After a much needed break, I return with Orra, Phantom Orchard's second album. The duo comprises Zeena Parkins and Ikue Mori, fully-fledged Downtown musicians extraordinaire. This release obviously marks the project's transition from the Mego label to Tzadik, their 2004 album paying more debt to early hypnotic-electronic composers (think Morton Subotnick) than to the myriad of influences that burst out of Orra (folkish harp arrangements, African percussion, production that would make a dubstep or EAI album proud).

It should be noted that the line-up incorporates not only Zeena and Ikue (playing what they know best, aka harp and laptop, respectively), both of whom you've heard work along people and projects as diverse as Nels Cline, Skeleton Crew, Chris Cutler, No Safety, Elliott Sharp, Melt-Banana, DNA, Electric Masada, DNA, Haco, Björk, Tin Hat Trio, Death Ambient, Mephista, Kim Gordon, Marc Ribot (and the list could very well go on and on)...