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1undread - haters paradise
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LIMITED EDITION OF 250
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sentient orchid > private pleasures
sentient orchid choose philip thomas, george hoare & christophorus theognis to be its music maker. not the opposite. not at all. they gave themselves the name long before starting collating sounds and manufacturing soundscapes and illegal discs they sold at the door of industrial, gothic and gay clubs in glasgow. the name doesn’t mean a thing, i am told, but at the same time it means all (them three agree with this speculation and nod at the same time, who said that?) > they finish their sentences, not minding it at all. them three are like a couple (swing, better saying.) threesome of ideas, paraphernalia of sounds and fish and chips. they recorded their first track on the bridgeton tunnel (see below), a disused railway tunnel in april 2006 and were chased out by the police.
they seem not to care a lot about their image, but then the graphic material they give us is too graphic. philip says that orchids are sexy, they are a mix of voluptuous female and masculine genitalia. they do not have blonde hair, black instead. green, brown and dark eyes, not blue. one is greek, the other two are scotish, not english or even british. christophorus, the one with the curling hair, doesn’t seem very avid or in haste to be on mtv, on the billboard top 100, he wants to read and paint, write collections of poetry that he will publish himself, you know what, the first book will the titled ‘the orchid sentient’, what do you think? they change subject in the space of mid sentence... sentient orchid, it is pretty sexy, the name, innit? innit is a cockney thing, a london, east london thing, how come they all say innit? for the same reason madellaine brings memories of a long time ago, says philip. but you are so young, i repost! nah, nah, innit, says george, and george continues: we read, you know? we read! glasgow is a city of writers and thinkers, chris utters unimpressed, people actually created large manufacturing warehouses to make books... yeah, chris cuts, yeah, innit? they sent the books to london... now is all fashion boutiques and funky bars... (now recognized for its dramatic architecture and warm, witty people, glasgow's club scene and shopping districts are recognized as among the uk's most vibrant outside london...)
i frequently wonder what is music, what is experimental, noise, what is with fashions, mode, taste, radio play lists, newspaper articles, magazine articles and the diffusion of an aquired saliva enhancing appetite new thing, the it thing, the thang, the thang, that fascist groove thang! it is not in me to do propaganda. on the other side it is within me to show and talk and write and messa round with the things i love. because, and always there is a because and a cause and a be... and in the beggining there is always always a word, a sense, an appetite, a drop of semen, an ocular excitation, an aperture, an overture to fill in (and i am not being sexual at all)! WHAT I LIKE I LIKE. NO MATTER IF OTHERS DO NOT ~ I AM THAT ~ A PLACEBO ~ A REPLACEMENT ~ AN ORDEAL ~ A PRODUCER OF UNHERD TUNES ~ A LOONY TUNE ~ i realise that the thang is not important, at all. because the thang is not limited to flavours, occaions and people you know ~ the thang is unproportionate, takes you without warning, without caring, and a micro second is enough for you, for me to be caught. the sentient orchid just did that one night, without caring, without being aware, without asking, re-fashioning my fashionable thought of pop, of music, of what is... what is music, what is a sample, what is a melody, what is a tune. unaware i was taken to the arms of the most gratifying oblivion i couldn't even imagine. for the last three years i have been in contact, talking, living, recording, laughing and crying, enjoying and hating the fucking sentitent orchid. when they told me that the name chose them and bot them were to choose the name i just thought they were fucking stupid and up their arses. i was, they are, they are not, i am not. arses are just holes. fashionable or not. black and white. and now, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WELCOME TO THE TRAP, THE SCENT, THE VISCUOUS WORLD OF THE LIVING THOUGHTFUL THINKING BLOODY WONDERFUL ORCHID!!!!!!!!!!!! but first, children, you must rest your minds and listen to the samples, said the grinning cat: caution, he is having an erection. what is a sample? what is stealing? what is a remix? what is an orgasm? as otto once said, the worls is all blue and pink and then suddenly robin rimbaud comes along and fucks your day and your tunes. or as bjork said one day, oooo, forget it, get on with it!
