Orbital C/D

Ronan for another example of perfect locomation (albeit in a less anthemic manner) see The Modernist's "Abi '81".

Agreed with all the praise for Orbital. My favourite dancefloor delirium moment though has to be live version of "Impact (The Earth Is Burning)" included on the bonus disc for In Sides.

My own fave Orbital moment still has to be the live "Chime" on the three-part Satan Live EP. Just builds up a percussion-heavy start and THEN...the melody slams in. Perfection.

Ned: That live version is amayyyzing.

Heh heh, that's me, whoops. :)

There's one reason, yes. Besides, there are great synth sounds and stereoeffects (like in most techno), some really interesting harmonic bits, and even hints of melodies here and there.

My definite one and only OPO is "In-Sides" btw.

bloody hell yes - you heard that Homelife album Massey and his millions of musical mates made last year? Widdly jazz chaos, I tells yer - Gilles Petersons album of the flippin' millennium, basically...and all that that entails.

In conclusion, Orbital are fucking brilliant and I couldn't possibly live without wither Brown or In Sides or even Snivilisation in my collection; to hell with them post-1997, however, it all went horribly wrong.

heh, i'll probably LOVE it

I reckon my favourite album overall though would be "Snivilisation", even though it has some weaker tracks... the emotional force to it is so strong.

I am convinced people hate "Illuminate" SOLELY for David Gray. If it had been an instrumental, people would have wet themselves over it.

The US and UK version of Green are completely different but I do still love Speed Freak, Oolaa and High Rise (and obviously that closing Chime-Midnight-Belfast kiss off) - the rest I can take or leave. Probably my least favourite of the lot of them overall though, except possibly The Altogether.

The first three tracks on MoN are so mindblowingly amazing that I can forgive any so-so stuff that follows it (and Nothing Left is kinda wonderful too).

Mm, that's for sure. As Dan noted, remove the singles, burn the rest. The best version ever of Chime is the Evil Satan one because you hear the buildup and then the synth riff kicks in...man. Pure, unalloyed, beautiful drama.

And I still think David Gray is getting an unfair kicking with all of his middlebrow, super-nasal glory. (I am amused because the David Gray haters sound like me bitching about Justin Timberlake and I have no good reason for liking one and hating the other, save possibly that David Gray phonates and Justin doesn't.)

'Illuminate' is not a bad track at all really but i think i'd prefer Orbital to not bother making pop songs with male vocalists (Funny Break is a great dance/pop song with female vocal...it might just be me and my preference that i dont enjoy male-led dance/pop half as much) - i maintain its just the David Gray factor that irritates people...perhaps the same reason why Chemical Brothers 'The Test' is not liked - well that track was definitely 'Chems by numbers' which didnt help, but Orbital's entire approach to their last two albums has been quite formulaic too (as you could argue it has been with all the big British dance acts), despite the relative variation of tracks like 'Otono', 'Nothing Left', 'Style', 'Pay Per View' and 'Illuminate' - they're all VERY Orbital basically.

I agree with Dan's comments about MoN and I even think "I Don't Know You People" is a pretty good track. The organ and revving noises are interesting touches on an otherwise standard Orbital track.

(Steve, you are a mentalist but that's why we cherish you so; those ending arpeggios are working all over a major key and are blatantly uplifting after all of the minor key noodling of the first twenty-some minutes. It's more like the song rises into hysterical frightening mania, then fritters off into cheery hopefulness at the end.)

but cheery hopefulness? you really think? can you get cheer out of a note sequence that is literally a four step descent? are there are other examples of that? OTS's ending is pure dystopia if you ask me, even beyond the melancholy of Boards Of canada (i've had many minor arguments with some people about how the tracks that uplift them (e.g. Aquarius, Happy Cycling, Hi Scores, Turquoise Hexagon Sun) depressed the hell out of me...well they used to anyway but i've come round a lot - as i probably will with In Sides very soon.

Steve: Fair enough if you hear descending lines as depressing. I can't hear that particular progression as depressing, though, because of the tonal quality of the synths and the key it's working in (I find it hard to hear a major key as depressing).

