Ortho/Irene Moon - split 7"
(Ignivomous)
Though the term musical theater often conjures up horrific images of over-acting and life’s foibles resolved in song form, there’s no inherent evil in the concept of combining the two. Lexington, Kentucky’s Auk Theater offer simple pantomimes with cartoonish props, set to a soundtrack that combines a warped aural accompaniment with diegetic effects that act as guides for the narrative. Irene Moon, the group’s founder, takes everyday activities and social interactions (in this case, a visit to the dentist), magnifying the absurd and surreal, to create her otherworldly scenes. On her side of this 7”, a split picture disc with New York’s Ortho, one must imagine the visual aspects of “Auk Dentist” as clued by the music, though, with Moon’s penchant for the weaving of samples, electronic noises, and isolated vocal recordings, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what could be happening. A ringing phone, the ominous sound of the drill, and a voice-over from what was probably a high school psychology filmstrip offer clues, but, in the end, the music needn’t rely on the story, and Moon’s psychedelic pastiche remains just as hypnotic in it’s purely aural form.
Ortho, capitalizes, it seems, on Moon’s love of entomology, with their contribution to the disc, with plenty of buzzing and flittering sound. It’s not hard to imagine the music as the magnified sounds of insects, with the rapid flapping of wings, scurrying feet, and probing antennae. “Ortho demonstrates how humans would benefit by behaving more like insects” is a title that’s almost longer than the group’s side of the slab, but it’s a useful guide when it comes to listening to Ortho’s buggy noise.
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