or better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

Man I could do that - shit, anyone could do that’. Yes, this is the sensation granted by the knowledge that the music you’re listening to, the novel you’re reading, the piece of abstract art you’re gazing at, is no more than the application of a limited talent - the only reason you’re experiencing this art is because it has been made. Okay, so the issue is that you could create that art if you had the energy, the materials, and the market. But you don’t, no, you just continue dreaming of the philosopher’s stone that you will create; the liquid essence of artistic expression that will convert the magic of your knowledge, experience and imagination into the purest art. This is the dream of the poet, and all art aspires to poetry. So you continue thinking, ‘man, I could do that, I just wouldn’t waste my time on it’. Fine, keep dreaming. Dreams fuel our waking moments.

And yet, and yet - at times, you’re confronted with MAGIC, with the truest expression wherein all the swirling layers of your desires and dreams are met. This is pure art. This doesn’t happen often. It is epiphanic, the direct communication with the godhead, the primal energy. No, this godhead is not the artist, as the artist is merely the transmitter of the eternal substance, the communicator, the messenger, the deliverer. And under these illuminating circumstances, you never feel ‘man, I could do this’. It is far beyond even your imaginary capabilities.

Exactly, move over you poor imitators of lofty genius. Move over you creators of bubblegum images designed merely to support us above the yawning chasm, the wide void. Move over the art of coffee breaks and coats. Allow the real poets to perform. The creators of an art unconcerned with the market, the public, the genre, the canon. Allow those aligned with the rhythms of the seasons and the streams of universal energy to perform.

Is this pompous exaggeration? Is this masturbatory drivel? Or was I actually powerfully and emotionally affected when I listened to ‘O’rang’s album Herd of Instinct? Did it not move me in a profound way? Am I not to be inspired?

The story goes: Talk Talk’s drummer and bassist, Lee Harris and Paul Webb, some time after T.T’s final album Laughing Stock, built a studio named The Slug, whereto they invited herds of instinctively talented musicians to come and tap into the creative streams running through. The thrust of these sessions, according both to the legend and to the released recorded material, was freeform improv jam, governed by allowing each performer an individual and distinct voice as much as uniting in the choral concert. Throughout all this, the spirit of Harris rhythms draws the role of the drummer away from metronomic guide to that of the voice of a wise, benevolent and understanding leader. Harris is not a percussionist, he is the creator of a bewitching quantity guiding and animating all who accompany his song.

Out of this an EP, Spoor (1994) was born, and later, the full length Herd of Instinct (1994).

The opening, eponymous track at once conveys the spirit governing the entire album, as a dark, deep, dangerous wind arises from out of the shadows, and the thrusting knowing drums lead the noise into the vacuum, filling the void, guitars scrowling into the darkness, many guitars, a storm of metal energies. Male and female vocals wailing through the swirling racing cymbal-crashing clouds. A true harmony of desires rallying like warrior horsemen around the leading nucleus of the drums. Towards the end they slow, rein in their snorting steeds, the drums go silent, and a distant voice of a girl floats across the plain from the far hills. They all listen, quiet. And the dark cloud comes steadily over, mist, confusion, noises crashing in the darkness, bounding and rebounding, spiralling off, away away, as the cloud passes, the light returns. And all returns to silence.

And the second track comes on; its rhythm tribal, oriental, ordered, wise, steady. The female vocals begin a chant against a backdrop of Japanese gongs and cymbals. A violin wails in agreement with the wise woman, the noises of the crowd grow in excitement, in agreement. The concert is achieved, as more voices add to the steady moot, all, as ever, guided by the drums. And the distorted guitar, stuttery, jittery, crazy, leads the performance, barking dangerous waips of weirdness at the world. The guitar quietens, electric currents of crisp crackles fill the space, leading the assemblage off, off into the darkness.

And yet they all return for the ensuing track, blown up in the dust cloud of before, guided guided guided by the drums, crazed horns howling, grating guitars growling, the bass drowning all in dark depths. The sun appears through the dust. Majestic major chords proclaim their pride, a haunting male vocal warbles a shamanic ritualistic repetitive refrain. And the drums and bass together, dancing together, running off together into the distance. Leaving in an echo of a child’s voice.

Bird song, light melodies in the light. Hoots and cries in the woods. Sunlight streaming off a girl’s sweet song. The fourth track begins as a walk in the enchanted woods. Ecclesiastical organ chords, and we trail off into beautiful peace and sleep…

Into nightmare…

The woods are dark, the dark woods. Who’s there? Haunting cries, cackles, breathing, shadows. A slow beat in the clearing, we’re drawn to the fire. A slow song, sung by a voice very akin to Mark Hollis. A chant, slow and vibrato. The slow drum rhythm steady. Slowly a female voice harmonises, ecstatic, wild, gentle, entwined with the male, rising in power with the smoke of the fire. They grow together. They cry out together, crying with a flute. And fall back. They rise pursuing a new direction, an urgent direction, a serious stride, towards where? Others join in the chant, understanding the urgency. Yes yes, they sing. This is important. Come, wake the others, it’s still dark but join our song, wake the guitars, the bassist rumbles in furrowed folds of darkness. Off off off, the girl shouting into the darkness. And all ends on a steady long note……

And off in the next movement together under the jungly beat. The girl still crying out, echoey - oh the drums - filling all spaces, a rhythm of pure energy, take us take us. So precise, so steady, so fucking convincing, mesmerising. Yet this mesmeric bewitching spirit cannot disguise the forever wise depths of the bass, rising to touch and fall away from the drums and the vocals and the guitars, holding all in a bassy breath.

And thus the host of energies that combine to form Herd of Instinct, enacting so powerful a display of wisdom and understanding of the forces of light and darkness, floats…skips…laughs…off…into…the…shadows…

Our instinct is pre-conscious. It forms the communication between mind, body and spirit, responsive to the pre-linguistic, pre-logical desires and appetites, controlling our actions as the dark substance beyond will. ‘O’rang perform for the instinct, for all the instinctive longings and emotions and energies, the whole animal herd of instinct within us. Yet the music touches the three poles of our triadic being. It satisfies a hunger in our physical self, educates our conscious thirst for knowledge, and illuminates the mystic realm of the spirit.

And Lee Harris is a fucking impressive drummer.