Orphx – Primordial State 1994-1995 (album – Ekstasis)
Genre/Influences: Experimental, Noise, Industrial.
Format: Digital, Cassette.
Background/Info: Orphx moves back in time unleashing a live recording from tracks recorded in 1994 and 1995. These songs were released right before the official debut album “Fragmentation” (1996). The work was released on Rich Oddie’s own label Ekstasis.
Content: Orphx became renowned for their Industrial-Techno approach mixed with some Minimal-electro and even IDM, but this work reminds us of the way it all started. The sound is more improvised, but into experimentation. It sounds a bit like a Post-Industrial composition, a follow-up to early SPK. The songs are mixing Industrial- and Noise elements, now and then carried by rhythms and sometimes featuring vocal effects.
+ + + : This is a cool production for the early Orphx lovers, but it also reminds us where this Canadian project comes from. It’s interesting to realize the way Orphx has evolved towards a more sophisticated and Technoid driven composition. But this work sounds like the ‘roots’ and even the basis of their sound, which they’ve always held on, but just elaborated and infused with different new elements throughout the years.
– – – : Speaking for myself, I’ve always been more convinced by their compositions from the past few years instead of the early years, which were sometimes too Experimental to my taste.
Conclusion: Back to the roots of Orphx, but still a cool Experimental/Noise live experience.
Best songs: “Ekstasis”, “Excruciate”, “Samsara”.
Rate: 7.
Listen to “Primordial State : Live Archive 1994-1995”:
Artist: www.orphx.com / www.facebook.com/orphx
About Orphx
Orphx formed in 1993 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, with Rich Oddie, Christina Sealey and Aron West. West left in late 1995 to concentrate on his noise project Tropism, after which Oddie and Sealey continued as a duo and moved the music towards rhythm. The pair works with modular and analogue synthesizers, software, location recordings and feedback circuits, and is now based in Toronto.
The cassettes “01” (1993) and “02” (1994) appeared on Xcreteria. “Obsession And Progress” followed on BloodLust! in 1996, the same year as the debut album “Fragmentation”. Later records include “Insurgent Flows” (2005) and the compilation “Teletai – Rarities And Remixes” (2008), both on Hands Productions, alongside releases for Hymen Records, Hospital Productions and Adam X’s Sonic Groove. Side-Line reported in 2017 when Orphx secures ‘Archive 1993-1994’ as a 2LP vinyl set.
“Primordial State : Live Archive 1994-1995” was released on July 23, 2021 by Ekstasis, as a limited C60 cassette and as a 16-track digital set. The material was taped at The Rivoli in Toronto on September 17, 1994 and July 9, 1995, at Sublimatus Studios in Dundas on August 5, 1994, at CFMU radio at McMaster University in Hamilton on March 2, 1995, and at the Music Gallery in Toronto on March 11, 1995. Rich Oddie edited, mixed and mastered the collection in the spring of 2021. Ekstasis went on to issue “Chrysalis” in 2022, the “Revenant” EP in 2023 and “Theikos” in 2025.
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