O - When Plants Turn into Stones

  by Adrian Janes

published: 15 / 7 / 2014

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Review

O - their name to be read as Circle rather than Zero - are a five-piece band with members drawn from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Even this amount of information needs to be drawn from external sources, as the sleeve almost entirely avoids details apart from titles. It would seem that O are determined that their music should be approached by listeners as purely as possible. Conversely, the unhurried unfolding of each of the six tracks of ‘When Plants…’ suggests an equal determination to realise their vision. An underlying concept of the circle of life is strongly suggested by the word attached to each title, from the opening ‘Entstanden im Schatten wie Wasser’ (Womb), to the final track, ‘I Offer My Hands to the Shades’ (Farewell). The tracks are similarly linked by a shared cavernous sound and solemn tempos, with the instrumental colours (primarily various keyboard tones and washes) carefully deployed. Typically, a portentous mood is patiently built up, achieving a cool beauty akin to Eno’s ‘Apollo’ or some of David Sylvian’s instrumentals, before the release of a percussion-driven crescendo in the manner of GodSpeed You! Black Emperor or Tomorrow We Sail. A strange if partial exception to this pattern is ‘How Polished Barriers Carried Us Along’. Opening with birdsong and a drip of piano notes, then coming to be gently dominated by melancholy guitar, its stately mood is seriously undermined by the periodic inclusion of a child’s ruminations about the universe. It’s like letting a kid complete a Michelangelo fresco with a pack of crayons. The only charitable explanation is that the voice represents all of us in our smallness, whether in the course of evolution or the face of the universe. But throughout this album O create music of sufficient grandeur to conjure such emotions and thoughts - there’s simply no need for words. All of this may make the album sound like heavy going. Although O apparently express a debt to 70's-style film scores, it’s safe to say that they have not been influenced by such frivolity as ‘Shaft’ or ‘Saturday Night Fever’. ‘When Plants Turn Into Stones’ is certainly not going to yield its full rewards if treated as background music, even though it may be typed as ambient. But with a plant’s patience, this music can spread its roots into your soul.

Track Listing:-

1 Entstanden im Schatten wie Wasser
2 How Polished Boulders Carried Us Along
3 Lack of Interest in Things They Used to Do
4 When Plants Turn into Stones
5 Sometimes I Forget to Breathe
6 I Offer My Hands to the Shades

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/O.theband
http://otheband.tumblr.com/

Label Links:-

http://www.goldenantenna.com/
https://www.facebook.com/goldenantenna
https://twitter.com/goldenantenna
https://vimeo.com/goldenantenna
http://goldenantennarecords.bandcamp.c