oRSo - Ask Your Neighbor [CD]

Contraphonic

October 26, 2008, 08:35 PM

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The sixth long player from (in their own words) “orchestrated folk weirdness” merchants oRSo is in short, a very welcome distraction from the world of radio friendly popular music. Sure, I like to listen to Girls Aloud and similar manufactured bullshit if it comes on the radio because I’m not pretentious and like it because I am a human being, and this music was after all, created for everyday people to like and to therefore consume.

Sometimes though, it can all get a bit too much. Too many ‘woah’s and excessive ‘baby’s in my day can really get to me and I just need to switch off and to escape this in-one-ear-and-out-of-the-other disposable music culture that we live in; and oRSo’s ‘Ask Your Neighbor’ is perfect for this. A very bleak, low-key and effortless sounding chill out masterpiece, this record is sure to entice those who happen to somehow hear it. I say ‘somehow’ because I can fairly confidently say that no track from this album will be getting considerable airplay or exposure to the general public; for the simple reason that it does not contain any potential singles. Sure, the final section of album closer ‘Way Way’ is a little more upbeat then the rest of ‘Ask Your Neighbor’, but this is still nothing like the music that we get force fed on a daily basis. This is good though, because this is oRSo’s appeal and besides, they probably don’t even want to devalue what they have created.

Maybe I chose the right time to review this record (a Sunday night), but I really connected with it and came away feeling like I understood what it was about; even without having considered a single word that was sang. Again though, this is still a positive aspect because this is the type of dynamic album that allows the listener to attach their own meaning to the music and therefore leaves it open to many possibilities.

Highlights of ‘Ask Your Neighbor’ come from the generally mellow, creative, unrestrained and well composed tracks ‘To Be Held’, ‘Warm Up’ and ‘Anniversary’, but that really is picking the best of a great bunch. If you consider yourself to be open minded musically and fancy a break from music that is composed to tick all of the right boxes, then why not give oRSo a go? After all, its not going to come to you.

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