> do you recognise the samples? i hope so! recognise and give it up! this is the first track they sent me, g.s.o.b.a > generating script operations for actions whatever that shit means. G.S.O.B.A. gay scundrel on bisexual adventure > makes all the sense, actually. > gentlemen sexual overdose bipasses alert > another clever and possible one. DIS YOU LISTEN TO THE TUNE? I THOUGHT SO. no, i am not a fucking lefty, asshole. sorry, i was not talking to you, i was screaming at that fucking conserv right there that conforms to the thang, the faqs-cist thang. can we get any flash or something to animate the fucking page, please? thank you.
david h. hillman here > david is the colour grey > i am david > hello! i met sentient orchid by chance in glasgow a heavy rainy night, and therefore, driving back to london was impossible. because i have to stay in the city of shipyards at least for one night, as one does, i had to explore the town. the sub, i was told. the sub. the circular underground, i thought. no, i was severelly admoestred, the club. go to the sub. so there i went. i felt old and out of place at first. the crowd at the club was y0ung, druggy, happy, smiling and dancing. the dj was not a dj, it was not one or two djs but three. they didn't wear t'shirts and their torsos were shimmering in the club's lights and they were also smiling. then they played arthur baker mixed with brian eno. that was a revelation. i can't remeber exactly which were the two tracks but it works to the point that, by the end of night, and gathering a lot of courage, i went to ask a question, a silly question. we met, after that winter night, several times. none as important as that one. 2005? i am told that it was 2006, november. so, maybe it is. the djs were three, like the wise kings. torsos sweating and dancing on th dj boot they were having more fun than the punters, that themselves were sweating and dancing and kissing and having a hell of a time. my wife loved the vibe, SHE WANTED TO GO BACK SEVERAL TIMES, SO WE DID. the kids told me that they were called the sentient orchid and they couldn't stop laughing, scratching their pubises and bellies and spinning records at random. ARTHUR BAKER & NEW ORDER mixed with BRIAN ENO for starters. a techno version of confusion was embroidered with arabesque chants and, in the middle section, by a electronic body music track thta i never heard before and nerver afterwards. the evening was followed by tribal drums and acid lines, at one point front 242 mixed with ofra haza and transplanted shamelessly to an instrumental of minimal techno sliced with a speach by john cage. at the time they were, the three kids in their very early teens. question, what were they doing there, in a club, high night, spinning records like no one else i heard before? answer: they were having a hell of a good time.
> sentient orchid > blonde twink (original demo > written, produced & performed by philip thomas, george hoare & christophorus theognis (published by sentient orchid editions, glasgow, assigned to artis vanitas music publishers, london) > recorded at the sentient orchid in june 2010 by philip thomas & david h. hillman > mastered by david h. hillman at the naked lizard lounge, july 2010 > demo > (c) 2010 catalogue of wonders & sentient orchid editions > > sentient orchid > blonde twink (remixes) > written, produced & performed by philip thomas, george hoare & christophorus theognis (published by sentient orchid editions, glasgow, assigned to artis vanitas music publishers, london) > recorded at the sentient orchid in june 2010 by philip thomas & david h. hillman > mastered by david h. hillman at the naked lizard lounge, july 2010 > demo > (c) 2010 catalogue of wonders & sentient orchid editions > remixed @ the naked lizard lounge, july 2010, by sentient orchid & david h. hillman for catalogue of wonders > > additional production and keyboards by david h. hillman & benjamin croaxford > artwork by wassily blossfeldt (above )>
they like holy f*** (just as a freebee, holy f*ck started with a simple concept, to mimic modern,electronic music without using modern fail-safes like laptops and programmed backing tracks so they armed themselves with a drum set, a bass guitar, a myriad of toy keyboards, guitar peddles, mixers and even a 35mm film synchronizer and hit the stage. nme named them as one of their top 3 performances when they appeared at glastonbury.) enough of that, says chris, they are sublime, and the kids from ‘phantom’ (a teen rock band from bishop's stortford.) haunting and engulfing operatic vocals cascade over delicate guitar picking and euphoric violin arrangements. stunning and ethereal melodies with a bad seed nod twist and turn inside its self creating a beguiling gothic vibe), yeap, shagable, fuckable, yummy, they are great!
