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The Unfolding
Released 01 April 2022
- The Universe Before Matter
- Wild Animal
- Passage
- The Unfolding
- If After Weeks Of Early Sun
- Perhaps It Made Us Happy For A Minute
- We Are Part Mineral
- Part Cloud
- The Unfolding Credits (Instrumental Version) - exclusive to the LP
- The Unfolding Credits
Liner notes
There are pieces of music that seek to tell us deeper stories. Others harness the talents of the players at their disposal in adventurous ways. Then there are the rare, generous works that make us think back to our roots as human beings and to our shared beginnings in the universe, that lift us in their melodies, rhythms and textures, that carry us with them.
The Unfolding is all of these things. An extraordinary eight-part collaboration between composer Hannah Peel (Mercury Prize and Emmy nominee) and Paraorchestra, it was made over three years in precious morsels of time around a global pandemic. These circumstances – unexpected when the collaboration began – add weight to its explorations in sound about who we are, where we came from, and who we could all be. The Unfolding also explores Paraorchestra’s progressive idea of what an orchestra should be, mixing acoustic, analogue, digital and assistive instruments with a unique ensemble of disabled and non-disabled musicians to make magic happen, and accessible to all.
I wanted to write them something that I felt was encompassing of who they are, and what they can achieve and what they bring to a show – which is this incredible energy and an incredible reminder of the human form and the human spirit. Hannah Peel on Paraorchestra
The collaboration’s roots go back to early 2018, when Paraorchestra’s Artistic Director, Charles Hazlewood, met Peel to ask if she’d consider writing for them. He’d first come across her “very randomly” some years earlier, he remembers, on YouTube, playing her music box cover version of ‘Tainted Love’ – he was particularly impressed that she’d made the music box herself. “I thought, wow, such skill, such creative imagination – I’m putting her down right now in my little book as someone that we ought to be trying to work with.” Since their first coffee onwards, it’s been “an unmitigated pleasure” he says. “She’s incredibly self-effacing and incredibly generous, her eyes and ears wide open to every tiny detail in the room.”
She’s incredibly self-effacing and incredibly generous, her eyes and ears wide open to every tiny detail in the room. Charles Hazlewood on Hannah Peel
Peel then saw the Paraorchestra playing Terry Riley’s ‘In C’; she was overwhelmed by the “energy about everything they do… and their ability to adapt and change and shift and mould”. In recent years, they’ve also reworked the music of Kraftwerk, Philip Glass and Barry White, and performed work that’s reconfigured expectations of theatre, dance and art installations. Peel found their versatility and collective capability incredibly inspiring. “I wanted to write them something that I felt was encompassing of who they are, and what they can achieve and what they bring to a show – which is this incredible energy and an incredible reminder of the human form and the human spirit.”
Reviews
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… the scope of Hannah Peels’ latest genre-busting opus couldn’t be greater... The Unfolding tackles the biggest of themes in a way that’s awed, never overwrought. UNCUT 8/10*
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…fresh and original. MOJO
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Passage is full of delicious atonal hovering, while If After Weeks of Early Sun offers arpeggiations, banging beats and joyous string stabs. The Observer
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It peers into the crannies of matter, reads into the folds of the soul. Robert Macfarlane
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It’s a remarkable piece of work. Parts of the traditional orchestra are enhanced with synths and hints of systems music. There are primal rhythms, and the voice of Victoria Oruwari is actually tear-inducing. Altogether, they have achieved a sense of great scale and wonder. Belfast Telegraph
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The Unfolding is an album with a broader purpose that conveys its egalitarian, inclusive message with discretion, confidence and superb musicianship. It succeeds in balancing the beautiful with the cerebral, simultaneously existing as both head and heart music. Music OMH 4/5*
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Serene, ethereal, and experimental: Hannah Peel & Paraorchestra’s new album, The Unfolding, is comfortably all of these things. The Vinyl Factory, Best New Vinyl Releases
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gloriously individual Buzz 4/5*
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Perhaps the most stunning element of The Unfolding is the notion that there is nothing that Hannah Peel can’t do and that Paraorchestra can’t perform. If we are to measure, the only basis is through abilities and in that Hannah Peel and Paraorchesta form the perfect partnership on The Unfolding. For Folk's Sake
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Her line of thinking, her quest for invention and innovation and a constant pushing forwards is fast seeing her become something of an alt national treasure… on this showing it is only a matter of time before Peel is stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the neo-classical behemoths. Juno
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a remarkable piece of work Yorkshire Post
Further Listening
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Bokanté + Metropole Orkest (Conducted by Jules Buckley)
Released 27 September 2018
Bokanté traces the blues from its roots in Africa and the Arab world throughout the diaspora and into a modern context. Led by Michael League (Snarky Puppy), the album features Guadeloupean vocalist Malika Tirolien and is a collaboration with the Metropole Orkest and arranger/conductor Jules Buckley. -
Released 04 June 2015
Composer, producer, classical violist, guitarist, and arranger to A-list pop stars, John Metcalfe has always been a name worth seeking out. The Appearance of Colour presents Metcalfe as a recording artist - as front man, maestro and manipulator of sounds. A carefully crafted listening experience with a beginning, middle and end, in which no two tracks sound or feel the same.
Further reading
Real World Records to release ‘lost album’ by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Discovered in the label's archives, the album captures the singer at the height of his vocal powers.
Wed, 19 June 24
Track of the day: ‘AmmA’ by Bab L’ Bluz
'AmmA' draws on music from north-east Morocco and influences from Tunisia and Algeria.
Fri, 08 March 24
Exploring Colombian artist Savan’s music inspired by Yagé medicine ceremonies
The new Real World X release is an eight-track aural journey to the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
Fri, 29 March 24