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

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

I actually half-addressed this over a decade ago upthread, but the idea that Orbital lacks a strong rhythmic backbone seems rooted in an assumption that melodic detail and rhythmic detail are in a zero sum game with one another. I think it's true that when one thinks of an archetypal Orbital track, typically it's the melodies that come to mind. In truth though the focus of their work isn't really on melody per se so much as the idea of interplay at all levels - melodic / textural / rhythmic.

So from one perspective what you don't typically get from an Orbital track is the minimalist intensity of really stripped down house and techno (or drum and bass, where the friction between just one or two elements (say, a beat and a riff) is writ large and dominates your sensory awareness. Orbital zoom back out to show you layer upon layer, and yeah the rhythm typically comprises only one or two of several, but to castigate them from that seems rather to miss the point - it strikes me as the equivalent of saying that a film with good acting is problematic because the good acting necessarily distracts from the cinematography somewhat.

My sense has always been that Orbital were mostly aware of this. Upthread ages ago I talked about "Are We Here" and how it sought to replicate the kind of melodic/textural interplay they're famous for almost solely at the rhythmic level by swiping ideas from jungle. What's interesting about this is the specificity of how they "get" jungle for this purpose: possibly a rip-off of A Guy Called Gerald, though impressively on-point if so - Gerald only struck on these ideas in 1993 with "Nazinji-Zaka" and "The Glok Track" and "Take Me", and along come Orbital with a slowed-down jazzsteppin-in-space take on same within 12 months. And kudos to them for realising how perfectly that approach fit their aesthetic, treating the breakbeat samples as the warp and weft just like they'd ordinarily treat arpeggios. And then that darkside moment which is like every Foul Play remix of 1993/1994 playing simultaneously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQT08NFsf4w

Having done this, Orbital evidently never felt the need to try it again, but In Sides is quite remarkable for the casual intricacy of the rhythms and how they intersect and interact so fluidly with the melodic and textural motifs.

Middle of Nowhere is similar but perhaps more interesting to me for how Orbital superficially appear to retreat to more straightforward electro-tilted mid-pace techno rhythms, but actually across all the music in their discography the melodies and rhythms and textures never felt as completely and indivisibly intertwined as they do here, like on "Spare Parts Express" how the rhythm almost imperceptibly transforms from burbly electro to a kind of tom-heavy 'ardkore breakbeat when the tune goes all gothic organ darkside, then flips back for the coda. Or how on "Know Where To Run" they imagine rave emerging directly from Cabaret Voltaire and bypassing house altogether: scrungy industrial snares --> the breakdown with the single drum beat --> the rave-synth section with this almost Jamaican syncopated kick driving home the chord changes. Maybe best of all the sheer hyperactivity of "Nothing Left", like four Mad Mike Banks tracks playing simultaneously.

No I think Vahid is right in a way, with the exception of the Brown album (which is totally the one you should start with), and a couple of obvious exceptions (Are We Here?, I Wish I Had Duck Feet), you don't often get a sense that the beat is the foundation stone of everything. Unlike a lot of techno you don't get a sense that they're starting with the beat and composing upward from there (even the drippier end of Kompakt is constructed like this), Orbital tracks are often anchored around a melodic hook and the job of the beats is to interweave with that. Even Chime is propelled by the synth chords, and it's also a case for the mid-period stuff, even things like The Girl With The Sun In Her Head that literally build from the beat up. The result of this is that they can often be rhythmically quite limber without the beats ever forming the main focus of the music.

Plaid works as a comparison in that regard, except they often used that resultant rhythmic freedom to do more with meter than most of their contemporaries (virtually everyone except Autechre).

The take-home from this thread is that no one cares about that boring new Leftfield album.

(xpost)

does this not sound just like early plaid?

http://youtu.be/70tO7EyHLNA

good track, would be much improved by a booming think breaj

think break, not breaj

It does but in the way that a lot of c. 1992/1993 UK house did, I would have thought? I mean it's a lot like "Smokebelch II" in that regard, yeah?

Half the good of 'Monday' is the rawness of the 909 being used in that 'breakier' way while slower than in most rave and techno stuff of the time.

This isn't even a competition as far as I'm concerned: it's Orbital. Their second album alone urinates all over anything Leftfield have ever done from a huge height, and it's aged supremely well... and that's before we get to Snivilisation and In Sides.

The one I've been playing a ton lately is Middle of Nowhere, and upon relistening to it you can really see why things went south for them after that, they threw everything they had at it. It's such a dense and intricately constructed album even if it's not as much as 'leap' as their last three. They do tons of stuff well but they really had the best hooks out of any of 'em, and when you listen to a track like "Spare Parts Express" it's almost as if they're showing off.

