The Horn the Hunt — Wovo

                                      ^{The Horn the Hunt — Wovo} 
≡   Emerging from a winter spent in Greenland, THTH formed out of a burning desire to make challenging pop music. Currently based in Leeds, UK, the duo of Clare Carter and Joseph Osborne are performing live with a full band featuring heavy synths, desert guitars, bass, drums and powerful vocals.
Location: Yorkshire Villages ~~ Leeds, England, UK
Album release: 2nd of March 2015
Record Label: Gpig Records
Duration:     47:24
Tracks:
01. Watching the Waves      5:15
02. The Ocean’s Breath      4:19
03. Wovo      2:49
04. Solar Flare Off My Heart      4:49
05. Seashell      3:21
06. Albatross      3:57
07. Be the Prey      3:53
08. Snake Charmer      4:41
09. My Face in Your Eyes      3:12
10. Life Is Movement      4:19
11. The Lonely Ray — Lanzarote      6:49
Notes:
≡   12” Vinyl LP with artwork by Clare Carter.
Members:
≡   Clare Carter
≡   Joseph Osborne
≡   Live: Matthew Colmer: guitar/synth
≡   Ian Smart: bass
≡   Conor Lawrence: drums
≡   The Horn The Hunt are Clare Carter and Joseph Osborne
≡   Written, performed and produced by The Horn the Hunt during 2014
≡   All drums performed by Conor Lawrence
≡   All songs recorded by Joe Osborne at Ouse studios, Leeds except
≡   ‘My Face In your Eyes’ recorded in a room in Cragg Vale
≡   ‘Lanzarote’ recorded at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds
≡   Mixed and mastered by Joe Osborne
≡   Photography, artwork, font, and design by The Horn the Hunt
≡   P&© the horn the hunt 2015
Statement:
≡   “Terrafidella was about finding myself alone in an empty, brutal landscape, whereas Wovo is about leaving the familiarity of land and heading underwater, volunteering to get lost. Personally, it’s a response to not fitting in anywhere, not feeling like you have a home or a tribe and trying to accept that for once. I always let ideas arrive when they want, and for some reason all the new songs I’d written had a connection to the ocean… then after a while it made sense to me. I was getting ready to leave my current life and head into the unknown.” — Clare Carter
Review
By Andrew Darley, 21 April 2015;  Score: 7.5/10
≡   It’s a fine feeling to hear artists develop with every release. Each of The Horn The Hunt’s records have expanded and cultivated the initial sound found on their debut album. In the five years since, Clare Carter and Joseph Osborne appear to have followed their songwriting, not according to their musical preferences but to life’s circumstances. On their third album, Terrafidella, the songs fought with solitude, self–doubt and being haunted by the past. The pair strode into a realm of their own creation and asserted themselves as stronger songwriters.
≡   Clare, who is the band’s principle lyricist, explained in an interview with The 405 how each album is a document of her life and outlook at that time: “The world is terrifying to me, day–to–day existence is intolerable without creative outlets. It’s always about expressing these feelings and constructing new worlds to escape deathly stillness, wherever that may be.” Their new album, Wovo, enters with a self-assured sense of quality. While previous albums featured unrelenting moments of angst and adrenaline with bold instrumentation, this album is more focused on finding the beauty in the calm. Many of the songs are made of soft, swirling synthesizers and gentle percussion. Almost unrecognizable to their early work, Clare’s voice has developed into one which she effortlessly projects.
≡   In many ways, Wovo acts as an accompanying piece to Terrafidella — it moves away from the struggle under loneliness to a place of seeking clarity. The serene opener ‘Watching the Waves’ fixates on the movement of water to find comfort from chaos (“I’m watching the waves to find the pattern”). While the uplifting ‘Solar Flare Off My Heart’ and ‘My Face In Your Eyes’ celebrate the joy of companionship and togetherness, in spite of adversity. As their tight production maximizes the minimal elements they’ve incorporated, the lyrics also instil succinct description of emotions. ≡   They speak of a desire to transcend the things which confine us, while finding a means to think our way through. The meandering penultimate song ‘Life Is Movement’ echoes, almost answers, the opening song as it realizes that we must bend with the shapes that life moves in.
≡   The Horn The Hunt’s Wovo furthers their own remit with an album that is reflective and soothing in texture. Acknowledging that their previous records fought with feelings of loneliness and burden, Wovo examines how to live with them. As their music wrangles with rock, pop and electronic influences, they are conversely a band tapped into a creative pulse in which they follow where the music must go. The feeling of this record is that although life is unpredictable, challenging and perplexing, it can also be beautiful with a shift in perspective. :: http://www.thefourohfive.com/
Review;  Score: ****
≡   The two records converge at a point where land meets sea. But whereas Terrafidella was inspired by the wide–open spaces of an often inhospitable landscape, Wovo seeks out water as its companion, guiding light and ultimate source of salvation. ≡   Clare Carter speaks of her strong connection to the ocean and from the record’s cover that captures her totally submerged in its elements to the gentle sound of the sea at Runswick Bay on the North Yorkshire coast as it percolates through both the album’s opening and closing tracks, there are constant reminders of its presence.
≡   The natural environment is key to the very essence of The Horn The Hunt sound. ≡   Its existence influences the organic nature of their music, free as it is of any artifice, any programming and one in which they first lay down a firm foundation stone of bass, guitar and drums — the latter courtesy of the band’s live drummer Conor Lawrence — over which they then add layer upon layer of monophonic analogue synthesiser and Clare Carter’s remarkable voice.
≡   Carter’s phrasing recalls that of Björk as she glides up and down the musical scale; compelling, passionate and a sheer natural force, it vacillates between a breathy whisper and a volcanic explosion without ever lapsing into any of the bombast that can impact upon some of the Icelandic singer’s work. There is also some of the more brittle texture of a young Kate Bush in Carter’s voice as she reflects the vulnerability of the natural surroundings into which her words have taken her.
≡   Yet for all that Carter’s voice remains the focal point of The Horn The Hunt, it is Osborne’s accompaniment that is the music’s life breath and heartbeat. The two central elements fuse together quite perfectly. On the record’s sublime opening song ‘Watching The Waves’ they manage to somehow conjoin the otherworldliness of the Cocteau Twins with 80’s synth pop and make it sound like something you have never heard before. And then on ‘Solar Flare Off My Heart’, Osborne’s glorious chiming guitar parts form a perfect union with Carter’s message to love as they once more combine to craft the most gorgeous of pop melodies.
≡   ‘Albatross’ is rife with uncertainty, the song’s loping rhythm and the poignancy of the melodica’s refrain pointing towards a different perspective of The Horn The Hunt’s metaphysical landscape as they gradually retreat from the world of the popular song. ≡   It is something that the ominous presence of ‘Be The Prey’ reinforces as the lament in Carter’s voice slowly begins to unravel before us. Here they have encountered the darkness that exists on the other side.
≡   It seems strangely fitting to learn that the album’s closing song ‘Lanzarote’ was recorded at the Henry Moore Institute in the band’s home town of Leeds, an exhibition space that celebrates the work of a man who did so much in his sculptures to get back to nature. On Wovo and through the power, diversity and continual exploration of their music, The Horn The Hunt have undertaken a similar journey. It is one that marks their coming of age. :: http://www.godisinthetvzine.co.uk/
Website: http://www.thehornthehunt.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thehornthehunt
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thehornthehunt
Bandcamp: https://thehornthehunt.bandcamp.com/
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The Horn the Hunt — Wovo

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