Bradley's Buzz

Give Him Schism

It's been a few months since the newest Orange Television album was actually released, but since I'm playing it in my car stereo as we speak, I thought it was high time I let all four of my readers know about it.. so with that I give you my review of the latest Orange Television album The Schism. And don't forget you can download the album at the Flexible Records website - http://www.flexiblerecords.com

GIVE HIM SCHISM
Orange Television – The Schism flex20

Do you hear the muffled sounds of heartbreak? I certainly do and I can’t get enough. For here in all of its rawness and fundamental privacy Patrick English lets his heartbreak hang out on the new Orange Television album The Schism. Taking a page out of Stephen Merritt’s endless (yet enjoyable) 69 Love Songs, and following the musical paths of everyone from Duran Duran to Blondie to Oingo Boingo to Bowie and back again – Orange Television continues to show us what true artistry is. Though a band can acknowledge their idols, finding one’s own voice is the testament to true artistry and if you can create something that not only gets your idea out of you and onto the airs, but also grabs the people listening to it, then you’ve created what so many artists try to do and exactly what Orange Television has done.

The Schism is an 11-song journey through the very personal break up of a relationship. As each song plays out we are led through the several stages in the process as energetic and subdued emotions are played out through clunking electronic swigs, feisty guitar loops and very personal lyrics. We get the privilege of traveling with Patrick as he fumbles, mumbles, and screams through the betrayal and the loss of love.

I wonder if people realize dating an artist can have some very unexpected results. As in if you hurt the artist, you may forever be immortalized as a big old bastard in the night – through song, poetry or even a big ugly splattered painting. For Patrick, not only is the ex-boyfriend featured in song, he is on the cover of the album and he is the driving force which makes this such a great break up album. I think Patrick may have had his final revenge by recording The Schism – incidentally for those not in the know a “schism” is a break up or separation…

The album opens with “Ghost”, an electro stash of Bowieesque longing with Patrick crooning over a distant whirling guitar loop, “Arriving home to blackout windows/summer frost/crust across the lawn…” Not only are we traveling with Patrick through his love life, he sets the entire stage for us. The setting, the time of year, all of it is here in the lyrics set to a groovy calming beat. “Ghost” fades into an actual dialogue spoken by the entity whose presence runs through the entire album. The voice connects us into “Palouse” our next stop on this journey.

“Palouse” plays out a relationship in all of it early sincerity, “was a time/our love grew fast as wheat” and the optimistic “in your brown eyes/ I saw reflected/ my blue eyes/ you saw reflected/ your brown eyes/ I saw reflected / forever blue skies.”

We begin with a thumping beat and some pounds before the lyrics start pushing us into a sense of familiarity. In fact, Orange Television has a way of taking almost any track created and makes you think you’ve heard it before. It’s a rare gift and one that gives even the most remote ideas a sense of familiarity for the listener.

“Cats” has to be one of my all time favorite songs. It’s the true highlight of an album full of highlights. Knowing that there is a sense of humor in the glumness of break up the lyrics are a riot – “just me and the cats/it’s so hard to say/if they even notice you’re gone/ maybe they knew all along/everything would go wrong.”

The music is to die for – combining a new rhythm for the millennium with a speedy 80s soundtrack tune, the whole song makes me giddy and want to flashdance around my apartment.

“Cats” include my very favorite lyrics Patrick has ever written – “hard to think of the future/it’s hard to think of the past/ it’s hard to look for another boy/ cause I know it too wouldn’t last/hard to think of you with him/as hard as you were hard for me…”

The whole song makes me happy, makes me sad, and makes me glad I don’t have silent cats living in my house. I have a feeling those cats did know all along this relationship was bound to fail – maybe Patrick should get a dog.

The Schism wouldn’t be an Orange Television without the intense instrumental and for this album we get “Sexrock.” Beginning with jungle style drums, a slight metallic churn and moans, we quickly break into a sassy slash of intensity and someone cooing, “Lick my balls/lick my ass”, the song breaks into fierce drum rolls and guitar slashes while I’m left feeling a little dirty. Is this a frenzied sexual end to a hot and heated relationship or is it a memory? Whatever it is, the song breaks down as the moans of the encounter begin to intensify, before the big orgasm, and then the slow settling down. Like I said, I feel dirty, yet somehow satisfied.

