The Oroonies - Of Hoof and Horn (1992)

Described in their own era as a pagan psychedelic folk-punk band (!), the half Irish-half British Oroonies produced a handful of tapes and a few vinyl releases, among which this 1992 lp recorded for Demi Monde is surely the most successful. A weird record indeed: Mediterranean melodies, tribal drums, woodland madness, eastern European flavoured waltzes, hypnotic rhythms, invocations to Pan, Ozric Tentacles-style trippy instrumental passages, the whole wisely merged and shaken for the listening pleasure of the most adventurous listeners.

The Oroonies presented themselves as follows:

The Oroonies are a group of friends and their instruments who amongst other things have been playing music together for well over ten years. There were never any Oroonie rules so in the past it’s been as diverse as manic punk thrash up a peaceful mountainside to nice little tunes in a London basement, and over this time all those pairs of ears have been listening carefully to the most obscure and peculiar music from all the corners of the globe, often to find the most ethnic of it to be the most demented… So whilst most other people were busy running around in ever decreasing circles, the Oroonies spent the 80’s sitting in odd little places, reading books, humming tunes, scrambling around in fairy forts, climbing snowy mountains in the dark, milking wild goats, lurking in the corner of warehouse parties in Kings Cross, watching Crystal Palace from the terraces or whatever all this and more turned into music… Always in search of an elemental feeling: surging walls of sound, force and fire, Pan’s pipes echoing, mad laughter bubbling up, in the Grove at dawn, feel the moon in the heavens, feel the storm inside your head… endure, enjoy, forget. […] All you need is to bring your psychedelic sense of humour with you. Perhaps we are not serious! We are: Joie who plays the synthesisers and supplies the samples. Tanya the drummer who also sings and plays the double bass. Geek who is mostly bassist but also bouzouki man and saxophonist. Russ the guitarist and vocalist who also plays bouzouki and percussion. Jane flautist and conch blower. Jo the string section. Merv: percussionist at gigs and keyboard person in the studio. Between us all we write, arrange and mutilate our material! Joie and Merv also play in the Ozric Tentacles and Wooden Baby. Joie also plays with the Ullulators too. (DemiMonde)

Link in comments