Orbital - Classic or Dud?

fiiiiree wooughhks in the bluuuugh

“Illuminate” is great and I also like Monsters Exist

“Illuminate” is great and I also like Monsters Exist

is ANYONE excited?

looooved the big chunk of new tracks in the BBC mix

I feel so strongly, I had to post it twice

I like the more melodic stuff on Monsters Exist - Tiny Foldable Cities, PHUK, Vision OnE, even Hoo Hoo Ha Ha. plus a bunch of the bonus tracks. the rest sounds like they were trying to make something darker and more soundtracky but didn't really have the time to finish it. I really think they changed directions midstream.

I'm enjoying this BBC mix. This lowkey trolling worked out well for me.

i wonder if those BBC mix tracks will be on the bonus CD, haven't seen the tracklist for it

the three new Hartnoll-written tracks from the mix are on it*, it's just the two you'd expect not to make it that were exclusive (bummer obv tho, they should be a double-A):

Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song) (feat. The Mediaeval Baebes)
Day One (feat. Dina Ipavic
Are You Alive? (feat. Penelope Isles)*
You Are The Frequency (feat. The Little Pest)*
The New Abnormal
Home (feat. Anna B Savage)*
Dirty Rat – With Sleaford Mods
Requiem For The Pre Apocalypse
What A Surprise (feat. The Little Pest)
Moon Princess (feat. Coppe)

Bonus tracks

The Crane (feat. Dina Ipavic)
Year Of The Bat
Lost In Time

yeah the Numbers remix and Spicy were both awesome. probably some licenscing issues with the latter though.

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

definitely sounds like classic Orbital

Heard a snippet of this today, banged my head like a mofo

sounds so much like classic orbital i thought it was a remix!

sounds great on first listen
and loving dirty rat way more than i thought i would

there is certain quality in last tracks like they finally stopped caring and it translates into great music

I’ve probably listened to parts of the BBC mix as much as any other piece of music this year

Even if the rest of the album, after that new material and the two singles, sucks, it’ll still be one of their best four

Ringa Ringa's excellent. Plays like a composite of great Brown and Snivilisation ideas.

promo just forwarded, digging in

okay "New Abnormal" is a solid fucking banger

so uh sounds like this'll be better than the last one

It's good IMO! "Requiem for the Pre Apocalypse" is also awesome.

great to hear, was so disappointed with monsters

ringa ringa has been stuck in my head for days, i want a 20 min version

the whole album borrows liberally from their earlier sound in a nearly plagiaristic way but there's enough new pattern and approach going on to keep it lively. reminds me quite a bit of wonky after a few listens, maybe stronger.

another new tune. most exciting bit is around 4:45 in realizing "ok the tune is winding down but there's still a few minutes left?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WPxOe9mZ6I

but wait!! the track's beat was actually recycled from the Hartnoll and Young album from 2021 that nobody heard! you see!??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaPiqHF9nKI

That nursery rhyme is not about the plague. Not one Medieval Baebe knew that?

I feel safe in saying this is going to be a top 2023 record for me with the early singles, "New Abnormal," "Day One" and the Anna B Savage feature being particular high points.

I guess people already have it?

Officially released tomorrow isn't it?

yeah, but maybe preorder got there soon for some

("soon" -> early) my english broke

Yeah gonna wait till my local shop gets it but the people on the Orbital Facebook group seem to really like it and they’ve been kind of a tough crowd to please

pretty excited to hear what you guys think of it. It's great!

Impossible for saturated acid burbles not to make me smile (vis-a-vis three mins into You Are the Frequency).

so um what do you guys think of it

particularly this
https://orbitalofficial.bandcamp.com/track/the-new-abnormal

via popmatters

Many parts sound like the Orbital we have all grown accustomed to over the years. There aren’t many bold tracks, but plenty of bold moments can skew the imagination with each revisit. Like their first reunion album Wonky, Optical Delusion makes a case for Orbital remaining a creative working force without actually being their best work.

yeah it's perfectly enjoyable but not essential

Definitely more into the first half of the album than the second - tracks 1-5 are all stronger than anything in 6-10 imo. "Are You Alive?" especially stands out, a really pretty track

i agree that the last three tracks start to dip in quality a bit

There's no Tiny Foldable Cities-type highlight but it's pretty consistently good

late to the party but I wanted to wait until the shop actually got it. all I can say is I've been a fan since I was 16 and this makes me real happy. reminds me a lot of No Geography by the Chems. it's kinda everything you want in a late-career album; production is amazing, it hits their signature sound a lot but has some new things, and it's lean and focused. I don't agree that there's a dip late in the album either - actually I think that's where they're at their most Plaid which is a side of them I really like

First listen right now. Part of me longs for them to roll out another Belfast / Halcyon+on+on / Girl With The Sun, but they’re just not going to do that at this stage. Doesn’t mean it’s not really enjoyable, though. Dirty Rat is awesome. The whole thing sounds just like Orbital, but, like everything since The Altogether, it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be anything but Orbital. I feel like their sound constantly stretched and evolved up until then, and then calcified a little. Which is inevitable. This is as good as Wonky was. I didn’t listen to the last one enough cos it was 2018 and almost everything got ignored that year.

Fucked Up do a cover of "Quality Seconds" on their new 7'': https://fuckedup.bandcamp.com/album/cops

last few tracks feel a bit like Plaid which I would argue is kind of a new direction, if one could possibly exist for them at this stage. funny cuz Plaid are the other guys that come to mind when you think of electronic groups whose sound has gone completely static. they both make quality records though.

“There is the theory of the möbius, a twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop, and when we reach that point, what ever happened will happen again.” That time, it would appear, is now.

Pre-Sale 17/10 10 AM BST. General Sale 19/10 10 AM BST https://t.co/otQ1IDu32Z pic.twitter.com/oEsgwLQcDA

— Orbital (@orbitalband) October 13, 2023

Wonder if they'll subsequently do the Brown Album?

guessing this is gonna coincide with vinyl re-releases of all their old albums

Hopefully. They did say last year that they had some new licensing deal that was going to see all of their catalogue end up on streaming services but there's been no sign of that yet. Think it's only Chime and Radiccio of their early singles that are available atm

from the newsletter:

'I’ve always been sceptical about going back but when we thought about playing the Green album live I rolled the idea around for a bit, how could this work? The way we perform is always free and full of improvisation in production and arrangements. This approach will give us a chance to take these fabulous old tracks, written by young versions of ourselves, and perform them with a modern sensibility.
Intrigued, I gathered all the original gear, set it up and switched on…
As I dusted off the old floppy discs, samplers and an Atari ST computer (Google it), I discovered the ghost of my past in the machine. It was like collaborating with my 22 year-old self. As the songs broke free from their original form, it quickly became clear that I really did want to take these songs on the road, many of which have never been played before.
We love playing live, the most exciting thing is to take a whole bunch of music we haven’t played before and discover how to play it, to see how people respond to it and shape it as we go along together.
To play the Green album live will be a wholly new experience for us and you, it’ll be a bit of an adventure. This will be new territory that I can’t wait to explore. As the saying goes...
“There is the theory of the möbius, a twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop, and when we reach that point, what ever happened will happen again.”
That time, it would appear, is now.'
Paul Hartnoll

No shit that's really awesome! Hope this makes it to the US

Yeah same here! Still have never been fortunate enough to see them.