Orbital C/D

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First impressions - it's definitely embracing its inner prog... there's a kind of self-consciously BIG sound to the whole record - but in that it uses a lot of the worst cliches about 'epic' dance music - huge swathes of echo slathered over everything, long synth string chords, regular portentous stabs of sound - in a lot of ways the production's like a late 90s trance record. It's huge-sounding, but without any of the intimacy and texture that characterised InSides or even Snivilisation in parts. Also the tunes aren't much cop - I've gone off the aforementioned Sunrise quite a bit.

You Lot is pretty good - the rant over the top of it works and it's got some backbone and urgency to it, and Acid Pants certainly lives up to its name, but overall it sounds like a bad 90s act trying to imitate Orbital at their peak. I'll try and do a track-by-track later, once I've listened to it again.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:24 (twenty years ago) link

Haha Matt I bet you a dollar that regardless of what you say I will love this album.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:32 (twenty years ago) link

I'm hoping it'll grow on me - there are maybe three tracks I can see blaring out at Glastonbury but that's it. There's something of that trademark Orbital sound that you can hear right through the other albums missing though... it feels kinda empty.

There's a really nice plinky piano-led one in the middle called Bath Time, though.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 17:45 (twenty years ago) link

Snivilisation. The Middle Of Nowhere and The Altogether all have the same ratio of bad/weak tracks. 'Science Fiction' bores me completely. 'Philosophy By Numbers' is a bit dull frankly, 'Quality Seconds' and 'Crash And Carry' are cool but throwaway. don't bother voicing your disagreement with me here as i concede Sniv is still the better album because of how awesome Forever, ..Duck Feet, Sad But True, Kein Trink Wasser, Are We Here and Attached are. i think The Altogether is alright by me because it's their poppiest album and this is some sort of relief/nice change from the progno of the other works (Meltdown excepted)

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 18:32 (twenty years ago) link

listened to Way Out yesterday while going along the Hudson River and remembered there are only two tracks on TMON i dont like (Style, I Don't Know You People)

― stevem (blueski), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 18:34 (twenty years ago) link

Actually, I think my speakers might have been set to a dodgy setting - this sounds much better on my PC without vast echoey noises.

You Lot makes me want to touch myself in my special place. I think the middle section will really appeal to fans of Selected Ambient Works II.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 19:57 (twenty years ago) link

Haha I am such a sad Orbital fan that I even love "Style"!

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 19:58 (twenty years ago) link

It also has a Boards of Canada 1969 style vocoder line on it. Gorgeous, in fact.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 19:59 (twenty years ago) link

I freely admit that "Style" is their weakest single and etc etc, but THEY SAMPLE DOLLAR COVERING ERASURE AND HAVE A REMIX THAT FEATURES A BAGPIPE MARCHING BAND!!!!

xpost MATT STOP TORTURING ME PLZ

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 19:59 (twenty years ago) link

Is this on SLSK yet?

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:01 (twenty years ago) link

Dan if you like Style you will love Bath Time - same thing only with sweet childlike pianos and undercutting bassy string lines.

It's not on Slsk. Ner.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:02 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, and celestial choirs and high pitched pure phase drone noises.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:03 (twenty years ago) link

Hmph.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:03 (twenty years ago) link

The first track, Transient, is the proggiest thing they've ever done - no beats other than an insistent clanking boinking rhythm and sombre strings that gradually build up and up and a harpsichord line that comes in - they've done nothing like it since the middle sections of The Box single.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:05 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, and Acid Pants has at least EIGHT 303 lines simultaneously squoinking over one another.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:07 (twenty years ago) link

I think it'd probably be better without the Sparks vocals though - otherwise it's like Remind times ten.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:08 (twenty years ago) link

MATT DC IS A VERY MEAN PERSON WHAT WITH HIS TANTILIZEMENT AND ALL

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:08 (twenty years ago) link

Actually, on earphones, Acid Pants sounds like the most INTENSE thing they've done since the Brown album.

One Perfect Sunrise begins with one lone female vocal while the shimmering synth noises start to kick in and then this really fast bassline picks up and then suddenly HANDS IN THE AIR TRANCE!

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:13 (twenty years ago) link

It's total hippy nonsense honestly - its like it was written for Glasto crusties.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:15 (twenty years ago) link

The breakdown is utterly schmaltzy - like the sort of thing that would be played in a tender Gelfling love scene in the Dark Crystal.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:18 (twenty years ago) link

I am seconds away from reaching into this computer and giving you such a shake.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:25 (twenty years ago) link

So Matt, when you said it was rubbish you were lying, huh?

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:26 (twenty years ago) link

Okay, since my hinting is bearing no fruit, WHERE DID YOU GET THIS YOU MASSIVE ORBITAL-TEASE??????

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:28 (twenty years ago) link

From the anti-Dan Perry squad. They hate you. (They hate me too.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:29 (twenty years ago) link

I got a bloke to send me a CDR.

Pants, the second track, sounded like a trance record initially, it's the glossy sleek production, but on closer listens you can here all those interlocking forever-esque bleeps going on, and there are big string stabs and everything, and a 'chorus' bit that is essential a big string line pitch bent up and down and up and down again.

Yes, I was lying. Actually, I wasn't, I was just wrong.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:30 (twenty years ago) link

I was holding out on that question, Dan.