sentient orchid had their first live (!!!!!!) gig on sub club (sub club still resides deep below number 22 jamaica street) and it was a pandemonium because, hum, they couldn’t play a single note (it was january 2006...) – since then they were approached by indie labels, underground glasgow, chemikal underground, ballon man... george explains: music, whether you like or not, is a narrative. of a moment, of a past, of a story, of a rumour, of lie, of a poem. chris interjects: even if you were mister cage or eno or lucier, giving and following instructions, they, we are being sentient, omnipresent, manipulating the knobs.... philip exclaims: knobs? chris, annoyed, cuts philip with a slap on his lap: we don’t know much about music, but we, at the moment, think that music is a commentary on itself, there is, we are young perplexed lads from glasgow; that is cute but tremendously boring, we are not in sheffield in the eighties or manchester in the nineties....no, we are not, chris exclaims smiling, but on the other side we are not limited to a geographic domain, are we? philip: of course not, don’t be a jerk. who will title a tune ‘the journals of emperor babur nama’ after the epononym work of literature? chris: only yobs like us... philip: combination, instructions, awareness, innit? chris: we will never make it. chris: of course not! george: these guys are very gullible! chris: music? philip: sound! george: vanity, nothing but vanity! >
< pollock's bollocks (eerohz gingerbread mix)
when we were in the studio after choosing the tracks you want to work for a possible album, i realise that you guys do not care at all about the commercial side of the music (business) ... (they laugh raucously) hum, yes, you done the stuff you want to do and didn't comment, not only once, what was the best way to sell you. if you call music to what we do, well, you must be concerned with that, and the fact that you were and are working for a pseudo-commercial venture... are you mad? the catalogue a commercial venture? yes, the catalogue, whether you want or not is a commercial venture; low or limited liability partnership, that's what's says in the contract!!! david do not think about money, do you? i don't believe that for a single second. remember when he saw us playing records in the sub? he came to us and ask if we did music. exactly, music. and that involves immediatelly money and time and rules and whatever the fuck... nah, nah, he didn't even referred to it. he was jsut curious. with an accent from london and well dressed... you bitch, you thought to get into his trousers, pas vrai? yes, that's true... he was interested in the records we were playing. that's why he came to speak with us. it was a chance meeting because we just happened to go to sub and the dj supposed to play broke a leg, the substitute was stuck in traffic and we vollunteered. anyway, he didn't speak he was from an artistic community or from a label!!! you just had this beautiful pale face, like a cherub a bit lost in the sub, right? actually i was on my way to london and the rain was torrencial, so i stayed the night and my friend anne took me to sub, fab place, never been before... and when you played arthur baker, yeap, out of the blue and mixed it with brian eno i knew you guys could do something special, that's why i asked you if you made music, apart from djying... yeap! remember that the blonde twink came out just like that. i was thinking about the drum machines of arthur baker, actually, when i started playing around... we didn't have a tune called blonde twink at all, it was the beat and the old sound of it - and arthur baker - i would like to be his boyfriend! you recorded all in two days, right? it was out of schedule and we finished it in glasgow and then we send it to you when you came out with a remix that we didn't like at all, and then we fucked it up and it worked well, pristine. i fucking like the sound of the glitchy bits, and what david done with the drum machine was essencial, it gave it a wonky feel - what i like most are the cut ups that you have to listen carefully to perceive them. it is a mish mash, is it not? i like the cranky accoustic drums we recorded - very drunk, as usual. david, wasn't during the second night session that someone brought lots os hashish and - yeap, the title!!! now i remember... the blonde twink brought the stash and the beer and stayed all night, yeap! that's why we called it blonde twink without hesitation. when we started it it was something like the goonies, wasn't it? with a very naff acidic line? it was so bad that we only thought about it again when david send us the remix, innit? the one with the extra chords and bass - it worked better, but it was still fucking rubish, innit? and then the blonde twink that gave the title to the track met us in glasgow and we had a fucking night and we re-did the next day - literally he was the erection and the sperm that created the tune. we