Review: Orgöne ‘Mos/Fet’
Orgöne are a five piece from Rennes, France and consist of Allan Barbarian (Drums/Percussions), Nick Le Cave (Bass), Tom Angelo (Keys), Marlen Stahl (Guitars/Strings) and Olga Rostropovitch(Lead Voice). Mos/Fet is their debut and is being released on one of Italy’s finest labels Heavy Psych Sounds. The album cover perfectly illustrates the band’s reference points, ancient Egypt and spatial and paranormal exploration.
The album opens with Erstes Ritual a mammoth track at over 19 minutes long, starts off with some spoken word from Olga before she screams Orgöne!!! And the band launches into the track/album. There is an early Lemmy era Hawkwind vibe in abundance and for a band who more than dabbles in psychedelic laden space rock, that comparison is going to be inevitable as it has been for many groups treading a similar path (Monster Magnet, Farflung etc). However the track is so much more than that, there are delicious Stooges riffs, prog and some awesomely terrifying Nico style vocal theatrics. Throw in some krautrock and Rock In Opposition style improvisation and you have one hell of a diverse and impressive opener.
The album features two ‘suites’, the first of these is the Soviet Suite consisting of 3 individual tracks, this is the kind of thing ELP and King Crimson would do back in the 70s. The first track in the suite is Requiem For A Dead Cosmonaut which by comparison to the wild and epic opener, takes on a more structured form and hence is a more ‘straightforward’ psych tune.
The curiously titled Soviet Hot Dog (Le Tombeau de Laïka) starts slowly with bass and cymbals before some excellent noise-rock ala Zeni Geva kicks in. As with the rest of the record the lyrics and vocals are multilingual. The last of the Soviet suite East Song has a more brooding almost gothic quality, think Siouxsie And The Banshees if they played Psych.
I was simply transfixed and amazed, not only by the musical scope and ambition, but also the energy and passion. A dazzling and spectacular debut that only a fool would overlook…
The second suite is called Anubis Rising and again features 3 individual tracks. The first of these is Ägyptology which, at nearly 5 minutes, is the shortest on the album and has some Arabic intonations. Mothership Egypt is the band’s debut single and has been described as ‘a tribute to Pan-Africanism as well as the spirit of free jazz and rock from the end of the 60’s’ and listening to it you certainly feel as if you’re transported to that time and there is certainly a hippy ethos present ala Jefferson Airplane.
The last part of the suite, Rhyme Of The Ancient Astronaut, has been melded with Mothership Egypt to form a music video which you can locate on YouTube. The track itself reminds me of King Crimson around the time of Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Both with its similar levels of intensity as well as its Eastern European classical influences.
The record concludes with another mammoth track, Astral Fancy, which like Erstes Ritual is just over 19 minutes. I’ve been listening to Kooba Tercu’s Proto Tekno a lot recently and this track’s motorik sound brings to mind that album’s primarily pulsating electro krautrock feel. The tone on this track is far more subdued and serves as the perfect conclusion to the album.
Hats off to Heavy Psych Sounds for putting out an 80-minute double album of avant-garde space-rock, likewise Orgöne should be commended on such an audacious move in releasing an album like this as their debut. I was simply transfixed and amazed, not only by the musical scope and ambition, but also the energy and passion. A dazzling and spectacular debut that only a fool would overlook.
Label: Heavy Psych Sounds
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram
Scribed by: Reza Mills
