Hayden Thorpe unveils brand new song "Doom Orchid" ahead of UK tour starting
Hayden Thorpe
Shares brand new song “Doom Orchid” – stream here
Plus In Conversation with Robert MacFarlane recording released – listen here
UK tour kicks off this weekend
Ness album out now
Hayden Thorpe
Shares brand new song “Doom Orchid” – stream here
Plus In Conversation with Robert MacFarlane recording released – listen here
UK tour kicks off this weekend
Ness album out now
Photo credit: Eeva Rinne
“The 13 tracks of Ness offer calm with a suitably disquieting undertow, rather like the place itself, with Thorpe’s countertenor adding to the melodrama” Mojo 4*
“Poetic, windswept electronic pop” Uncut 8/10
“A remarkable, absorbing, often stunning experience” Clash 9/10
“Thorpe has woven a tapestry of sound that’s as enigmatic as the former weapons testing site that inspired it” Dork
“Folk, pop and electronica merge to create an evocative, sometimes unsettling listening experience” Songlines
Following on from the release of his third studio album Ness last year, Hayden Thorpe has shared a brand-new song, “Doom Orchid”, on which he continues to explore the mysteries of Suffolk’s Orford Ness and the destructive nature of the atomic weapon research that happened there.
Thorpe elaborates: “Performing the album at Orford Ness beside a nuclear missile had a profound effect on me. I came to see the missile as strange phallic totem, not a fertility symbol but the inverse of that, a ridiculous hyper-macho amulet of death. Doom Orchid explores our very human dark urges and how our destructive impulses and our libidinous wants must agonisingly co-exist. It’s a love letter to Ness, but perhaps the sort of letter that reveals a little too much.”
Alongside “Doom Orchid”, Thorpe releases “Listen To Ness: In Conversation with Robert MacFarlane”, a long-form recording of a discussion between the two collaborators on all things Ness: its origins and how the project grew to what it is today.
Stream “Doom Orchid” here.
Stream “Listen To Ness: In Conversation with Robert MacFarlane” here.
Thorpe starts his UK tour of Ness this weekend, full dates below with select appearances from Robert MacFarlane.
Orford Ness is a ten-mile long shingle spit on the coast of Suffolk, the former Ministry of Defence site during both World Wars and the Cold War, it was acquired by the National Trust in 1993 and left to re-wild. To this day, it remains a place of paradox, mystery and constant evolution. Using a process of redaction, Thorpe brings the songs to life from the words of pioneering, best-selling place writer Robert Macfarlane’s book of the same name. Stream Ness here.
Upcoming live dates
Saturday 25th January – Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
Sunday 26th January – Celtic Connections @ City Halls Recital Room, Glasgow
Tuesday 28th January – Music Room, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
Wednesday 29th January – National Centre For Early Music, York
Thursday 30th January – Sage 2, The Glasshouse International Centre For Music, Gateshead
Friday 31st January – The Gate, Cardiff
Saturday 1st February – The Lantern, Bristol Beacon, Bristol
Sunday 2nd February – Blackwell Performance Space, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Birmingham - matinee
Tuesday 4th February – Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich
Wednesday 5th February – Komedia, Brighton
Thursday 6th February – Storey’s Field Centre, Cambridge w/ Robert Macfarlane
Friday 7th February – Kings Place, London w/ Robert Macfarlane – sold out
Saturday 12th April – L’Archipel, Paris
Sunday 13th April – Effenaar, Eindhoven
Tuesday 15th April – Haldern Pop Bar, Rees
Wednesday 16th April – Jaki, Cologne
Friday 17th April – Baketown, Berlin
Saturday 18th April – Trafo, Jena
Sunday 19th April – Feinkost Lampe, Hanover
Wednesday 7th May – Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival @ The Deer’s Head, Belfast
Thursday 8th May – The Grand Social, Dublin
Friday 9th May – St Michael’s Church, Manchester
Tickets
Ness is available to buy on exclusive black Biovinyl (with hand-numbered A4 lyric sheet signed by Hayden Thorpe and Robert Macfarlane), standard black Biovinyl, CD (in partially recycled jewel case) and digitally. Buy: Dom Mart | Digital
Hayden Thorpe Online
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