never thought the guys at the catalogue would like it. there is nothing much on it, is it? the twink played a bit of drums, didn't he? BLESS! FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES WE TOOK HIM INSIDE AND ABUSED HIM IMMENSILY - IMMENSE SILLY! i think we liked him a lot, did he liked us? yes... sure he did, he still does. he wants to be our live sound engineer, i wonder why! if blonde twink was born out of the pleasures of listening to arthur baker and the physical graces of a blonde bimbo, pollock's bollocks was re-recorded in a day and little was changed, if i remember well. i liked it ok. raw and brut. a gem, i think. you had it very well delineated, didn't you? we didn't even touched the drum's samples... it started again as a drum line we stole from something else, a track we didn't use and we archived, fucked aweful thing. the drums at the beginning are exactly the same as in that defunct track. pollock is kind of special because we recorded the demo in 2006 and thought it was too dancey, 808 state, and we weren't in the mood to advance it, to work on it - we were thinking turning into an ambient combo - drugs, psychadelica, sampladelica and lots of abstract thoughts... the track is basically composed by philip (thomas); he came with a 8 track demo he made at home and we didn't alter it much... it was only when we started djying at sub that we picked it up again. benny (eerohz's benny silva-pereira) liked it and asked to make a remix. in the end he has done about ten. our favourite is the ginger bread mix, doubtless it is - we played it on and on and late at night the track works very well with the ecstasy crowd, but, must be said, we never thought it would be released. what benny did was update the beats and work on the basses (there are five different kind of basses on the track) and in the end it sounds very eighties, doesn't it? nitzer ebb, most defiantly, it is fabulous, i am sure - the kids go crazy in the sub... benny told me he made a version with a track by rick astley of the stock, aitken and waterman period... wow! really, i would like to hear it! that would be very naff, very pinky gay, ooooo eighties of hard rock sex...
>> trio of young men that refuses to allow normality invade their ideas. sampladelica, electronica, beats, noise aficionados, they come from glasgow (scotland, united kingdom) and their age’s starts at 16 and ends on 28. sentient orchid is the first signed act to catalogue of wonders. the first result of this collaboration will be the limited e-release of an e.p., being recorded, all tracks on the catalogue (soundcloud.com/catalogueofwonders) are edits from demos collated over the years.
my face fell and i looked at the clear water but, seeing myself in it, switched to the grass, so heavy was the shame on my brow (dante, purgatorio).
christophorus theognis finds inspiration in polybius, longinus, lucian. heliodorus, kama sutra, bhagavad ghita, stendhal, umberto eco.
philip thomas finds inspiration in having sex with girls and boys, sadao hasegawa, marquis de sade, yukio mishima, aphex twin, brian eno, flowers, beaches.
george hoare finds inspiration in mud, fungi, microscopic and hubble’s photos, rumi, butt magazine. philip said: pride, arrogance, conceit, anger, harshness and ignorance - these qualities belong to those we do not like at all.
a little laziness is good for feeling the current of time. i tell you you've got to relax a little more at least than the nothingness knotted into nets around you by stars. be interested in everything but in nothing very much until you're very close.
charles o. hartman, in 'gravitation' - glass enclosure, published by wesleyan university press, 1995
>> alain robbe-grillet exclaimed once: the only future the work can accept is to happen all over again in the identical way: in putting the reels of the film back into the projector. >
> all tracks are in demo form and uses an amount of known samples that makes impossible (due to their expensive cost) for these tracks to be released. philip thomas, george hoare & christophorus theognis (published by sentient orchid editions, glasgow, assigned to artis vanitas music publishers, london on behalf of catalogue of wonders (arts) llp )> recorded at the sentient orchid from september 2005 to august 2010. mastered by david h. hillman at the naked lizard lounge, october 2006.demo. > (c) 2010 catalogue of wonders & sentient orchid editions >
images by eadweard j. muybridge amination > homodesiribus used by permission > sentient orchid's band photographs and digital manipulation > graphic design > wassily blossfeldt for w.b. industries 2010 > sentient orchid's sleeves art & design by ars publica (london) > all the above material is (c) all rights reserved > catalogue of wonders (arts) llp > |
> 
< peninsula orfica (orphic peninsula)
sentient orchid > private pleasures (blue collection) by catalogue of wonders
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