Leftfield versus Orbital.........FIGHT!!!!!

I think every Underworld album is strong, though they do seem to front-load their albums a bit, I think. The weaker stuff on Underworld albums always seems to be near the end.

Counterexample: "Kittens" is near the end of _Beaucoup Fish_.

I have to say fuck Leftfield. They were only ever a convenient re-working of the dance scene with more familiar elements for dinner party and TV sports show theme consumption. They've never done anything that wasn't utterly generic to the time it was made, and as such never produced anything as transcendent as Orbital.

Underworld are just boring techno with ranting over the top. They're just the follow-on iteration to Finitribe. Gold Chains are the new Underworld.

a) even at their most hardcore (and I'd say that by their second album they were already very removed from where "'ardkore" was concurrently), Orbital were always primarily about the melody-harmony-texture thing rather than the rhythms. Yeah their rhythms were frequently great and/or slamming, but they rarely sound like the focus of the track. It's one thing to use well- programmed beats and breaks, but its quite another to make them the point of the exercise.

b) "Are We Here" is clearly intended as a token jungle track. Its sound, approach and desired effect are all at marked odds to the rest of Snivilisation and everything they had done prior. In contrast The Prodigy's junglistic tendencies sound unconscious, a purely coincidental accident of proximity.

The fact that the "Are We Here?" is brilliant suggests two things to me - firstly, that your "hardcore gone sensitive" theory is correct, and secondly that Orbital could have easily made rhythms their focus all along and had a very different but equally interesting career.

But like Gareth I also have a special fondness for the behometh that is "Nothing Left" - in some ways a pinnacle still for maximalist (danceable) techno.

Juan Atkins "The Fusion" is pretty killer too.

http://www.rockness.co.uk/

RockNess is extremely proud to announce that LEFTFIELD will return with a live performance at this summer's festival - a first for over 10 years and a stunning exclusive for the fast-rising Most Beautiful Festival in the World, staged on the shores of iconic Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands.

Acknowledged as one of the most influential exponents of electronica of all time - LEFTFIELD were one of the first truly great crossover acts, trailblazing into previously unexplored territory and carving a path for a raft of great artists including Underworld, The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy. The sheer brilliance of the band's debut album Leftism - a startling piece of work that even now remains peerless - firmly sealed a place in dance music history. Fusing epic soundscapes with intoxicating rhythms and guest vocalists including John Lydon, LEFTFIELD created a mind melting adventure deserving of the sweeping acclaim and lofty nominations bestowed upon LEFTFIELD.

An official statement from LEFTFIELD is expected soon.

http://www.mmalinker.com/forum/images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif

what i meant was http://www.mmalinker.com/forum/images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif

i'm confused by your rolleyes.gif. if i posted on every thread i thought was boring, i'd have a billion posts by now. anyway, Leftfield rule. i hope they do a full tour.

Quite enjoying the new Leftfield. Hardly groundbreaking, of course but very well put together. Their/his attention to sonic detail is always a pleasure.

I listened to it once and thought a lot of it sounded like an uncanny recreation of a DJ Hell album c. 2004. Of course a lot of the tracks may literally have been hanging around for that long. The Sleaford Mods one was dire.

I was extremely disappointed in the Leftfield album. They'd be better served collecting the remixes they did for other artists from 92-94.

on the flip side I've been enjoying the new sorta-Orbital album from Paul (called 8:58), it rests a lot on his laurels but it's entertaining, particularly "Nearly There" which is full on Orbital madness. some other good tracks too.

i like leftfield ok, never really cared for orbital. suppose i want to start with orbital, where would I start?

start with the green album, listen sequentially

if you want to just hit the green highlights: "Chime", "Satan", "Belfast", "Choice"

i like "halcyon" ... ultimately though orbital remind me of something like plaid ... pretty, but no strong rhythmic backbone. maybe I need to listen more

Of the first four In Sides is definitely the one.

pretty, but no strong rhythmic backbone

uh waht

let's set aside Snivilization and In Sides for a second; have you never heard "Satan"?????

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbs6GvLeEXQ

Love the beat on 'I Wish I Had Duck Feet'

Snivilisation/InSides are basically front to back incredible imo; earlier work very much excellent but not quite on that level

basically Orbital 2 -> The Middle of Nowhere is one of the best run of albums in anyone's discography

xp yeah those two work best as albums I think, the first two are both excellent but each is less of a coherent whole than the subsequent two

xp it's up there with tom waits, prince and stevie as far as i'm concerned, yeah

xxp - definitely. don't listen to any comps or anything, just those 4 albums front-to-back. I think Wonky is about that good as well. Green is absolutely not a good place to start, though the singles are must-haves.

