Orchis: Trait 2001

 

ORCHIS, one of the first of the English apocalyptic / dark / wyrd folk bands formed in 1992 and

released the first of their four studio albums in 1994 and the final one in 2013. They contributed to many compilation albums over their career, as well as a some reissues and 'best of's, plus a handful of singles and e.ps. They have now retired to separate corners of the world.
                                   

Orchis, an English Dark Folk band consisting of Tracy Jeffery (Cunnan, SQE), Amanda Prouten and Alan Trench (Cunnan, SQE, Twelve Thousand Days(with Martyn Bates), Temple Music). They have released four albums to date starting in 1994 : The Dancing Sun, A Thousand Winters, Mandragora and

Trait (a 'best of' released through the Russian Brudenia label). After a gap of some years they released the new 'Other Days' download ep via the Woven Wheat Whispers legal folk download service in 2007. Trench was a founding member of the now defunct World Serpent Distribution,and the first two albums and a 7" single (He Walks In Winter) was released via them on their own Cryptanthus label, with Mandragora on the German Trisol label.
                                                             

They have contributed to many compilation albums, with some tracks turning up on the 'Trait' album.

The sound is slightly out of kilter acoustic instruments mixed with electronic experimentation and ethereal/heavenly vocals, and the song themes seem to be mainly pagan in origin, with a distinct leaning towards ancient Greek deities - also a theme in Trench's Temple Music project.

ORCHIS - TRAIT

                                                                     

For quite some time now the English trio of Orchis have been quietly establishing a reputation for their

folk sound. A clutch of albums from the primitive sounding The Dancing Sun through to the fully blossomed Mandragora have been steeped in pagan and Gnostic imagery, displaying a wide breadth of mystical knowledge. Orchis consist of Tracy Jeffery, and Amanda Prouten on vocals while Alan Trench handles the warm acoustic instrumentation. An array of instruments and percussive devices - bowed guitar, bodhran, dulcimer - lends the music its distinctive flavour.
                                        

I daren't call it dark folk as Orchis's music is joyous and life affirming. Fellow travellers would be

Sorrow, Dead Can Dance and perhaps Fire and Ice. Trait, drawn from Orchis's three albums - The Dancing Sun, A Thousand Winters, Mandragora - and various rare tracks, is devised for the Russian market and it is an enchanting collection and a fine introduction to a much under-rated trio.
                                         

Rare best off compilation produced in Russia.
A summary of the career of this now extinct group, behind which operated some of the people responsible for the legendary World Serpent label.
Chamber sounding, the academic minimalism of tools appears in combination with complex vocal melodies. A compilation of three albums and rare tracks edited by Alan Trench.
                                    

Instruments: 12 String Guitar; Lute Guitar; Electric & fx Guitars; Dulcimers; Regal; Harp; Bodhran; Tambourines; Percussion; Recorders & Whistles; Autoharp; Bow psaltery; Chanter; Bass Guitar; Novation Bass Station; Mandolin
'The Chymical Wedding' adapted from 'Ricercare Primi Toni' by G.P. da Palestrina; 'Per Tropo Fede' adapted from the Codex Vatican Rossi 215; 'Fair Is The Rose' words by Orlando Gibbons'; 'Lacunga' from various Anglo-Saxon sources; 'Anadiomene' words by Percy Bysshe Shelley; 'Searching For Lambs' trad. arr.
                                                               

MEMBERS
Alan Trench, Amanda Prouten, Kosmische Boy, Tracy Jeffery

                                                
An Interview with Alan Trench, HERE (29 February 2020)

                                     

"Basically I make music that I like to listen to".    
When Alan Trench, who currently lives in Greece, co-headed the well-known record distributor

World Serpent, many people only gradually realized that he was also a musician. He made little fuss about his folk group Orchis, whose first CD came out in 1994, and so the mysterious trio became an insider tip, mostly missed by casual music consumers. When this era ended at the turn of the millennium, only few would have expected that the musician, who masters a variety of (not only) stringed instruments, would experience a second spring with enormous output only a few years later.
                                             

With the Black Lesbian Fishermen, whom he founded with friends in his adopted home country, he plays a beguiling ritual psychedelic whose cross-genre compositions show a great musical subtlety, whereas Temple Music stands for a rougher, spontaneous music, which often leans toward spacerock

realms. With his wife Rebecca Loftiss aka the Gray Field Recordings, who also participates in the Fishermen, he runs the changeable duo Howling Larsons. And then there is Twelve Thousand Days, the folk duo with Martyn Bates that goes back to his English days and still exists. You can talk about Trench without falling into name dropping, but luckily you don’t have to, because the multi-layered mosaic of his music can use a few signposts. In the following interview, we address all the above and it becomes clear how much the cosmos of underground music has changed since the early 90s.

BLACK LESBIAN FISHERMEN (HERE)

                                        

Black Lesbian Fishermen are an international ambient/drone/experimental collective based in Athens and Evia.  Between them they have been involved with many projects - Coil, Current 93, Eyeless In Gaza, Nurse With Wound, Whitehouse, Z’ev, Attila Csihar, Rotting Christ – to name a few. Black Lesbian Fishermen, however, stand alone as a mind-blowingly impressive psych band with a distinctive, transportive & ritualistic sound. Since their debut album, ‘Ectopic Apiary’ the band has continued to play live shows and record one-off tracks for various compilations whilst working on ‘The Metaphysics Of Natron’ in Athens and Evia. The new album contains 8 stunning new studio recordings that further mine the occult psychedelic seam they have made their own.
 
MEMBERS

ALAN TRENCH – Guitars, fx, Vox, Synths
NIKOS FOKAS – Modular Synths, Keyboards, Treatments, Tepaphon
R LOFTISS – Bowed Guitar, Vox, Glass Flute, Synths, Toys
STRATIS SGOURELLIS – Bass, Treatments
STELIOS ROMALIADIS - Flute

Orchis – Трейт (Trait)
Label: Brudenia – BR.O.T.7
Format:    CD, Compilation, Limited Edition, Numbered
Country: Russia
Released: 2001
Genre: Electronic, Rock, Folk, World, & Country
Style: Neofolk, Experimental, Psychedelic Rock

TRACKS

                                                               

01. Come Unto Me    5:00
02. For Cold Heaven    3:19
03. Waiting For The Moon  (Written-By – W.B Yeats)  5:07
04. Turning Of The Page    4:57
05. The Dancing Sun    3:48
06. Blood Of Bone  (Written-By – Doreen Valiente)  5:43
07. Jennet    2:58
08. The Gallows Man    4:59
09. He Walks In Winter    6:11
10. The Chymical Wedding    3:12
11. In The Red Of The Moon    4:27
12. In This House Of Shadows    4:08
13. Aurora    4:29
14. Anadiomente    6:30
15. Gloria Melancholia    3:19
16. Come Like Shadows    4:15

                                             

 
Performer – Alan Trench, Amanda Prouten, Tracy Jeffery
Performer [All Instruments], Producer, Engineer – Orchis
Songwriter – Trench (tracks: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 to 16), Prouten (tracks: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 to 16), Jeffery (tracks: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 to 16)

Hand-numbered edition of 1000 copies.

Track 1 taken from Terra Serpentes compilation,
tracks 2 to 5 taken from The Dancing Sun,
tracks 6 to 9 taken from A Thousand Winters,
tracks 10 to 14 taken from Mandragora,
track 15 taken from "Gloria Melancholia",
track 16 taken from The Dark Ages compilation.

MP3 @ 320 Size: 168 MB
Flac  Size: 457 MB