Scene and Heard  – CCXXIX: The River  –  Sky Orchid (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Sky Orchid is a band that could only really exist today, who make a sound which whilst using familiar musical tools and sound palettes feel part of a post-genre world. A world were tribal divides and musical demarcations are long gone, where ironically alternative music is also mainstream, where even the very notion of what a band has been questioned. More than that Sky Orchid are the sound of restraint, space, understatement and the slow burning dynamic.

Oddly enough, most two-piece guitar and drum bands seem to want to compensate for the other missing musical elements by turning up the volume, hitting the power chords and drenching everything in a wall of scuzzy noise and thunderous beats. Sky Orchid take a different tack and play to the strengths of being a duo. Music is layered up gradually, plaintive piano notes chime, simple beats form an open structure and guitar textures are laid one on top of the other like swaths of gossamer, delicate cloth each one shifting the mood, building and altering the musical hues but doing so almost imperceptibly And even when the obvious crescendo comes they are still throwing curveballs, dropping down to create tension and anticipation before delivering the goods.

It is a song which whilst feeling like a cultish alt-pop, art-rock, post-indie number is in fact as accessible and infectious as anything bothering the charts today. It is also ten times cleverer.