Name: Blue Diamond Fire (Full Version) by The Corinthian Columns
Duration: 3 min 27 s
Description: Theme from an imaginary Quinn Martin Production.

Scattered, But Complete

Mirage

Solo live improvisation, one take, Tritar with circuits. Inspired by Tim Dahl (GRID) and Massimo Pupillo (Zu). And of course, Jimi's "Machine Gun".

MURDER

Out on 12" LP / Digital on December 6th, 2019 

It’s been a few short months since Badge Époque Ensemble released their self titled debut, an ambiguous collection of woozy, narcotized funk. And yet already we have Nature, Man & Woman - a simmering new platter containing 3 songs, producing 26 minutes of dank flute-oriented atmosphere. 

The disco-sleeved 12” EP provides a revealing glimpse of a musically omnivorous approach. On Badge Theme we find the group upping the ante of the sound of their debut, unspooling 14 minutes of sensual Ike Hayes indebted oomph, sure to thrill future generations of loop diggers (cut live off the floor no less!). 


The A side contains 2 songs, which seem to hint at diverging future directions this eclectic combo might take moving forward. Opener “Zealous Child” comes as something of a sequel to the debut LP’s sole vocal featuring track “Undressed In Solitude”. This go round BÉE have teamed up with Toronto singer Dorothea Paas to ruminate on notions of spiritual wisdom overtop a progressive and climactically bombastic homebrew. Title track “Nature, Man & Woman” closes out the side with 6 ominous minutes of mysterious provenance. Somewhere between a live performance and a collaged tapestry, the group make more explicit than ever before their affinity for beat-centric loop music. Sounding like Lonnie Liston Smith gone trip-hop for a broadcast prohibited episode of Law & Order, BÉE posit themselves here as amongst the moodiest of contemporary instrumental collectives. Little wonder that library music enthusiasts around the world have made emphatic note of the Ensemble.

Badge Époque Ensemble - Badge Theme

Composed, performed, and recorded by Russ Van Rooy

Change In Plans

Theme from an imaginary Quinn Martin Production.

Blue Diamond Fire

Blue Diamond Fire (Full Version)

“Thank You,” a song of gratitude, is the first single from the sessions for the  upcoming double-album — working title Celebrate the Moments of Your Life — by The Orange Peels.

“It’s the kind of song you might write if you thought you were dying.” 

That’s how singer Allen Clapp described the track to his friends in the late days of 2019. After 15 days of fever, the mantra was on repeat in his head: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sick for a month with pneumonia, and not sure about his chances of recovery, things were looking pretty dodgy.

Then he was hit by the news that his father was not long for this world, and that his mom had a new cancer diagnosis. When it rains... 

The early days of 2020 rolled in, and the world was changing. Clapp’s dad lost his battle with cancer. Clapp and his wife Jill (bass) had invited their bandmate Gabriel Coan (drums) out for a recording session to try to bring some joy to the situation. As the three were in the studio, the murmurings of a pandemic started becoming real. It was unavoidable. Schools were closing, new orders were being issued by the hour.

The band brought everything they had to the session. And “Thank You” is first fruits. It could be their “Hey Jude.” It could be their most open-hearted song to date. A song of gratitude for life and love that started in a fever finally took on its full meaning, as well as full musical realization.

The session was supposed to be a “clean-up” session for an album project that was 90% finished. Instead, the band ended up composing an entire new album’s worth of material. Nobody wanted to say it, but finally it became obvious: They were working on a Double Album expected in fall of 2020.

Square (Reissue) aka Square³ aka Square Cubed aka Square x 3 (Originally Released in 1997)

Becoming The Orange Peels:

Allen Clapp explains: It’s 1995. The musical landscape is littered with bands drowning in self loathing, feigned rage, and a decidedly non-literal definition of irony. The timing couldn’t be worse to embark on recording sessions for a collection of earnest, melodic pop songs.

But it’s exactly what happened. Little did I know that the project would have me and my bandmates jumping between three different record labels and two producers, or that it would wind up being released under a band name I couldn’t have imagined.

Everything that happened in the next two years would redefine my concept of making music and what it meant to be in a band. It's how and why we became The Orange Peels. 

So why are we here in the early light of 2019, revisiting this album that came out in 1997? Three reasons.

Square Cubed?

First, the album never came out on vinyl, and we've always talked about the idea of eventually releasing it as a 12” LP. We sequenced the original release in two halves, and have always thought of it as having a Side A and a Side B (with “Spaghetti-O Western” as the end of the first side, and “She is Like a Rose” kicking off the second).

Second, there are two unreleased versions of the album that tell the story of how we got where we were going and how we became a band in the process (there's a whole version of the record recorded on a 4-track, and there's a whole version of the album we recorded and mixed in California and finished in 1996).

Third, we want to remaster the original tapes and collect all this stuff to make the ultimate edition of our debut album. Ultimately, it would be great to put all of this on vinyl and release it as a triple album—and if there's enough interest, that could still happen—but realistically, we're hoping to release a remastered version of the original album on heavy, 180-gram vinyl with a double CD holding all the bonus materials.

Ok, we know it's not really Square³—it's really more like Square x 3. Poetic license invoked.

The Orange Peels - Thank You (Single Edit)

Solo project of Dan Epstein, formerly of The Jupiter Affect, Lava Sutra, The Fancy Trolls, Voodoo Sex Party and other tuneful assaults.

Blue Diamond Fire (Full Version)

The Corinthian Columns

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