Orb
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Orb

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“I was actually in Centrelink at the time and there was a stack of boxes,” says guitarist and vocalist Zak Olsen, “and on all the boxes was written ‘iron mountain’. I didn’t know what was in the boxes, but it just sounded cool at the time, and a good song name.”

With The Frowning Clouds in a semi-permanent hiatus, Olsen and fellow Clouds members Daff Gravolin (guitar and bass) and Jamie Harmer (drums) revived their teenage interest in Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult, augmented with less familiar heavy rock bands such as Diamond Head and Megadeth, and Orb was born.

“[Orb] just came about out of convenience because the three of us lived so close together at the time, and also none of us were working at the time so we’d spend most of our time doing that because it was just easy doing that,” Olsen says. “We wanted to do something that was different for us to do, that we weren’t used to, which was playing in different tunings, just trying to make longer songs.”

The original idea for Orb was centred on doom rock, tempered with a sense of humour and irony that would take the edge off any self-indulgence that might inadvertently arise. “We did have the idea of doom originally, and we thought it would be funny, or at least for us,” Olsen says.

But Birth is much more than a heavy doom rock record, with moments of psychedelia, prog-rock and the occasional foray into pop. “I guess it’s gone on from where we started, so it’s not strictly doom anymore, and I don’t think it would stay that way anyway,” Olsen says. “Having said that, we still enjoy playing the heavier things with different tunings and lots of fuzz. Maybe it’s not necessarily doom, but a bit faster, a bit groovier now, a bit more groove-based.”

Having started out jamming on a riff, Orb quickly moved to writing songs with a notional structure. “The tracks on the album are definitely written as songs,” Olsen says. “When we started we wanted to have a big jam aspect to the band and do a lot of improvising live. But for one reason or another we don’t let ourselves do that, and we always end up adding structure. I don’t know what that is. The album is jammy in some parts but it is pretty much well thought out, and if you come and see it live it’s relatively the same as you’ll hear it on the record.” 

When Orb get immersed in some serious riffing – such as on the 16-minute Electric Blanket – images of stoned kids in their bedroom nodding their heads to the grooving licks, or lying in a forest searching for spiritual awakening, come to mind. “I’d like to say it’s best to listen to the record while driving,” Olsen says. “But you can listen to it however you like – we don’t condone anything.”

While the band name – by dictionary definition a sphere, but also a lesser known Marvel comic character and a regular object of knowledge in science fiction and fantasy literature – doesn’t betray any significant meaning, the band members’ interest in science fiction can be discerned in Orb’s music and lyrics. 

“I suppose the science fiction influence is in the synthesisers – synthesisers always tend to have a bit of a science fiction vibe about them,” Olsen says. “And it’s definitely in the lyrics.  We all read lots of sci-fi, and that always makes interesting topics to sing about. And a lot of the sci-fi books relate to social issues these days, and it can be quite uncanny how much they do. Basically, it just makes something good to sing about.”

The song titles are in keeping with the sci-fi context: Iron Mountain, New Moon, Electric Blanket, Reflection. “Sometimes we think of song names and names that would sound cool and we’ll have a list of unused song names,” Olsen says. “When we’re rehearsing we’ll have a certain riff, and the riff might have a sort of fantasy vibe to it, for God knows what reason, so we’ll attach one of those names to it. I guess the music influences the lyrics, and vice versa. Mainly I just try and do what’s easy for me to sing live. I like to keep the melodies simple, at the moment anyway.”

The title of the album suggests Orb will evolve in the future, possibly to adolescence and even adulthood. “There was a cassette that came out before that was called Womb. This album is Birth, and we were going to continue the theme but I think maybe we might have grown out of that. There will be a song on the next album called Childhood Ends, so I guess that ties in with it maybe.” 

Maybe, I suggest, if they’re still playing in 30 years’ time, they could release Orb: Cantankerous. “I think we’re nearly there already,” Olsen says. “We’re like three old men in conversation.”

BY PATRICK EMERY