having not seen each other for years, they reconnected in a cottage at the foot of Black Hill, on the Scottish border, where they wrote the upcoming debut. With the majority of it recorded at The Crow’s Nest in Hackney, all of the strings and brass parts were added at Greenman Swaler – a secret place Oliver helped some friends build when he was a teenager.

Leaving the studio environment for the den-like locale befits an album with a narrative that is generously autobiographical. “I’ve worked with Jonny since before we knew what we were doing so we have a good understanding of how the other works. The desk has more channels now but the relationship remains the same” states Oliver.

With their fractured brand of low-fidelity folk, the duo straddle sonic precincts. The first single they released from the record, ‘Sondern’ is a song about grief and defeat. Written around the time of the first Brexit deadline, the title is a German conjunction that derives from an old Germanic word which meant ‘to separate’.

I liked the idea that this use of the word is outdated and it had morphed into something it was never originally intended to be – which was a lot of the criticism being levelled at the European Union on the Leave side.” Its movements lurch, and contract and expand with an inevitable seasonality, from giddy summer to lunar winter, before melting into the payload of a tender spring: “I love you. I always did.”

On ‘Two Rivers’, the pair showcase thick, seamless harmonies. The single speaks of the purging feeling of laying on bed of the River Ouse near Mount Caburn, in the vicinity of Eleanor’s home town. “Easier to be, than to be gone” muses Eleanor. The second river, and namesake, the River Ouseburn runs down the road from Oliver in Newcastle. Two little river versions of each other, hundreds of miles apart, striving for the same creative open waters.

The record’s title is taken from the Walt Whitman poem ‘On The Beach At Night Alone’, which is characterised by the theme of duality; knowing and not knowing, understanding and not understanding. This same state of flux has been implemented into Orpine’s live show; calling upon a variety of set-ups, as complex as a full band with horn sections or the simplicity of their two voices and guitars.

Not subscribers to the cult of modernity, Eleanor and Oliver choose to return to nature, favoured over the fatigue of likes and followers, and temporal edge of diversified eating experiences. Living in the countryside liberates the pair, enabling them to view the modern world, select all and delete.

The pair have just released their new video for ‘Two Rivers’

Their forthcoming stand-out record will fill your world with an array of bittersweet yet beautiful emotions. This record is so deserving of your attention. It’s attentive, bold and courageously stunning. Orpine have curated and crafted one of the most striking records of 2020 and beyond. In a world fuelled on fast-pace, the pair have tentatively made a record which forces you to slow down, to feel and to engage in every lyric written.

‘Grown Ungrown‘ is a serene and moving 10 track journey. ‘Some Tree’ is the first track on the record, it gently rocks the album into its illustrious development. Delicate notes are plucked and accompanied with both sets of luscious vocals enhancing one another with their range; before a marching beat boosts the composition. ‘In Line’ carries the record into its next direction and never fails to captivate the listener. The beauty of the striking harmonies between Eleanor and Oliver truly shine throughout the entire record. They bounce from one another, they equally compliment as they do contrast when needed. As each orchestration collides into the next, you face such raw emotion within each note, each key and each bar. The pair have infused modern genres to create their unique and authentic indie-folk sound.

Migrating Geese Overhead the halfway mark for this record turns to Oliver to delegate the rhythm. In a track which could bring strong comparisons to the lies of Noah and The Whale and The Head and The Heart- brooding instrumentation plods along to the atmospherical chants and the demanding lyrical exploration. The pair continue to change their emotionally driven direction as they craft more upbeat explorations. Swooning sounds in ‘Sondern‘ feels like a track which should be heavily featured on a Wes Anderson film at the point of a heightened climatic finale.

Grown Ungrown’ is a testament to Orpine‘s immersive ability to capture and convey emotion within their vocals, their piercing lyrics and their shimmering compositions.

‘Grown Ungrown’ will be digitally and physically released May 15th via Heist or Hit.

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