Orbital poll

In Sides

I forgot how much I used to listen to Snivilisation.

That wd probly be my second place.

http://frankowenspaintbrush.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/gordon-brown.jpg

insides will walk

Glastonbury here.

Snivilisation, even if i rarely get past the first three tracks.

In Sides in my all-time top ten of all time.

Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.

Back in the day, for years actually, I would have said InSides but I played that and the Brown album in the run-up to the gigs a few months ago and the latter was like WOW. It still feels like the perfect example of how to make dancefloor-orientated house and techno work in the album format.

Speaking of "perfect example", find me a track that does amniotic synths + tight beats better than "Forever". (I recognize we're working with a small sample size.)

middle of nowhere. even though when listening to all the stuff before it, they sound like the best ever at the time.

Basically any album between Orbital 2 and The Middle of Nowhere is the correct answer here (lol except for the "Event Horizon" soundtrack).

I love most of these equally, discovered Orbital in the '00s (I'm young) so I don't have a sentimental favorite like most of you probably do. I'll throw a vote to The Middle of Nowhere... doubt many others will.

Brown

I still like The Altogether more than most people say they do but it's pretty clearly a step below the albums preceding it. "Funny Break" totally pwns though.

http://iemommy.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/brown-sugar-scoop-b.jpg

I never listen to anything from The Altogether onwards now. Never felt the need to re-check them out.
xpost

You should! The Blue Album is pretty great and there are enough good tracks on The Altogether to make you smile.

Well if they're on spotify i will, but i was pretty disappointed by them at the time.

Most of the Blue album has got a really empty sounding loud echoey sheen on it that I really don't like - you notice it most on tracks like Tunnel Vision. You Lot is still amazing though, up there with their best stuff, and Sunrise sounds a lot better in the nu-balearic age.

I really like "Lost" and "Acid Pants" a ton, although "One Perfect Sunrise" is the track off of there I play the most.

can't believe people like that track. prefer The Altogether to Blue but the good tracks from both together would make a good LP.

I was pretty disappointed by the Altogether (maybe even MoN) onwards at the time, but now whenever I dig them out I'm surprised by how much I like them.

The answer is still In Sides.

I think I just voted for something else by accident so I'll console myself with how In Sides is going to win by quite some margin anyway (right?).

holy shit the Glastonbury album is pretty fucking massive

I threw my vote behind In Sides as well - and it would have been even if the album was nothing but "The Girl With the Sun in Her Head" followed by 30 minutes of the band taunting me by name.

I think the staggering thing about In Sides is that the weakest tracks on it are "P.E.T.R.O.L." and "Dŵr Budr"! It's like, how is that even possible? Either of those should be career-defining pieces of music but on this album they're just the two fantastic tracks mixed in with unadulterated, mind-melting genius.

I threw my vote behind In Sides as well - and it would have been even if the album was nothing but "The Girl With the Sun in Her Head" followed by 30 minutes of the band taunting me by name.

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, November 6, 2009 6:15 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think the staggering thing about In Sides is that the weakest tracks on it are "P.E.T.R.O.L." and "Dŵr Budr"! It's like, how is that even possible? Either of those should be career-defining pieces of music but on this album they're just the two fantastic tracks mixed in with unadulterated, mind-melting genius.

Yeah, OTM, and I need to re-read this the next time I try to convince myself that the Brown Album or Snivilisation are better.

(I think Orbital 2 does a much better job of sustaining a club mood than any other album they released but part of the problem with that is the inherent repetition, which is amazing when you are primed for it and incredibly wearying when you aren't.)

In Sides has never quite engaged me on the same level. The songs are nice when they finally get going, but they take too long to get started. On the Brown album, even as they're starting up with these very minimal intros, there's still enough sonic interest for me to think "hey, what's going on here?" and then hang on til the big CHOON moment kicks in. On In Sides I keep waiting for them to get the point.

I know I'm flying solo on this opinion, tho.

x-post

Dŵr Budr is up with the rest of them, for me. And the live version of P.E.T.R.O.L. was bangin'.