I'm trying to figure out what Orbital songs you could possibly have encountered to form the impression that they have no strong rhythmic backbone

Cheapo box of the first 5 Orbital albums

their albums probably deserve the full reissue treatment like Underworld, lots of good alternate versions, remixes, live tracks etc. to be brought together

I just saw reissues for Green and Brown. Not sure if they're official or not. The sleeves have been redone and are kind of gross, so I assume they are official.

This thread reminds me that after going gaga over it, I hadn't actually played anything off Wonky in years besides the title track and "New France". Rectifying that right now.

I think it's fair to say Orbital's music generally isn't particularly rhythmically showy or 'sick'. Mostly very straightforward, not even especially syncopated. Although that could be one definition of "solid". The breakbeat stuff on Snivilisation seemed sweet and naive compared to what was happening in Jungle a year or two previously.

As someone currently on an Orbital listening binge, I can't find a single song of theirs that doesn't feature rhythmic and melodic syncopation from any point in their career.

Okay "Quality Seconds" doesn't have rhythmic syncopation in it but the entire melodic theme is a simple syncopated figure repeated for a minute; that is the first one I've found that isn't using syncopation in both the rhythm section and the melodic lines.

This thread reminds me that after going gaga over it, I hadn't actually played anything off Wonky in years besides the title track and "New France". Rectifying that right now.

i revisited wonky recently! it rules so much

Not intended as a damning criticism, it's just what they do. Rhythmically I think it is mostly quite simple, and not what i'd call highly syncopated. There also isn't much variation in fills and turnarounds for instance. Not to say it isn't well done or appropriate.

There's some insanity being talked about here re Orbital but I see DJP has already done my work in response and more comprehensively.

I'm not saying there's no beats just that the beats that are there seem like an afterthought compared to the pretty melodies

Orbital's '94 Glastonbury set is on iPlayer at the moment (along with a huge amount of other Glastonbury sets). Not much to look at but they dance goofily and cool version of 'Sad But True' with extended intro making the Selecter sample sound extra dirty, transitioning smoothly from the slowed down end of 'Forever' right into it, at the expense of '...Duck Feet', but then right into 'Impact' and 'Remind' after that. No 'Lush' though surprisingly.

Leftism sounds less dated today than it did a decade ago.

they're both shite, textbook student house and techno. What you want is the real brain frying hard acid on labworks, dj.ungle fever/structure, and magnetic north, noisy and a low key criticism of the club that Orbital couldn't manage. Let the bad times roll.

The Power of love? You bet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EPkj2ROBUI

Did you write this review on discogs too?

Dj.ungle Fever WAS Cologne. Then the the overwhelming miasma of endless pretend genres of masturbatory boredom tightly grasping the throat of the Techno community today intruded their unwanted, fake faces and never let go.

nah, not me. Although I think what killed techno was endless splits, rather than detroit-inflected minimalism, which was initially refreshing amongst hardcore and acid gear, as a kind of heads down no nonsense back 2 basics jackin sound. See the Black Scorpian technotron ep and Ian Pooley Celtic Cross ep, as well as Robert Hood internal empire. All totally uncompromising.

it was good when trance sounded like this, like a coldly cosmic take on EBM. But then Sasha Digweed and people like Leftfield, Underworld had to come in and invent prog trance which was like soppy indie goldsmiths graduates of the 90s crying on the dancefloor to Be as One. And orbital was their chillout music of choice. Yuck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bCVLHkh5p4

.. anyway, i need to correct myself, paul wrote chimes _before_ going to the pub.

that and other interesting bits here: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/orbital-recording-chime-london-studio
and here: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/classic-tracks-orbital-chime

this particular quote is interesting in the context of green album -> brown album -> snivilisation -> insides progression, it wasn't just growth in terms of confidence level but intent also. this is after the brown album:

"We're a lot more anxious about things now," admits Phil. "We've now got the responsibility of getting a track finished 'cos it's going to be on a record. You become more analytical of your stuff." Paul: "I still have to fight with that idea — the last month has been quite bizarre, with us trying to work out what the next record should sound like. For example, I've been trying to dodge using a constant 909 bass drum 'cos a lot of our records over the last four years have got that. But then I think, 'Hey, if we were at home making music then I wouldn't hesitate to use that if I wanted to.' You know what I mean? And I'm forever trying to draw the line somewhere and work out why, if we weren't making records would we have used it? Because we just felt like it! Now we think twice about it; you start to think 'Hey wait a minute, isn't that just getting pompous?" Phil: "Consequently you're in the studio, set to do your next recording, and you end up spending three weeks just talking about it!"

leftism feels like it's trying so hard to prove something while pretending it doesn't

new leftfield

SAD!