Orka - All At Once (2023)

ORKA release their much anticipated sixth studio album All At Once available on vinyl and digital via Kervið on 29th September

Francine Perry from London and Jens L. Thomsen from the Faroe Islands aka ORKA’s long awaited sixth studio All At Once is an immersive opus that embodies the duo’s distinctive blend of earthy tones and a bold, adventurous spirit. Over ten tracks we are taken to a uniquely ORKA realm bursting with neon-lit hues, pulsating club beats, and an abundance of sensory stimulation that embraces themes of duality, connection and their combined story as artists and performers.

Opening with lead single ‘Bird’, a track inspired by their industrial studio surroundings in South London and avian field recordings that never made the final cut, ORKA launch us into a ‘disjointed avant garde take on Gqom’ that blisters through bass and techno references. Complex and percussive, the duo enlisted long-time collaborators Will and Si from LV (Hyperdub, Keysound, Brownswood) to help finesse the final touches on ‘Bird’ and a handful of others across the album.

Ambient interlude ‘Millennium Green’ follows (the first of three with ‘Blythe Hill’ and ‘Catford Snow’ providing sonic sorbets later on in the record), before ‘Gold’ is back to business with another slice of unrelenting futurist techno populated with urgent vocal samples.

Next up is the duo’s second single from All At Once, ‘Mother’ taking on more reflective, headsy territory. Celebrating the club-experience as ‘womb-like’, it becomes its own nurturing world where enveloped in darkness we float to the reassuring throb of bass and kick. Drawing on feelings of connection, nostalgia and otherworldliness, ‘Mother’ beguiles like a captivating rave fever dream.

All At Once is perhaps the closest to a ‘full blown dance record’ that the duo have ever made and tracks like ‘Atlantic’ and ‘Glory Dust’ give this in spades. ‘Atlantic’ is spacey techno territory while ‘Glory Dust’ is house adjacent with euphoric synth stabs and distorted vox that ensure the sonic landscape is always distinctly ORKA. This diverse use of vocal samples across the record - divided from their semiotic meanings and reconfigured as loops, mined for their timbral and percussive qualities - also remind us of the themes of human struggle and global unrest that inspired the piece and the social and political contexts that inform ORKA’s work more broadly.

As well as the dancier facets, All At Once encompasses plenty of moments of floating cyber beauty and pure enveloping warmth too. ‘N176’ is one of these- one of many South London referencing titles on the piece- we are taken on an atmospheric night ride, reaching near transcendence as it shimmers with sonic texture and detail. While ‘Ser’ closes the album with brooding pensiveness, drawing from their maximalist industrial palette in muted but none-the-less arresting tones.

The collective result is ORKA’s own brand of queer erotic dance-floor mysticism, a shimmering futurist city of the night: collective, inclusive and alluring. All At Once signifies yet another remarkable leap forward in the duos’ artistic evolution, filled with unexpected twists and turns and as always, eternally captivating. A glorious and vibrant tapestry, we witness the merging of two exceptional artists in one compelling vision, mirrored in the album’s artwork by Kirstin Helgadóttir who combined the pair’s faces to create another figure that is both and neither at the same time.

Showcasing a bold approach to techno that pulsates with energy and forefronts their artistry as live performers, All At Once cements ORKA as one of the most captivating and urgent electronic acts around today. An unmissable record that brims with complex ideas and technical prowess, and a must-see experienced live at their launch show at Iklectik in London on the 5th of October.