Snivilisation by a nose over Is Sides which just beats Brown. You can't go past Are We Here? *WARNING WARNING NUCLEAR ATTACK*

Ten years ago, I'd have never thought that Middle of Nowhere would eventually be my favorite album of theirs, but it's the one I keep coming back to.

I threw my vote behind In Sides as well - and it would have been even if the album was nothing but "The Girl With the Sun in Her Head" followed by 30 minutes of the band taunting me by name.

I was about to say that same thing about "Way Out"/"Spare Parts Express"! Well, ok, not the "taunting Sean by name" part of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbjlQbaQPJA

Thing is, this is the music that engulfs you as you die, so it's kind of hard to top.

that belfast vocal rmx is the best thing they ever did :/

Have you heard the box vocal remix?

I think that version is kind of lame actually, the one with lyrics at any rate. It's the dude's voice that kills it. The version of the Box with standard level Goldfrapp oohing and aahing over the top is great though.

I don't actually think the Brown album is any more repetitive than InSides really.

Vocal mix of "The Box" sucks a bit, true enough.

I like it but I kinda like the dude's voice. Prefer the original though, I guess. The nutso creaking galleon/harpsichord rock out version is fun.

I don't actually think the Brown album is any more repetitive than InSides really.

Really all I'm just saying that when I'm not in the mood for it, "Impact" feels like it goes on for hours, whereas I think I owned In Sides for well over a year before I noticed exactly how long "Out There Somewhere" actually is. I'm blaming some of that on the dancefloor/non-dancefloor divide between the two albums.

I haven't heard a version of "The Box" that I haven't loved.

xpost It always reminded me of the vocal mix of Roni Size's "Brown Paper Bag" i.e. please take these redundant vocals off this great tune.

Snivilisation here. Brown album is #2 for me. I had sort of lost interest by In Sides tbh. Snivilisation was a darker, uglier, bleaker, more intense sound for them. going back to that pretty sunny sound after listening to Snivilisation for two years straight was a let down for me.

The songs are nice when they finally get going, but they take too long to get started.

^^ agree with this, too.

InSides is kinda the flipside of Sniv though. Snivilisation is the bleal apocalyptic one and InSides is the "look how beautiful everything is, don't fuck it up" album. The latter is ostensibly sunny but there's a real sadness in there that's absent in everything they did afterwards. The two records together would make a ridiculously amazing double album.

Bleak, even.

Speaking of "perfect example", find me a track that does amniotic synths + tight beats better than "Forever". (I recognize we're working with a small sample size.)

LFO - Blown is pretty fucking good.

I kind of look at Snivilization and In Sides as a double album, pretty much exactly for the reasons Matt mentions.

i have the 'in sides' double cd, which would make for a great triple album w/snivilisation

i didnt sell any, i just dont know where they are in the loft.

twas only teasing

well im still not swapping them for your beloved neurosis tour tshirt

really? In Sides is way more prog

More prog, maybe. Less repetetive, no. Aside from maybe Dwr Bdr, every single track on InSides is based upon taking one loop and building or removing from it. Maybe InSides is better at distracting you from the repetition...

Except for that it isn't, unless you're also talking about adding and removing entire thematic sections as part of that "one loop".

I think I'd have to vote for In Sides here, but I listened to Brown last night and it's still amazing; the perfect danceable dance album. And the opening one-two punch of Snivilisation kicks ass too.

I voted for In Sides, which I bought on the strength of a video for "The Box". I bought the double cd version, and I remember putting it on and being blown away that "The Box" wasn't 3 minutes long but more like 30 minutes. And it was awesome.

I genuinely can't choose between any of the albums from Brown through to Middle of Nowhere. Each of those albums does its chosen thing so singularly and so well, it feels inappropriate to try to rank them.

The Altogether was such a drop-off, it actually made me depressed to listen to it at the time.