Your point about "Adnan's and "Dwr Budr" is interesting because those are both built on minor keys and, by default, sound more... "ominous" isn't the right word, especially given the absolutely frightening oppression of the first half of "Out There Somewhere" with that screaming keyboard riff that sounds like a woman crying for help, but I can't think of a better one. Neither of them flips into major at the end (although "Adnan's" is acoustically warmer than "Dwr Budr" in its synth palette), so I find less "hope" in them than I do at the end of "Out There Somewhere".

As far as those BOC songs go, I wouldn't call any of them depressing; the only one that comes close is "THS" and that's more oppressive/claustrophobic (again, due to the arrangement and the minor chord progression; actually, that song pretty much typifies "ominous" and I love that aspect of it to death).

I totally agree with this, I was there and it was one of the most glorious live moments I've witnessed. The version of "Impact" that follows with the spectral synths at the end is special, too.

No-one does "moments" better than Orbital, do they? I have to say one of the best is on "Out There Somewhere" - yes, it's a descent, but it's a magic descent that rises. I don't know the technical musical terminology so the term "magic" will do for me. If you want ascent, though, try "Know Where To Run" for the greatest Orbital moment - that riff at the end! But then there's the harpsichord bit on the single version of "The Box" - I can feel a Top Ten Orbital Moments coming on, all of which start with "That bit where...".

Mike, you can copy and paste my comments about that section if you want, although I like describing it as "magic" more.

Well, I couldn't give a flying crap about whether something works on the dancefloor or not. But I still love Orbital. For other reasons.

ha ha matt you're coming round to my way of thinking!

Yes Middle of Nowhere is very good, basically halfway b/w Orbital 2 and In Sides.

THE GIRL WITH THE SUN IN HER HEAD IS THE BEST THING EVER YOU GUYS

semi-detached / attached on peel sessions says no way.

amen to that

but ok, you've got a point. seeing that live in new orleans 1995 was mind (body and soul) boggling.

Hey, you're the guy who called me a "giant cocksucking douche"!

http://www.darktrain.org/dirty/forums/showthread.php?t=6826

anybody like the new solo stuff they've been up to? Long Range?

i'm a huge fan of 'Just One More', it's got a really moody riff going on.

you're right Nick. sorry about that (http://www.darktrain.org/dirty/forums/showpost.php?p=81814&postcount=13)

i do still think your review was pretty bad. you complimented the album for most of the review then gave it a C-. anyway, i could debate the review but it's your opinion after all.

no hard feelings? btw, did you google yourself and find that post or do you check the UW forums?

Isn't it great when you read a thread and then spend an hour listening to stuff you've not heard for five years and remember what the meaning of life is again?

http://pacside.com/underthe%20skies%20above.jpg

no hard feelings? btw, did you google yourself and find that post or do you check the UW forums?

Googled myself - see this for my immediate response! - http://sickmouthy.blogspot.com/2007/11/google-you.html

"I was driving home from work one winter evening when I saw two lights
emanating from a strange object in front of me. My car began to lose power, and eventually stopped. It was completely dark. Then, strange circles of white light began to flash on and off. The next thing I knew it was fifteen minutes later, and I was traveling down the road in a different part of the village. I am convinced I was selected by aliens earlier in the day, and later rejected."

LC1: loving the tune but feel bad for the guy.

On September 21, a reunited Orbital (Brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll) will perform new music and classic cuts in the US for the first time in five years, at the inaugural Electronic Music Awards, live from downtown Los Angeles on Twitter. The performance follows a successful UK run of impressive performances at the WAM Festival in Spain, Forbidden Fruit in Dublin, Supersonic in Japan, the Brussels Summer Festival, and the Bluedot plus Standing Calling festivals in the UK. Additionally, the duo announced December 2017 dates at both London Hammersmith Apollo and Manchester Apollo which sold out in less than 24 hours upon announcement.

The duo’s new single, Copenhagen, which has been playlisted by BBC 6 Music, is streaming now. Orbital’s performance at the EMAs, personally requested by Executive Producer Paul Oakenfold himself, will be the duo’s first live show in the US in five years with a new album on the horizon.

I am reminding myself that Blue is actually really good

it holds a special place in my heart because it was the first album they released since I got into them, and it also led to me discovering Sparks. as a whole I'm pretty lukewarm on it though. it sounds more like fragments of several different (potentially great) albums than it does anything coherent by itself.

