‘O’Rang – Herd Of Instinct

Talk Talk’s rhythm section dive into a world of ambient, fourth world, and tribal dub on Herd of Instinct, the debut album from Paul Webb and Lee Harris’ lesser known ’90s project ‘O’Rang. Much like Talk Talk’s later albums, the music here was recorded largely through improvisation with a number of guest musicians, and then later painstakingly edited and pieced together. Featuring guest appearances from Beth Gibbons (Portishead), Matt Johnson (The The), Graham Sutton (Bark Psychosis, Boymerang), Mark Feltham (Talk Talk) and Anthony Thistlewaite (The Waterboys), Herd of Instinct is a post-rock masterpiece that expands upon the atmospheric sonic world of Talk Talk. “We used to be in a reggae band when we were younger,” says Paul Webb. “The Talk Talk thing was always very westernised, and we were listening to other kinds of world music. We don’t really compare ourselves with what we did with Talk Talk, because even though this is our first record, we’ve got our own history of recording and writing. With Talk Talk, the tracks were more or less conceived out of the studio, and even though it’s quite a free-sounding thing, there was a start and beginning to each piece. Everything was planned in rehearsals, but we took that away with Orang – it was recorded before it was written.”

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