“Alka Seltzer” is another song you swear you’ve heard before, but know that just isn’t possible. Patrick channels Duran Duran and comes up with yet another winner. A hilarious, yet tragic tale of what’s going on right under your own nose.

“Alka Seltzer” once again proves Patrick’s ever-increasing ability to wrap his music around a great lyric. Beginning with a simple click and trickle of drums, the song moves into full swing with a subtle guitar loop brimming below the lyrics, “Goddamn it’s a full moon/in the room right beside mine/ making tapes with someone else/ I need to start smoking more.” Excellent.

We are transferred into the real world of what is happening to our narrator. “The Alka Seltzer takes the heartburn away/ but not the heartbreak…” before slowing to an almost silence, and then breaking back into the second verse.

“Heavy” with its low vocals and small arrangement, almost reminiscent of knives being sharpened, is probably the most intense song on The Shism. And since it conjures up lost love, creepiness and a sense of impending doom, I love it!

Starting with a brooding guitar loop, “Heavy” finds us in a Placebo/Magnetic Fields hybrid that is probably the most personal note on the album. “When you were heavy/I tried to lift you up/When you were light/I let you float away….” “When you were here to stay/I was happiest inside/When you were gone forever/a part of me died.”

“Chairs” opens with a disembodied voice giving instructions about potatoes while a loop sounding like a nature movie plays. A jungle drum kicks in before the vocals take over, “devil all night erases you/ drunk a fishbowl of yet”..

Some flashes of drums and a guitar loop kicks in for the chorus, “here is where the chairs were broken/ here is where the videos were made.” Another intense and fun song, this is one I play over and over again.

Somehow conjuring up the ghosts of music long gone and perhaps a little Oingo Boingo, “Chairs” leaves you with the impression you just came upon a lost nugget from a New Wave graveyard – it’s like that rare gem you find hidden in the middle of an 80s compilation – do I even need to say how much I love it?

A buzz and a strike of thunder begin our next venture into this sickly fun world of relationship drama – the aptly titled “Heartache.” Before you get completely lost in the airy intro, the song kicks in with a hybrid of 70s disco and 80s new wav complete with blips and trips that would make Ami “Knock On Wood” Stewart proud.

“Heartache” is a fun filled romp through Patrick’s pain, “heartache is the fashion/ heartache is what you got / heartache is my alcohol / heartache is my specialty.” Again, Orange Television delivers a song you just know you’ve heard before, perhaps lost in one of those 1980s era David Bowie albums, but as is always the case, OTV takes it one up and makes it an all new listening experience.

We take a little lyrical break and find ourselves with an earful of “Hydrocodone” - incidentally, one of my all time fav drugs. Linked together by a repeated female voice who “was on the pills”, the music starts with a trancy guitar loop and breaks into a subdued electronic wind reminding me of a post reunion Blondie tune. We cut through the pills to come into the reality of a Valley girl obsessed with her herbal shampoo – Chris Stein would be proud.

The recovery from a broken love continues with “Ecstasy” – a beguiling electronic opus with Patrick’s vocals coming in like Daft Punk – “vermilion sky up in the sky/hot emotional July/ so alone in my pink skin/ going out and staying in…”

The chorus comes in with more intensity feverishly leaving those smooth beats behind in its wake – “my red blood turns black / an anxiety attack / rush rush rush through my head / the ecstasy is dead,” indeed.

The second verse moves back to the Daft Punk feel with some very clever, if dark lines – “turning blue and can’t catch breath / going to drink myself to death.”

“Ecstasy” leaves you with a drum loop and voice repeating, “the ecstasy is dead, the ecstasy is dead” and a frightful little laugh letting us know we have finally hit the edge – the ecstasy is dead but is love as well?

A synthesized string arrangement mixing in with a tuba sound brings us into “Mobilehomes” with Patrick doing a dead on Stephen Merritt – whether he means to or not. Telling the tale of his lost love’s latest digs we are left in wonderment – has this journey changed our narrator forever? Will the cats ever be the same? Will true love ever find its way back into Orange Television?

If love doesn’t find our storyteller, a few more ditties of dark woe will always be welcome in my collection.

posted by swivek @ 9:04 AM