The Brown Album, even though it does remind of that awful film about hackers with Johnny Lee Miller in it. Snivilisation is the only one I don't have.

oh fuck I'd forgotten how awesome "Remind" (aka "the musical backing to Orbital's remix of Meat Beat Manifesto's 'Mindstream'") is

In Sides for me, the one that works best as an album IMO. Although if there were an option for the live album that you got when buying the (reissued?) Satan CD singles, I would probably go for that.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

ok i need to play those last 2 albums like i said i would

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

interesting

nutters

Is the right answer. It's always been Brown for me - and, obviously, 38 other people.

Yay! Brown ftw!

Wow. Didn't expect that much of a gap at all; thought the top 3 would be pretty close.

yay!

there is the theory of the moebius...

IT'S A CRY FOR SURVIVAL.
A CRY. FOR. SURVIVAL.
SURVIVAL FOR THEM AND FOR US.

Yeah. And then the lead into Remind. Can't stand that strange wimpy whiny vocal in the middle of Impact tho.

Monday is pretty rubbish too.

God that crappy sax sample and pre-Robert Miles piano. It sounds so cheesily 90s.

I have very fond memories of Monday. It used to send my friend's dog mental, it would just start jumping around the room whenever we played it.

What are you guys talking about, Remind has like the best Wub in techno.

It's the right winner. When I first bought Brown (on casette!) I only played side (Lush to Remind as continous mix on the tape) for a whole week, refusing to accept that side 2 could be any better.

Largely true bar Halcyon.

Surprised!

I don't actually know Brown very well. A friend did me a tape of Green (which I already had) + Brown, and I got excited about one of the tracks and thought it must be on Brown which must therefore be the best thing ever, and then realised that it was actually on Green but not on my CD because I'd somehow got the US version. So I went into a bit of a sulk and haven't listened to Brown much.

This poll says I was wrong.

In Sides would've won this a couple of years ago

Maybe, but brown rules. I saw them on the insides tour, and as good as that material was despite the album only being out about 4 days, the brown album tracks were amazing.

problys the second best album with that Withnail sample on it ;-)

no love for the green album? kind of understandable but i still love it - probably because it was the first one i heard and it has that brilliant four track medley at the end: High Rise / Chime (Live) / Midnight / Belfast.

Whoa! Interesting. Really thought it would be in the bag for In Sides. Might listen to Out There Somewhere Pt 1 now and totally freak myself out again.

what would be the best album for someone who's only heard (and loved) Orbital 2 to get next?

any of them except for The Altogether

oh cool. everytime i went to get another i was too afraid it'd suck...didn't reailze they had that much good material

HI DERE otm but I can't let an Orbital thread go by without mentioning that "In Sides" is super awesome A++++ so that seems a good pick for next

The Middle of Nowhere is closest in sound and spirit to that album but basically any of the three albums following Orbital 2 are equally great.

Yeah if Brown is really your thing go straight to Middle of Nowhere.

wth Snivilisation wuz robbed - The Saint OST, seriously?

I think Snivilisation is a lot of people's second or third favourite album but rarely their favourite?

Yeah I mean it's 2/Brown by a landslide, I'm just saying Sniv is as-landslide the runner-up imobro.

The Saint OST, seriously?

Is that a ref to In Sides later releases having The Saint single tracks tacked on the end? Cause they shouldn't be there.

AFAIC that version of In Sides never existed

What genre is Lush 3-1 if you were being really strict about it?

Most people would characterize it as Progressive House. It's just easier to call it techno though.

Mm okay yeah.

bought "green" / "brown" / "in sides"

still making up my mind about them but having trouble seeing what made them so special in so many people's minds

is it that you think they're not better than stuff they're actually comparable to (e.g. for Brown Album i guess that would be... Spooky's Gargantuan?) or that that style generally is nothing special?

Not sure where In Sides really fits into the context of history - 1996 was maybe the last year in which anyone could have made a symphonic home listening techno album with a straight face. It sort of triangulates Spanners, 76:14 and Spring Heel Jack.