With her first solo album Orchestrope, Helen Yee skilfully combines modern, classical, and ambient sounds into an emotional experience. Along with her abilities in live looping and electronic creation with Ableton Live, the album highlights her talents as a violinist and composer. She created a masterpiece that is distinctive and dramatic. Making the audience feel the music which provokes an incredible journey to experience.
Yee writes clearly from a background spanning classical music, indie rock, and improvisational performance. From layers of atmospheric drones and percussive string techniques such as col legno—playing with the bow—tracks like the title piece, Orchestrope, progressively become a symphonic and even cinematic landscape. This method of layering sounds reflects the artistic inclinations of musicians like Hildur Guðnadóttir and Nils Frahm, whose works equally stress atmosphere and emotional development. But Yee offers an organic improvisational energy, probably inspired by her years performing live, and this gives her uniqueness from her colleagues.
With Yee playing all instruments herself—violin, erhu, frame drum, and electronic elements—the album’s instrumentation mostly consists of string performances. Her skill in combining contemporary electronic production with ancient string techniques provides the song with a wide acoustic spectrum. She can create broad soundscapes reflecting her classical training by carefully stacking the tracks and experimenting with more avant-garde structures and sounds. With electronic loops and sweeping double-stops, tracks like Ferromagnetica explore gritty sound design, so highlighting her electronic sound experimentation influenced by Ableton Live.
Though Orchestrope is instrumental, Yee’s musical approach has a vocal dimension, particularly in the way her melodies sing over the arrangement. Songs like Noche de Julia exhibit this poetic nature; the eerie tune seems to tell an emotional trip free from words. The lack of vocals lets the audience concentrate on the complex interaction among the instruments and the changing textures.
The album is produced immaculately, with great regard for every layer of sound. By using Ableton Live as a looping setup, Yee may investigate the overall sonic capability of her instruments by fusing electronic and acoustic components into a harmonic whole. The production captures an organic, almost live-performance aspect that reflects her live performances and spontaneous attitude; it never seems overdone.
Drawing on Yee’s indie rock and electronic influences as well as her classical string background, orchestrate straggles the genres of ambient, classical, and new-age music. Her varied blend includes modern musicians like Zoe Keating and Maya Beiser, who likewise challenge the boundaries of modern classical music with technology. Still, Yee’s music is unique and clearly emphasizes emotional narrative and change. Like the work of Hildur Guðnadóttir, her compositions are anchored on a wish to arouse intense emotions and transport listeners on an introspection trip.
Though Orchestrope lacks vocals, its instrumental storytelling effectively conveys the album’s concepts. From the sad melody of Noche de Julia, which was once written for a multilingual theatre production, to the hopeful and honest character of Sprung, which Yee notes as a mirror of her path, every song tells a different story. Deep emotions enable listeners to create their own stories inside the soundscape from the music. The album is transforming the listening experience because of the recurrent themes of reflection, rebirth, and emerging.
The amazing first album Helen Yee released highlights her adaptability and musical inventiveness. Rich in emotional depth and musical intricacy, the album is an immersive experience. Orchestrope is a must-listener for anybody enjoying ambient, classical, or experimental music.