Ivan the Tolerable

A beautifully strange and immersive suite that feels both otherworldly and rooted in something organic. Oli Heffernan returns to Riot Season after the sold-out Vertigo and Water Music releases - but this time the Trio expands across borders. Recorded in winter 2024 between Middlesbrough, UK and Utrecht, Netherlands, An Orphan Form brings together Heffernan with Dutch collaborators Mees Siderius (drums, percussion, vibraphone) and Elsa Van Der Linden (saxophones, flutes) for two LONG pieces of deep kosmische drift.

This is music that moves like a half-remembered dream. Loose-limbed jazz. Warped psychedelic textures. Field recordings and nature sounds weave in and out, grounding the swirling synths and off-kilter rhythms in real earth and air. Think Cluster meeting Don Cherry in a fog-covered field somewhere between Düsseldorf and the North Sea. It doesn't follow a straight line - it wanders. Curious. Alive. Quietly spellbinding.

Organic. Shapeless. Captivating and liberating. Even by Ivanian standards, the sheer mass of different layers that mix together to form this hallucinogenic, positively inquisitive waking dream is remarkable. Music can hardly be more emphatically psychedelic than this.

Limited to 300 copies worldwide on crystal clear vinyl with purple blob and black splatter - pressed to complement the beautiful sleeve artwork by Ack! Ack! Ack! Design. Mixed and mastered by Heffernan, January 2025. Another essential document from one of the UK underground's most restless and prolific minds.