White Orange on CD

A few months ago I received a beautiful and mysterious slab o' vinyl that may be the most gorgeous picture disc I've ever seen. This 12", from an enigmatic Portland band called White Orange, basically featured two versions of the song "Middle of the Riddle"--a long extended psychedelic hyperjam and an edited radio-friendly version that basically extracted the middle section and eschewed the lengthy build-up and fade outs. "Middle" was a playful, grungy '70s style hard rock song, only occasionally top-heavy with thundering prog metal riffs.

Well, I have the new White Orange debut CD courtesy of Kaytea at XO, and it's quite a different animal--even though it inserts the shorter "Middle of the Riddle" in the showcased track 3 position. Judging from the first two tracks, "Where" and "Color Me Black," this is a band that plays on the same jungle gym as bands like Mastodon in a playground just across the street from the guys in Tool. White Orange cites such influences as Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth, King Crimson and Syd Barrett, but this suggests a looser, free-form sound. Instead, White Orange's sound is tight, heavy and ornate.

The promo copy provides White Orange with such whimsical descriptors as "psychedelic sludgy doomy stoner rockers" and "full of hazy solos, waffling clean vocals, gauzy druggie guitar figures"--and that's pretty damn close. (Is it bad to put promo copy in your review? Especially when it's this entertaining?) The vocals are processed heavily and border on lugubrious, adding a Gothic tinge to the songs (Nathaniel Hawthorne gothic, not Bauhaus gothic), and the guitar riffs are fuzzy, simple and have all the subtlety of a mudslide. If you're so inclined, your head will bob rhythmically to these paleolithic slabs of arena rock. If we had White Orange back in the '70s (and my memory of a couple of Hot Tuna LPs come close), we'd be wreaking major destruction on Saturday nights with songs like "Dinosaur Bones" and "Wonderful" as our official soundtrack.

If I don't quite embrace this particular wall of sound, it's more a result of my own fading youth than anything else, and perhaps my desire for more precision in my metallurgy and less "sludge" and "haze." But, as someone much younger than me recently said, White Orange is one of the more thoughtful, interesting and inventive prog metals out there. I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps I shouldn't be reviewing something this tumultuous on a Sunday morning, but I'm awake now, and ready to break something.

A Crazy-Ass New LP from White Orange

Up until a couple of years ago, I used to include a category on my year-end Vinyl Anachronist articles for Perfect Sound Forever called "Coolest Vinyl Find of the Year." Well, I know it's only January 25, but I think we already have a winner for 2011.

A mysterious package arrived at my doorstep yesterday. Okay, I know Kaytea McIntosh from XO Publicity sent it to me, but this package was big and flat, and Kaytea usually sends me little silver discs that fit neatly into my mailbox. I sniffed the package carefully and immediately detected the fine, rich smell of vinyl. I was right. What didn't know, however, was that I had just received perhaps the most beautiful picture disc I've ever seen.

It's from a Portland band called White Orange. Other than a somewhat spare and enigmatic MySpace page, there isn't a lot of information on these guys. I do know from the album cover that Dustin Hill sings, plays guitar and writes all the songs while Dean Carroll plays the drums. Evidently there are two bassists--Ryan McIntire and Adam Pike (which is fairly unusual in itself). The album has been released by Made In China Records.

There isn't even a title for the LP; it simply says "White Orange performs '...and this is why I speak to you in parables' and 'middle of the riddle.'" But as you can see from the pics, this is a sumptuous, gorgeous vinyl LP with complex, amazing artwork.

The music is pretty cool, too...this is basically an EP with just one song per side, and it's the same song. "...and this is why I speak to you in parables" is a thirteen minute-plus epic that unravels slowly yet harshly like something from Godspeed! You Black Emperor! and then settles into a punchy, noisy psychedelic rock song that channels both Hot Tuna at its most abrasive and perhaps something more progressive and elegiac like Wishbone Ash. "Middle of the Riddle" is simply a more radio-friendly edit of the same song that last just a bit over five minutes. It's basically the central (i.e. the "middle") section that eschews the long build-up in the beginning and the long jam that leads to the fade-out.

The music is almost at odds with the mystical packaging. To tell you the truth, I had no idea what to expect until the needle hit those beautifully adorned grooves. While Hill's guitar is rather straightforward, stripped and raw, Carroll's drumming is full of thunderous fills that captures the exact momentum of the greatest acid rock drummers of the late '60s and early '70s. The two bassists are very entertaining as well, with plenty of subterranean bends and drop-offs.

I'm not sure when this LP will be available to the masses, but as long as it's not priced at a premium "audiophile" LP price, it's definitely worth picking up. (A little logo on the back on the cover says "Limited Edition of 500," so there are 499 left!) Obviously the artwork alone is worth it, but the lone song-and-a-half makes me want to hear more from this Stumptown quartet so I can figure out what they're about.

You can check out White Orange's MySpace page, however, where you can sample some of their other songs. That's what I'm gonna do. It's at http://www.myspace.com/whiteorangeband.