But yeah, I've got dibs on this at Stylus, I NEED TO HEAR IT MATT I LOVE YOU.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:31 (twenty years ago) link

I'll demean myself.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:32 (twenty years ago) link

With Dan Perry, if needs be.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:32 (twenty years ago) link

It's very proggy, though, especially the ambient interludes that seem to round off each track for thirty seconds or so.

Third track = Tunnel Vision - dark and relentless, like running through tunnels being chased by monsters music - very PETROL, very Crash and Carry.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:33 (twenty years ago) link

*insert soul-wrenching scream of envy and despair here*

(x-post: If it means I get a copy, I'm down.)

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:33 (twenty years ago) link

I'll wear the wig.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:35 (twenty years ago) link

Very much like the first part of Nothing Left as well, and Technologique Park off the XXX soundtrack.

Third or so listen I'm realising this is essentially Orbital redux.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:35 (twenty years ago) link

But I'm 'driving' - you're a married man and for you to drive would be wrong.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:35 (twenty years ago) link

There's this atonal high bell noise clanking away in the heavens while big bassy noises go BWAAARP and all these dissonant effect sear past you. It's fucking great, actually.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:36 (twenty years ago) link

I'm going to hate you soon.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:37 (twenty years ago) link

Fourth track, Lost, is like a collection of sounds from the Octane soundtrack, over a slow succession of chords like the opening bars of Dwr Bwdr, but darker, while there's a plaintive chiming tune over the top. Atmospheric. Ambient. Nice.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:38 (twenty years ago) link

Fifth - You Lot, I've touched on it already but really it's astonishing - simple beat with big flash Idioteque drum, squelching bassline, high pitched bleepy melody, then about a minute and a half in it fades out and goes all SAWII and Chris Ecclestone rants over the top of it. Then as he goes "if you assume the position of God then take the responsibility!" everything kicks back in again. This is the most purely ORBITAL thing on this record. And also the standout track without a fucking doubt.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:41 (twenty years ago) link

Ha, I was originally going to write "I'm willing to give one for the team" because I KNEW this was just a ploy by Southall to get in my sweet cherry ass. Dirty old man.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:42 (twenty years ago) link

Fuck this for a lark. I'm off to play ISS and listen to Orbital. I can't stand it anymore.

(x-post - I imagined your ass as several fruits but never a cherry, Perry.)

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:43 (twenty years ago) link

SEE! He's been imagining my ass!

― Can't believe you fell for that one (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:44 (twenty years ago) link

6th - Bath Time
7th - Acid Pants
8th - Easy Serv - this is like plinky xylophone supermarket music that plods along and doesn't do much really.

9th - Initiation - this is a remix of the best track off the Octane soundtrack. Chopped up female vocals in the Sad But New style, a ridiculously prolonged squelchy bass noise. I don't think this is going to be on the final album so you'll have to take my word for it.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:44 (twenty years ago) link

Just this morning my new copy of The Box single arrived; I lost mine years ago and never replaced it until MATT DC STARTED TALKING ABOUT THE NEW STUFF AND DROVE ME MAD. Well, not quite.

PS; Dan, I imagined it as being like a kumquat.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:47 (twenty years ago) link

How has a thread about some of the most wonderful music ever degenerated into a discussion of which fruits remind us of Dan Perry's big ol' butt?

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:48 (twenty years ago) link

... and neither will Track 10, What Happens Next, which is SAAAATAAAAN type grinding industrial, and then this lush warm completely contrasting melody comes in and I must admit it all sounds brilliant. And then it gets louder and the two elements kind of intertwine for a bit before it goes all distorted and messy again and all these nasty industrial noises creep in again and it grinds to a halt. Quite frankly whey they left Easy Serv on there and cut this is a mystery.

And then Sunrise. And that's it. Over. Forever.

I was totally wrong in my first post.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 20:49 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, when I say that You Lot goes all SAWII, I actually mean the third track on SAWII in particular.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 21:25 (twenty years ago) link

I really like "Style" actually. Perhaps not as a single but it works perfectly after the vastness that is "Nothing Left". The "now I'm achin' for you" bit is gorgeous, like a sudden hallucination of sugary 2-step in the middle of a performance by the Animal Farm Symphonic Orchestra.

I'm glad that from Matt DC my prescription of more prog seems to have worked well.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 28 April 2004 21:26 (twenty years ago) link

I listened to The Altogether last night after I went to bed, and aside from the penultimate two tracks, it was actually pretty good. But those shitty acoustic guitars and then David Gray, uergh, it's too much. The first two tracks and "Pay Per View" were particularly ace.

I have a feeling I'm going to be listening to a lot of Orbital in the near future.

― Sick Nouthall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 29 April 2004 07:23 (twenty years ago) link

I hate you all. GIVE ME THIS FUCKING RECORD NOW PLEASE.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Thursday, 29 April 2004 08:44 (twenty years ago) link

ditto. and i love the bigpipe style! it was grebt live, real fun

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 29 April 2004 09:02 (twenty years ago) link

Yay, glad to have found this. I used to believe Simon Reynolds abt Orbital being orrible Tangerine Dream-type whiteboy slg techno for armchair ponces. Well, props to Simon, but they rule SO THERE. 'MoN' really underrated.

― eNRIQUE (Enrique), Thursday, 29 April 2004 09:21 (twenty years ago) link

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