Q&A: The Orielles’ Creative Rebirth Comes Alive in ‘Only You Left’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
YOU’VE GOT TO DIE TO BE REBORN BETWEEN ALBUMS — The Orielles have arrived at a moment of renewal. With their fourth studio album, Only You Left, the Manchester trio step into a new creative phase that honors their restless experimentation while returning to their core essence that first defined them.
For guitarist and vocalist Henry Carlyle Wade, that process required transformation. “You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums,” he says, describing the philosophy guiding the band’s latest chapter.
“It comes naturally,” adds bassist and vocalist Esmé Dee Hand‑Halford. “It’s not something we consciously do.” Together with drummer and vocalist Sidonie Dee Hand‑Halford, the Manchester trio leaned back into their roots on Only You Left.
Recorded across two contrasting environments — Hamburg and the car-free Greek island of Hydra — the album carries a sense of geographical and emotional movement. Hydra, with its quiet streets and absence of cars, provided an almost suspended sense of time. Hamburg, by contrast, offered the pulse of a historic European music city. The duality between isolation and urban energy subtly echoes throughout the record’s 11 tracks.
Guiding the sessions was longtime collaborator Joel Anthony Patchett, whose relationship with the band has evolved alongside their sound. His production approach gave the trio the freedom to experiment while maintaining the intimacy of their core dynamic.
“We let go of some (not all) of the highly computer-based production methods that we leant into as an artistic choice for so much of Tableau, and tried to leave space for instruments and specific parts to really shine through in their relative nakedness,” the band shared to Luna. “I think in part this was about reaching a point as musicians where we no longer felt compelled to hide behind some of the production methods which we had relied on so much previously.”
For Only You Left, The Orielles made a conscious, if instinctive, return to the structure that first defined them: a trio. The band began shaping the album in May 2023, continuing through the summer of 2024. Unlike Tableau, which leaned heavily on in-studio improvisation, these songs arrived fully formed before recording began.
“It almost felt really novel for us to be writing as a three-piece and really, really crafting these songs,” Esmé says. “But Tableau gave us that confidence to know we could go into a studio and pull things together under time pressure.”
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?
THE ORIELLES: Thank you for taking the time to chat with us too! We’re inspired by all sorts, our inspirations are ever growing and expanding and we love to share all corners of this with one another. We have always been lovers of film and literature and allowing this to seep into our songwriting, particularly through the lyrics. We like tensions and contrasts, light against dark. I feel like this is something we carry through all of our records even with them being quite different in genre. We’ve leaned more into the darkness on our latest albums though, that dissonance is an inspiring place for us.
LUNA: You have released your fourth album Only You Left and huge congratulations are in order! What inspired the album and what emotional or thematic ground did you feel compelled to explore this time around?
THE ORIELLES: This album is a follow on from some of the more improvisational approaches undertaken in LP3, Tableau, but it recalls the more “traditional” pop-guitar focused sensibilities of our first record, Silver Dollar Moment. For new listeners maybe it sits somewhere between the two. We love to really hone in on the process of each record and to let it define the outcome to quite a large degree.
Compared to the favoring of chance outcomes in Tableau, we approached these tracks in a very focused, itinerant and streamlined way, with a majority of them being refined for a year or more before they were taken into the studio. We also let space dictate the sound of tracks, categorizing them as either the “metal” of a controlled studio space in Hamburg, or the “wood” of the studio on the island of Hydra, which was defined by openness and environment. These definitions also went on to have much more emotional depth to them through the lyrics, if we explored the linguistics and form it often felt “metal” as opposed to the humanness of lyrics pertaining to emotion and being.
LUNA: You previously said, “You’ve got to die and be reborn between albums.” What did you have to let go of from Tableau in order to create Only You Left?
THE ORIELLES: We let go of some (not all) of the highly computer-based production methods that we leant into as an artistic choice for so much of Tableau, and tried to leave space for instruments and specific parts to really shine through in their relative nakedness. I think in part this was about reaching a point as musicians where we no longer felt compelled to hide behind some of the production methods which we had relied on so much previously, as we wanted to let all of the parts sing, literally.
LUNA: Recording between Hamburg and the car-free Greek island of Hydra creates such contrasting atmospheres. Did those environments inspire or alter the album’s structure or emotional tone?
