The Oscillating Revenge of the Background
Instruments
Songs by the bands Alkaloid, The Doors, Dream Theater, Gentle Giant,
Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Muse and Pink Floyd arranged for ORBI by Marijn
van Prooijen, Bram van Sambeek and Morean [68:49]
Emil TABAKOV (b. 1947)
Motivy, for solo double
bass [4:04]
ORBI
rec. 2017/18 at Marmalade Music, Delft, Netherlands.
BIS BIS2297 [72:53]
From the Nether-lands that brought us prog-rock pioneers Focus (admit it pop-pickers; who HASN’T got a faded vinyl copy of ‘Moving Waves’ or ‘Focus III’ cowering in a box under the eaves in the loft?) come the fearless quartet ORBI (catchier by far than their full title – ‘The Oscillating Revenge of the Background Instruments’!!). The concept is great; a bassoonist, a double-bass player and a percussionist, all stalwarts of the Dutch chamber music scene, harbour dreams of emerging from the shadows and headlining, taking the spotlight, leading; they team up with a bona-fide Hammond Organ player (and Dutch rock scion) and release an album of covers covering prog, thrash, death-metal, psychedelic rock and, er, contemporary Bulgarian music for double-bass. My reference to Focus wasn’t entirely irrelevant – their hit instrumental Sylvia reached No 4 in the UK charts in January 1973 – as a ten-year-old I fell for the siren call of its hook and its swirling Hammond-infused grooves – my first exposure to the charms of that arcane instrument.
Bram van Sambeek’s wry notes are a delight to read and he is swift to alert his audience to the democratic nature of Marijn van Prooijen’s masterly and imaginative arrangements, which ensure that all four of these truly gifted musicians get their fair share of the spotlight. Having said that, he then justifies the inclusion of the three driving, thrilling Metallica arrangements as a tribute to their late, great original bassist Cliff Burton who was tragically killed in a road traffic accident in 1986. There is an overt Bachian influence at the beginning of the uncompromisingly titled ‘Pulling Teeth’ which van Sambeek happily milks for all its worth, before he begins to, shall we say, ‘tinker’ with it. Even more impressive is ‘Fight Fire with Fire’, a collision of elegance, mania and gimlet precision. I also really enjoyed the two arrangements of songs by Teignmouth rock legends Muse, a band I’ve really tried hard to like in the past but who just don’t seem to light the touch-paper frequently enough for me. Here however, van Prooijen’s arrangement of the arresting album opener ‘Uprising’ stands out for its propulsive poise, the absence of its lyric no barrier at all to grasping its underlying theme of protest.
While there is something for everyone here, I know many members of the ‘rock’ community who would be quite unable to put aside their blind loyalties and prejudices, even to appreciate the stunning musicianship on display throughout this unusual miscellany. There are two tracks I have to say I liked less, but not without my jaw dropping in awe of the playing – for the record they were The Doors’ version of Alabama Song which possibly has encore potential but for me at least didn’t quite fit, and the lumbering 16 minute arrangement of the Dream Theater epic Octavarium; despite the yearningly sad bass solo at its outset. I shan’t be listening to the 24-minute original any time soon, though some of my students assure me that DT are the current ‘market leaders’ in prog rock, whatever that may imply. Nor do I really ‘get’ the presence of Emil Tabakov’s confrontational, rather Schnittkean double-bass piece Motivy despite Rick Stotijn’s mesmeric account, although odd rhythmic gestures evoke rock here and there (the note refers to Tabakov’s membership of a band during the late 1960s). Two other unfamiliar items, Proclamation by 70s English prog band Gentle Giant and the very contemporary ‘Cthulhu’ by Dutch death-metal stars Alkaloid boast superbly colourful arrangements which at once demonstrate the wide range of the enthusiasms of these four musicians. The former boasts an initial Hammond sequence chock-full of what the musical comedian Bill Bailey once described as ‘smug’ chords, familiar and annoying enough to those of us who, as punks, would happily denigrate the prog ‘ethos’, while ‘Cthulhu’ is a slow burning orgy of dark percussion, bass and distortion. It’s brilliant – especially when bassoon and Hammond join the fray.
There are a couple of old favourites – it was great to hear the Led Zeppelin classic ‘Since I’ve been Loving You’ again for the first time in years, especially in this attractive, novel arrangement, where van Sambeek effortlessly projects the gravelly essence of Robert Plant’s voice through a bassoon, as one does, while the calmer, more conventional arrangement of Pink Floyd’s ‘Hey You’ took me right back to August 1980, and their series of concert performances of ‘The Wall’ at Earl’s Court. I had a ticket, for the Friday I think, having persuaded some student friends and their Geography teacher to commandeer their school minibus so we could make the trip from Oldham. We played the whole double album twice as we journeyed down the M6, before someone turned on the radio news just as we reached Watford Gap. There had been a long-running BBC technicians’ strike and it was announced that this had now ended; moreover that the Proms, which had been delayed for a couple of weeks, would start that very evening. I knew where my loyalties lay. I managed to flog my Floyd ticket outside Earls Court a couple of hours before the concert for £15 (a handsome profit, by 1980 standards, of £7.50), and hotfooted it across to the Albert Hall, where I paid 75p to stand in the ‘Gods’ and watch Sir John Pritchard conduct Ravel’s La Valse, Messiaen’s Poemes pour Mi and Mahler’s Fourth. The soprano soloist was some young unknown – I think she was called Jessye Norman or something. She was pretty good I seem to remember …. I may have missed ‘The Wall’ but witnessed something even more extraordinary (to my ears at least) instead.
With the end of that digression I can honestly say that this ORBI disc is far, far more than a novelty album. It easily bears repeated listening – and in doing so effortlessly raises a smile. Moreover, it provides an object lesson in the art of arrangement; it is a sublime example of ‘genre-bending’. I only hope that this quartet find time outside their busy schedules to make ORBI II at some point in the not too distant future. If regular readers find it difficult to imagine what ORBI actually sound (or look) like on the basis of my well-meaning but feeble attempts to describe them, here’s their fabulous video of ‘Fight Fire with Fire’.
Richard Hanlon
Contents
Uprising – Muse (from the album ‘The Resistance’ 2009) [4:56]
Since I’ve been Loving You – Led Zeppelin (from’ Led Zeppelin III’ 1970) [7:02]
Octavarium – Dream Theater (from ‘Octavarium’ 2005) [16:19]
Fight Fire with Fire – Metallica (from ‘Ride the Lightning’ 1984 [5:07]
Hey You – Pink Floyd (from ‘The Wall’ 1979) [4:39]
Orion – Metallica (from ‘Master of Puppets’ 1986) [7:16]
Proclamation – Gentle Giant (from ‘The Power and The Glory’ 1974) [6:24]
Emil TABAKOV - Motivy, for solo double-bass (1967) [4:04]
(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth* – Metallica (from ‘Kill ‘em all’ 1983) [3:24]
Supermassive Black Hole – Muse (from ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ 2006) [3:31]
Cthulhu** – Alkaloid (from ‘The Malkuth Grimoire’ 2015) [5:48]
Alabama Song – The Doors (after Kurt Weill) (from ‘The Doors’ 1967) [3:18]
Songs arranged by Marijn van Prooijen, Bram van Sambeek* and Morean**