I kind of wonder what they're up to now. I remember they were planning to do this 30th anniversary album in the style of Kraftwerk's The Mix, along with something new. But it doesn't look like anything's on the horizon.

When they are together in interviews, i'm not sure which one, but one of them looks like he's taken too much speed and has a tenuous grip on reality. They seem to not be on the same page. I don't think they're viable as a duo capable of creating interesting music anymore. At this point they should just start focusing on any live recordings they have sitting around and coast through their 60s by pressing up old live shows and reissuing 12"s and where the f is the In Sides reissue? Anyway, I don't think a 'new' Orbital release would make me shell out the cash as much as a catalog reissue would.

this is a group where i mostly like their singles but their b sides are good too but i pretty much like most everything up to the altogether and i like you lot from the blue album but everything else and since does not impress me much!

I've recently come to view them a modern version of Kraftwerk - they have a timeless sound and so many excellent melodies that speak for themselves, and their body of work is often characterized by their singles despite having several excellent albums. and much like Kraftwerk it's not so much about losing their way as it is having nowhere left to go. I thought Wonky was great and parts of Monsters Exist was as well but with both of them I can't help but notice how all the good parts are just throwbacks to stuff they did in the mid-90s. their recent live albums are very good, but I can't imagine getting too excited about anything else, considering their setlist has basically been the same since 2001. still, whatever they do, I'm on board. and yes it's criminal that their back catalogue hasn't gotten reissued yet, they're like the only high-profile 90s electronica albums you can't find on vinyl now

I thought it was interesting to see in an interview with both of them (not sure how recent exactly, maybe very but within the last ten years I guess) Paul just flatly said he was the composer of the Orbital stuff. I think the writing credits have always been mostly or entirely for both of them and it seems like at some point he's felt entitled to claim that. Fair enough.

I figured that was the case given how Orbital-esque Paul's solo albums are. Phil's only non-Orbital thing is a duo called Long Range which sounds like something totally different (and it's not very good for that matter). I had assumed that was where a lot of the tension was coming from.

When they are together in interviews, i'm not sure which one, but one of them looks like he's taken too much speed and has a tenuous grip on reality. They seem to not be on the same page. I don't think they're viable as a duo capable of creating interesting music anymore.

That's Phil. They haven't really been creating as a full duo since Blue in 2004 - Phil only co-wrote one track on Wonky, and worked on half of Monsters Exist. I get the impression (from the multiple breakups, their interviews, and the credits) that Paul brings Phil in just about as much as he can stand, for the more banging or squelchy techno stuff, and that their relationship as brothers is better for it. (Also, based on their output afterward, probably that the first breakup was prompted by an imbalance in writing contributions despite a shared credit and publishing.)

And Phil is obv essential to the live energy and improv.

At this point they should just start focusing on any live recordings they have sitting around

TBF they're not really taxing your patience with two new albums in 17 years, and they've released four triple live albums, a quadruple live compilation, and a best-of with some live tracks on it, in that time :)

Paul did perhaps waste an opportunity by putting all that old live stuff on youtube instead of Bandcamp last year, but probably wasn't expecting to still be indoors ten months after he started...


considering their setlist has basically been the same since 2001

Those 2017/18 live albums look to have been hits-heavy specifically because they were getting recorded - otherwise their non-festival setlists in recent years are mostly new stuff with four '90s classics spaced out to keep the old farts' attention.

ha ha xp, I typed that and then relistened to Monsters Exist and a live session to confirm my confidence

xp thanks, i need to investigate their live releases. I didn't realize they had so many.

The fan-made six-hour career-spanning live box set is also very worthy of investigation

(discussed in the other Orbital Classic Or Dud thread two years ago)

OK, Orbital have never done very much for me but I'm about 40 minutes into this live set ^^^ and I'm liking it a lot more than any of their albums. Thanks for that link!

🎧. 🎶 👍🏻

thank u sic for that link. working on this presentation is going to be a lot more merciful.

The Gun Is Good is imo the last great classic Orbital track they put out.

thanks, i need to investigate their live releases. I didn't realize they had so many.

I just remembered that one of the two new albums also had a full live album as a bonus disc!