THE ORIELLES: We entered the studios with totally different goals and ways we were to approach the recording session. For example in Hamburg, we were in the city and stuck to a pretty routined week of getting down five or so tracks that we had set out to do. Hydra was completely more relaxed. There was an Island-wide noise curfew that hit between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., meaning we were forced to siesta with the rest of the inhabitants. It meant we recorded later into the night, underneath all of the stars. The section of the record we did in Hydra definitely feels softer and tonally more warm.
LUNA: I would love to touch more on the creative process behind Only You Left. After the semi-improvised process of Tableau, what did a typical songwriting and recording session look like?
THE ORIELLES: The song writing sessions were drawn out over a long space of time because we all work jobs we’d always find ourselves writing music on Monday and Tuesdays. We’d bring ideas or set up loads of gear and improvise freely, recording everything as we went then whilst we all worked through the week we’d be pouring over phone recordings and come back the next week with ideas of what we wanted to hear for the songs.
It felt like the wiring was in complete servitude to the songs leaving behind ego and making whatever was best for an idea. Some things flowed out of us like “Wasp” or “A Shadow of You” and others took a long time to be right like “Tears Are” or “To Undo the World Itself.” My favorite part about recording is the acoustic guitar end of “Tears Are” was a play on the initial melody pattern. Henry and Ez sang out the melody as it changed and Henry found the chords for it underneath. This then became a centre point that we worked into “Tiny Beads Reflecting Light.” This motif key cropped up as an idea throughout the record only produced through spending time.
LUNA: Producer and engineer Joel Anthony Patchett has been described as the honorary fourth member since Silver Dollar Moment. What was it like bringing him into your creative process, and how did he influence the sound of the album?
THE ORIELLES: Bringing Joel on as co-producer from Tableau was a beautiful shout. Over the years, we have collaborated very well in the studio. We have a pretty existential and spiritual approach to recording a record. We have to live and breathe it in a studio we can live in. Joel’s very creative with the technical engineering side and listens to loads of music like us, so we completely understand each other with direction. He pushes us in some great ways. Neither of the albums we’ve done together would be the same without our Joely.
LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on Only You Left — one that feels closest to your heart or most revealing of who The Orielles are right now?
THE ORIELLES: That’s always such a difficult question and whilst recording it changes loads depending on what’s exciting us most at the time but I (Henry) would say “Tears Are” has a very classic Orielles sound to it, it could be a good entryway into our sound. “To Undo The World Itself” feels like a culmination of effort of trying to put the project in that sort of direction over five or so years
LUNA: After four albums, do you feel more protective of your creative process with time, or more open?
THE ORIELLES: I think after four albums it’s less about protection and more about trust in ourselves and each other that we can create whatever we set out to to the best of our abilities. After four albums, it feels like we’ve got the confidence and experience to make a great album. Each album we’ve tried to do something different whether it be to feel it out and improvise the whole writing process or be really considered and intentional with each section of a song. I would definitely say openness is a key part of how we work now.
LUNA: How do you hope listeners — especially your femme audience — can connect with or find power in this new era of music from you? What emotions or messages do you want to leave with them?
THE ORIELLES: I always like to hope that people connect with our music in personal ways and make it their own, either through lived experiences or their imagination. The beautiful thing about art is that it connects with people in many different ways and once it has been heard by people, we often think it is no longer solely ours. It’s difficult to say about emotions or messages, as these things aren’t universal, but in a time that is so uncertain and messy, it is important to remember what is constant in life; the flowing of water, movement of grass with the wind, shadows appearing in unusual ways. Look after your Mother Earth and it’ll look after you.
LUNA: How are you planning on celebrating the album release?
THE ORIELLES: We love to celebrate by getting together with some friends and people we’ve worked with on the record and go for a nice meal and some wine! Though at the moment, release week is looking busy so we’ll have to slot this in when we have some downtime.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like that you would like to share with Luna?
THE ORIELLES: We’re feeling really positive and excited! This record marks a point in our career in which we all feel very content with our output and where we are sitting within the industry with it. It’s a nice place to be, it feels very calm. Post-release is looking exciting too, we’ve got a bunch of UK festivals through the summer, followed by a tour in the autumn, which will involve us (hopefully) hitting some new territories and visiting some places we have never played before. We’re also planning a further release as an offshoot of “Only You Left,” which is in its early stages right now, but more on that soon!
