Orphx

Since 1993, in the dirty and deserted streets of Hamilton, ON, Orphx has been creating apocalyptic audio-visual environments, best described as odes to the industrial landscape of Steeltown. Richard Oddie’s latest album, Insurgent Flows, created with help from long-time collaborator Christina Sealey, is a dark, electro/acoustic journey into the heart of the machine. The noise and intensity of industrial music are punctuated with the rhythmic pulse of electro and dub to create a hammering urgency that gives a surreal sense of power to the samples of protesters hidden in the compositions. "Threshold” begins with synths so soft that they emulate the sounds of steam clouds evaporating as the listener slowly descends into the depths of a blast furnace. There are nods to thunderous techno, such as Jeff Mills’s "The Hacker,” but Orphx’s work stands on its own, with a flowing sense of composition often lacking in hard techno. It would have been nice to have a taste of Oddie’s video work on this disc, but as far as sound is concerned this album is a deep audio treat.