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  • For over a decade, Orphx has been creating a unique fusion of electro-acoustic experimentation and hypnotic dance music. Utilizing analog synthesizers, samplers, feedback systems, and various homemade instruments, Orphx combines the experimental aesthetics of early industrial music with the pulse of techno, electro and dub.

  • Orphx began in 1993 in Dundas, Canada, as a trio consisting of Richard Oddie, Christina Sealey and Aron West. Taking their name from the Orphic mystery cult, the group began to explore a shared interest in experimental music. Early recordings and live performances used primitive equipment to produce psychedelic noisescapes inspired by early industrial music, dark ambient, grindcore and the emerging Japanese noise scene. West left the group in 1995 to focus attention on noise project Tropism with collaborator Johnny Dark, while Oddie and Sealey began creating drone music under the name Antiform and incorporating more rhythmic elements into Orphx, inspired by an immersion in acid house and minimal techno. Orphx gradually became the studio project of Richard Oddie, working in collaboration with Christina Sealey on some recordings and all live performances.

  • Orphx has since gained an international following as one of the pioneering acts within the European rhythmic noise scene. Oddie and Sealey have performed in numerous countries around the world, appearing alongside artists such as Hakim Bey, Pan Sonic, Esplendor Geometrico, Istvan Kantor, Venetian Snares, Funkstorung, Rapoon, Dead Voices on Air, Download and many others. Each performance combines live audio with original video compositions that explore the recurring themes of conflict and transformation.

  • Orphx has released a number of influential albums and singles since the mid 1990s, ranging from rhythmic power electronics (Fragmentation, 1996) to minimalist techno-industrial (Vita Mediativa, 1998) to electro-acoustic soundscapes (The Living Tissue, 2001; Sealey Oddie Spybey, 2003), with more recent releases combining all of these approaches into new hybrids of synthetic / organic sound (Circuitbreaking, 2004; Insurgent Flows, 2005). Moving unexpectedly between different genres and approaches, the recordings and performances of Orphx all retain a unique aesthetic: bursts of noise that obscure the dominant signal, other voices that refuse to be silenced, the Orphic descent and return.

 

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