October 24, 2000

Edinburgh Liquid Rooms

Oranger's effortless, ego-free ability to forge new shapes from old templates sees them through.

Tie-dyed harmonies? Check.
Gently chiming guitars? Check. The love-bead rattle of archaic synthesizers and the slow whoosh of expanding minds? Check and, yup, check again.

California's Oranger are the latest band to revisit the crazy, beard-tugging world of psychedelia. But if the thought of yet another buncha workshy peaceniks spluttering through Beach Boys'n'Byrds pastiches (howdy, Teenage Fanclub and Beachwood Sparks) is enough to give you a spliff-sized headache, don't worry. For though the reference points are indeed
present and correct, Oranger - freshly squeezed onto Alan McGee's Poptones roster - are effortlessly easy to love.

Their shambolic, just-back-from-Monterey stage presence and penchant for pun-trocious song titles like 'Mike Love, Not War' may suggest one too many hits from the ideas bong, but they ripple with gentle humour and admirable intentions. 'Sorry Paul', for one,
is as wistful and contemplative
as a beatific Grandaddy, its woozy guitars spiralling off into good-natured, toe-tappin' stoner bliss. 'Texas Snow', on the other hand, drifts off on a magic carpet ride
of sad-eyed psychedelia - sweet melancholia hovering like a
vapour trail.

It's easy to mock their allegiance to another era, but Oranger's effortless, ego-free ability to forge new shapes from old templates sees them through.

Sarah Dempster