I guess I'm going to have to pick up that orbital box set and educate myself

Leftism is one of the best albums ever

The Blue Album is a nice return to form for them, and while some were not a fan of them embracing their older sound with a touch of nostalgia I loved it. Also the single "The Gun is Good" is probably one of the best things they've ever done, with the hilarious use of some Zardoz samples that makes for a perfectly oddball thing to drop in the middle of a set.

That said, In Sides and Snivilization are bonafide masterpieces. With Brown and Middle of Nowhere being really excellent bookends. Few bands of any genre can offer that, and most definitely Leftfield and Underworld can't.

I'd put Underworld above Leftfield too!

This is a dumb argument but I think Brown is a masterpiece or whatever, it's a perfect dance album. The next two moved further away from dance into (what became) more traditional home listening electronica. They are stupendous of course. But Brown is special for deploying their unique talents in such a straight-ahead raved-up way, rather than the cinematic approach of the next two.

xp

I understand what you mean, but I think that Orbital 2 is equally perfectly suited to "traditional home listening"

yes of course

That said, In Sides and Snivilization are bonafide masterpieces. With Brown and Middle of Nowhere being really excellent bookends. Few bands of any genre can offer that, and most definitely Leftfield and Underworld can't.

Disagree strongly on Underworld - I think every album they've done is brilliant, outside of perhaps A Hundred Days Off (and their early discs if you want to get technical). More than that they've got some of the best non-album material I've heard from any group - not just their most famous singles, but also deep gems like "Thing in a Book", "Oich Oich", "Parc", and a bunch of the Riverrun stuff. Their run from '93 to '99 is basically untouchable, IMO. I'd put Orbital over pretty much everything else, though.

Some sort of Leftism announcement tomorrow.

Tour/expanded reissue?

http://www.leftfieldmusic.com/

https://leftfieldsplash.com
Leftism remaster 2CD and tour.

The 2 times I saw Leftfield in the space of a few months (Glasgow Barrowlands then T In The Park 96) remain the 2 best gigs I've ever been to.

CD2 is just 11 "brand new" remixes which is slightly disappointing.

i got a 2cd version of leftism not long after the album came out with an extra cd of remixes then.
but i think they were reversions done by the band as opposed to other folks.
ahh .. this :

https://www.discogs.com/Leftfield-Leftism/release/72724

leftfield are headlining the one festival i go to this year, and i am looking forward to it.
mk1 saw them last year at boomtown, and said they were one of the highlights

I listened to Leftism recently and it's showing its age in a way that albums like In Sides and Middle of Nowhere aren't.

I listened to it recently and thought it was great! Maybe the setting helped - on the river beach in London on a summer night through crappy portable speakers with cheap lager and a small driftwood fire.

I listened to Leftism recently and it's showing its age in a way that albums like In Sides and Middle of Nowhere aren't.

Ha, I feel exactly the opposite way. Could listen to Leftfield anytime - haven't felt the urge to listen to Orbital in years.

Spectacular remaster! (Haven't dared listening to the remix cd though)

The remixes are v disappointing.

i only liked 2 of the remixes at most

The passage of time has been very kind to Leftism.
The Zomby remix is cool.

What a weird thread. They're not even remotely the same thing.

Leftfield v Orbital v Underworld

The only Leftfield thread that came up in search, really. Just thought I’d stir the pot a little bit. Underworld are probably more consistent, Orbital’s peak output reached the highest pinnacle, but Leftfield’s best stuff has aged pretty well.

This is the one I called “‘ardcore” which was admittedly a bit generous but I could work in a mix. Too heavy on the drum rolls. The bassline is really havin’ it tho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc1wxrP-85Q

I.C.P. - Free & Equal (Leftfield Remix)

*it could work in a mix.

I could not.

orbital wins even against the orb!

That's alright, not what I was expecting from the juggalo / dub house disco intersection.

orbital wins even against the orb!

Orb are more irreplaceable to me, they're in this weird unique space where seriousness and humor aren't different

Orbital's best stuff is absolutely timeless but The Orb feel way more influential - so many artists I dig had a phase where they tried to imitate them - plus they've got way more music out and are cranking out quality records even today. By contrast Orbital have only done one good album in over 20 years (Wonky) and even that one leans heavily on nostalgia, whereas The Orb always push forward somehow

If this is a three way fight between orbital, the orb and leftfield, then, in the long run, the orb win out for me, I'm always surprised how much I enjoy 'the adventure beyond the underworld' stuff when it crops up on shuffle plays, truly timeless, a lush sample-delic palette that has some awesome grooves. Orbital and Leftfield were/are special for gigs and festival times but for pure 'home' listening fun, the orb can still conjour that a bit of that magic that isn't just nostalgia, unlike the other two

Orbital almost always feel like they’ve had one idea for the track, managed it in time for lunch, and then finished up. There’s not enough depth/complexity there.