Orio's epic Asian adventuring inspires the new 'Lost Dog' EP

Israeli artist Orio arrives on Soul Clap Records with a scintillating EP recorded while in the midsts of an epic Asian adventure.

The 'Lost Dog EP' was entirely composed in Hong Kong, where Orio found himself temporarily grounded while pandemic-enforced travel restrictions were at their worst. Prior to his extended stay in Hong Kong, Orio had been living in Singapore for almost a decade, where, among other things, he spent time throwing lively underground music events. It was here that he met the space travelling Soul Clap team of Eli Goldstein and Charles Levine, with the revered Boston-based duo describing his homespun parties as the best they'd ever experienced in Singapore.

The construction of the four-track EP is a joyous example of engineering a positive outcome out of a potentially adverse situation. After many years spent away from home, Orio had decided to return to Israel via a short pit stop in Hong Kong. “I flew to Hong Kong for what was supposed to be a few short weeks of work, and 1 week in, a pandemic was officially declared, so my journey back home was up in the air,” said Orio. Without any real idea of how he would achieve it, Orio decided to dig in and focus on producing some music, and, as it turned out, fate seemed to be shining its golden light on his unexpectedly extended HK visit. “I met up with Sean Rogers who has an amazing studio right next to Sheung Wan Station,” said Orio. “We ended up spending the whole year in the studio where he opened me up to a deeper level of creativity in my productions.”

The EP features an organically-assembled set of Hong Kong-based artists, and again it appears as though the planets aligned to enable the project to manifest. Though well versed in the workings of production software, Ableton, Orio felt his music was lacking a degree or two of musical flavour. While exploring the city's Mong Kok area, he encountered some impassioned protests, on the periphery of which he spotted a pair of musicians who caught his ear. “I was drawn to this couple I saw playing jazz next to the train station, Misha and Oksana, we immediately connected and I invited them to Sean’s.” Soon after, he met talented Singaporean keyboardist, Amos Ang, and the ensemble was complete when Sean met another pair of street performers, Achlin Ach-lino and Charles Tidal II. “And it was like that, that we connected with absolute strangers – merely through our music – and transformed those stagnant, uncertain times into unforgettably joyful times.”

The group spent the bulk of 2020 embedded in the studio, creating, experimenting, and having abundant fun in the process. The effervescent energy channelled into the music certainly comes across in the recordings, and, now safely back home in Tel Aviv, Orio is full of gratitude for the chance creative encounter – and the soul brothers and sisters he met along the way. “We all got a little lost in 2020,” he said. “It was trippy, yet I feel like I’ve also found myself in the process.”

You can check the music Orio and his collective created here:

Orio 'Lost Dog' EP is out March 25 on Soul Clap Records. You can buy it on the Bandcamp player above