It’s not too many months until I have to teach the oldest kid to drive, and that fills me with some anxiety. This album, though – Motoring for Beginners, by Orangefarm – has the opposite effect. Listening in, I feel we’re in the safe hands of some experienced and sensible drivers.
Lesson 1. While driving, it is important in this country to keep to the left. Track one gets political, at least in its title, and Orangefarm are sensibly placed on the correct side of the road here. ‘On Reading the Coalition Agreement’ is sparse and it’s ethereal and, importantly, it’s a wonderful opening track. Lyrically it isn’t overtly political at all, but apparently, it’s about the thoughts running through the songwriter’s head when they read the government’s coalition agreement following the 2023 election. Maybe listen to it without that bit of knowledge to enjoy it better; the song is far from the demolition derby the coalition has been.
The next track, ‘Outside your Car’, takes us into second gear. It’s a bit more up-tempo, but only relatively so. The Sunday drive continues through ‘Affectionate Friction’, and the wonderful “The Choir”, both of which include the use a French horn. The French horn, I’m now thinking, is like the opposite of a car horn. It’s not there to alert you to danger. It’s there for the vibe. It’s the sounds of a perfectly tuned engine. ‘The Choir’ has strings, also. This driving is all smooth, and gentle. It’s like an environmentally friendly electric, charged with solar power, on a road with no potholes. There’s no high revving. The muffler is intact. There are no gears graunching and there’s no heavy braking.
Mid-album we hit ‘All your Sisters Friends’, where we finally hit a higher gear. This is the first one that will have you on your feet, and it’s a lovely sounding song. This is as frantic as it gets though, as we hit the cruise control button and we mellow it all back down again.
Overall, this is a really nice album. I managed to miss Orangefarm’s June 2023 debut album, Inheritance, probably due to being too busy or something. On listening to this album, that was clearly a mistake. I’m now hitting reverse to go back to give that a listen.
