LISTEN / SHARE LEAD SONG "FIGURE PROFANE" HERE
PRE-ORDER BT002: SELF HYPNOSIS TAPE HERE
ANNOUNCES NORTH AMERICAN + EUROPEAN TOUR DATES
WATCH OURI’S CBC MUSIC ‘THE INTRO’ SESSION HERE
BUY / STREAM FRAME OF A FAUNA HERE
"effortless and sublime" - PAPER Magazine
"a richly rewarding left turn" -The FADER
“Frame of a Fauna presents a compelling archive of Ouri's many musical personas. It's a nuanced encapsulation of her sound from underground DJ to fully-rounded composer. “ Exclaim!
"a master at crafting synth soundscapes that flow with ease and unexpectedly morph and shapeshift over the course of the track while grounding it all with her own airy vocals." - CBC Music
"expertly guides listeners through a narrative of anticipation, climax and release" - Office Magazine
"equal parts comforting and transcendent" - V Magazine
"dials in swooping sounds, echoey vocal syllables, a glitchy beat, tentative chords; the dance beat solidifies, falls away and reappears" - The New York Times
Photo Credit : Kane Ocean // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist and producer Ouri announces her first offering of 2022 with the project bt002: self hypnosis tape. The 7-track project is meditative and ambient in nature, with piano-driven instrumentals from Zach Frampton showing off a different side of Ouri's abilities for something more improvisational. Along with the project's announcement, Ouri shares the lead single "Figure Profane" which sees contributions from Frampton. The cyclical, entrancing track introduces the ethereal and cerebral sound of the self hypnosis tape to listeners. "I shaped this project after capturing several recordings I made with Zach over the course of last summer,” says Ouri. “I wanted to offer myself a moment to study the melodic and harmonic features of my music and cut the rest out, allow repetition to happen but always keep the melody as the ultimate leader."
LISTEN / SHARE LEAD SONG "FIGURE PROFANE" HERE
bt002: self hypnosis tape arrives on the heels of Ouri's debut album Frame of a Fauna released last year. Frame of a Fauna takes the Canadian artist's knowledge of big orchestral sound, and creates her own fusion. The cycle of birth, death, and constant rebirth sends Ouri transcending through the creation of this album, as she explores what lies inside the lining of the big dharma wheel: trauma, control and vulnerability. Frame of a Fauna features the stand-out songs "Ossature", "High & Choking Pt 1", "Chains", and the Antony Carle collaboration "Felicity".
Additionally, Ouri is announcing a string of North American and European tour dates. Beginning with her performance at Noise Pop Festival supporting Arooj Aftab on February 22nd, Ouri will then play two shows in Los Angeles on February 23rd and 24th before joining Smerz for a string of dates including a stop at home in Montreal on March 12. Ouri will also be performing a headline show in New York City on March 23rd before heading on her European run beginning with Brickside Festival in April.
Last year Ouri also released a joint project with Helena Deland, Hildegard, which received widespread critical acclaim with Pitchfork praising the collaboration as "pure creative symbiosis" and The FADER describing as, "a hypnotic composition that ebbs in and out of darkness, mining strength in synchronicity."
Ourielle Auvé, known professionally as Ouri, grew up in France and moved to Montreal at the age of 16 with dreams of becoming a composer. As Ouri developed her compositional ability, as well as her production and vocal chops, she integrated herself with late-night DJ sets in Montreal's underground rave scene and was eventually selected to take part in Red Bull Music Academy's Montreal Bass Camp. From there, her profile began to grow as she headlined Boiler Room's Montreal showcase, toured with the likes of Yves Tumor and Jacques Greene, released her first EPs Superficial and We Share Our Blood, and collaborated with fellow Montreal artist Helena Deland on the interdimensional Hildegard.
