17th October 2025
Christopher Nosnibor
…and still, the COVID pandemic continues to yield new offerings, even if some are repackaged, or otherwise documents of events which took place during that strange, strange time. Real live music events were, during those dark days, simply things of memory, which we could only dream of happening again – because, for a while which felt like an eternity, there was no end in sight. Live streaming events were as close as we got. I watched a few, participated in a handful, too, but like having beers on Zoom, as much as they went some way towards filling the gaping chasm that was social life, these things were countered by a certain pang of sadness and consternation, reminding us as they did of what we were being deprived of, highlighting the fact that there is truly no substitute for the experience of live music. I write this as a fairly ardent misanthrope who will sometimes go to quite exceptional lengths to avoid other people. But sharing a room with musicians and people who seek to become one with the sound and the experience is something altogether different. Unless it’s one of those gigs where casuals turn up and yack at one another in loud voices for the duration, of course. I find that this happens less in proportion to the obscurity – and / or extremity – of the music. The more difficult, the more abrasive, the further from the mainstream the artist, the cooler the audience. In this context, Orphax’s audience must be bordering on godlike.
Embraced Imperfections features ‘two live performances recorded during a live video streaming event during the early covid-19 pandemic’, originally released as Embraced Imperfections and Live in your living room, now, remastered, they come as a two-disc release. The title reflects the nature of the recordings – both performances were improvised ‘with various synths, organs, and effects’, and as such are inevitably imperfect. But… how would we know? Artists – musicians in particular – are commonly their own harshest critics. They kick themselves for the most minor flaws that simply no-one else on the planet would notice in a million lifetimes. But still, making peace with and embracing imperfections is a significant step.
The first disc – Embraced Imperfections I – offers forty-one minutes of slow-sweeping organ drone which subtly undulates and quivers, humming on, ebbing and flowing, but in the minutest of microtonal shifts. Above all, it’s a continuous sonic flow, and the shifts in its sounds and structure are made at an evolutionary pace. You don’t listen to music like this to be affected, to feel impact, but instead to be carried along, to feel it envelop you, to wash over you, to experience full immersion. It isn’t that nothing happens… so much as very little happens, and does so incredibly slowly. If listening requires patience, so does the making. It is not easy to hold a single note for long minutes at a time without feeling a certain pressure to ‘do’ something. As this performance evidences, Orphax possesses the Zen-like ability to resist any urge to increase the pace of movement – so much so that time itself seems to stall and sit in suspension here. Even the first fifteen minutes feels like a lifetime, and the secret to appreciating this is to stop listening and simply let it become the backdrop as you slow our breathing and allow yourself to relax. Remember what it is to relax?
The shorter Embraced Imperfections II, which clocks in at just over thirty-six minutes, is less overtly organ-driven and more constructed around an electronic hum, and it’s dark, claustrophobic. It also feels more low-key, and more ominous. It’s still another extended dronework, the sound of which is absolutely the immersive dronescape, the hovering hum that feels like nights drawing in and claustrophobic depression descending on the dense darkness. It’s a dense, scraping, soporific endless polytone that scratches and hums for what feels like all eternity. While far from accessible or easy listening, it does make for an immersive journey. And cat pics always win… embracing impurrfection.
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Aural Aggravation 