PRE-ORDER BT002: SELF HYPNOSIS TAPE HERE
BT002 : SELF HYPNOSIS TAPE
1 Ouri & Zach Frampton - figure profane
2 Ouri - boucles
3 Ouri - étude du toucher
4 Ouri & Zach Frampton - trio
5 Zach Frampton - rêverie
6 Zach Frampton - arabesque
7 Ouri - étude du marteau
TOUR DATES
2/22 - San Francisco, CA @ Gray Area*
2/23 - Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon
2/24 - Los Angeles, CA @ Floating
2/26 - Seattle, WA @ Fremont Abbey Arts Center^
3/3 - Atlanta, GA @ The Earl^
3/4 - New York, NY @ National Sawdust^
3/6 - Chicago, IL @ The Empty Bottle^
3/12 - Montreal, Mutek @ Winter Series, Club Soda ^
3/23 - New York, NY @ Public Records
4/9 - Durham, NC @ Brickside Festival
4/28 - Copenhagen, DK @ Rust
4/30 - Manchester, UK @ Mood Swings @ Yes
5/1 - Brussels, BE @ Les Nuits Botaniques
5/2 - London, UK @ Oslo
5/6 - Paris, FR @ La Boule Noire
* = with Arooj Aftab
^ = with Smerz
MORE ABOUT OURI
Ouri grew up in France, in a family of mixed french and afro-carribean descent. She began playing the harp and piano at 5, but at 7 she found unity in the cello. A self proclaimed introvert who’d rather dash off on her own than feel disconnected in the wrong crowd- she arrives in Montreal at the age of 16 to pursue a degree in composition.
Montreal’s rave scene is where her artistry began to take shape - establishing herself in the community as a producer, DJ, and composer. Lending her skills to various collaborations, she strengthened her sense of self, but also her affinity for transforming sonically into any genre, playing any role.
In 2018 she was invited to MISM x Boiler Room’s Montreal show, signed to Ghosty (international) & Make it Rain Records (Canada) for the release of her EP ‘We Share Our Blood’ and was asked to make official remixes for the likes of Tokimonsta. Her growing notoriety let her support Jacques Greene, Yves Tumour & Kllo live in concert.
Evolving beyond her affirmed DJ persona, she breaks out of the underground to come up for air - where she collaborates with folk artist Helena Deland. They merge in a dimension of their own, and Hildegard is born.
Now in her debut album, she shatters the oftentimes submissive and distant approach to ambient sound to finally take up space and connect to her own experience.
Ouri explores the intricate formation of shape in Frame Of A Fauna. The intangible is held and the unseen is sung as it inspects the framework of the body- how emotional hardship can imprint, and in turn deform the skeleton. If the bones are the container that stands the test of what is being contained- What is the residue of happening? And where does it go? She notices the way time can rupture a rib cage, pull out the collar bones, or make a fist out of fingers.
She takes her knowledge of big orchestral sound, and creates her own fusion, puncturing the classical with industrial abrasions and electronic nuance. Ballads and drum samples take melodies out of the middle ground. She finds home in the new hybrid- but first she must stretch the old structure to make a clearing.
The album begins in a bedroom in London, and hops to Berlin where she witnessed her sister give birth - and sees its completion a year later after a sudden trip to Brazil, where she said her last goodbye to her mother.
The cycle of birth, death, and constant rebirth sends her transcending through the creation of this album, as she explores what lies inside the lining of the big dharma wheel: trauma, control and vulnerability. She starts outside and builds as she asceneds inward, which is how she transforms the universal, into a personal space, not for the lost, but rather for those who are in suspension.
She sculpts chaos with layers of texture, only to ask you to find her voice within it, “Hold on, hear it out and chase me” she sings.
Sound fills to the brim, cello meets synth, becomes lush and ethereal, only for her feather light voice to slither in with ferocity. You weed through the sound to meet her in her sincerity. In this way we are listening twice- for what she wants to say, and what she wants to feel- which are not always the same.
She invites you to be comfortable in the lucid, to be sensual without the sexual, in the possibility of communicating what you may not yet know.
She edits lyrics to Ossature in a final revision to include hope in her perspective, and records GRIP in record time in a sweeping fit of grief in honour of her mother.
Conscious not to define herself within any one structure, but to cascade her own spectrum of sound- in Frame Of A Fauna Ouri shows us everything she can do, while what comes next is everything she will.
