Orbital C/D

Nah, Work is k-rub... a complete wasted opportunity. In my mind, Orbital were never really a singles band anyway and filling up one CD with cruelly curtailed singles edits of great tracks and then calling it a best of is unnatural and wrong in my opinion.

Can I take this opportunity to reaffirm the unabashed kick-arsedness of Technologique Park again please? Thankyou.

it happened with The Orb as well...tho there was a double CD versio of their best of - Orbital shouldve had one of those as well

still 'Work' is very accessible so might suit Ess Kay, otherwise snap up the Brown album and In Sides and see how you go from there

The brown album, _Snivilization_, _In Sides_ and _The Middle of Nowhere_ are all essential. _The Altogether_ is slightly less essential but still necessary. The green album... I think I made my feelings clear on that one earlier in the thread.

out of curiosity, since all of you are far more well-versed in the ways of the Hartnolls than i am, does anyone have any thoughts on the Orbitalamenti "Beached"?

i thought 'Beached' was okay, i preferred it to 'Style' - but then i really liked the soundtrack to 'The Beach' in general

here's the Spooky track i mentioned upthread: Fingerbobs an old tune ('95/'96) that has that old Orbital sound/vibe

Why have they released this Octane soundtrack thing? I mean, as a collection of spooky noises and tension building background music I'm sure its fine but I can't really imagine why anyone would want to listen to it as a record in its own right.

Whatwhatwhat? New Orbital? Even if it's only a soundtrack it's probably better than The Altogether. :o(

the track from Octane i heard a few weeks ago was EXCELLENT

Nick I'm in the process of reviewing for your website! It's come out in a blaze of no publicity whatsoever - the most ambient thing they've ever done, almost entirely beatless.

Steve - that's probably the remix of Initiation, which is supposedly on the next album proper. The original Initiation is alright as well - definitely the most 'Orbital' thing on there.

It's not better than The Altogether :( But it's not really being treated as a 'proper' album, though, so its difficult to judge what the next one will be like.

this thread used to come up every so often and remind me that i still didn't have any orbital albums...
since then i've got insides,which i really like,and snivelisation,which i haven't really got into,it sounds quite good but there's nothing that really grabs me in the way that halcyon,way out,belfast,or chime (which i downloaded after reading this thread,incidentally) did/do

I think everyone will be glad to know that at some point in the last year I woke up thinking, "My God, 'Chime' is fucking amazing," and have yet to be convinced that I was wrong.

The only thing I don't like about Orbital is that they aren't really about dancing so much as just going "wow".

This is true.

I disagree (but I would).

Yeah I thought you might dude!

Typical.

Orbital to me have always been pretty much 50/50 ratio in terms of dancing and listening/experiencing as primary functions of their music

The giant windpower blades at the beginning of The Girl With the Sun In Her Head are mega.

(megawhat? megawatt. sorry...)

Orbital 2 - CLASSIC! ONE OF MY FAVORITES! HOORAY!
Yes, Lukas those blades are mega-mega-megatron!!!!

Transform!

Man, I SUCK! Boredom is a horrible thing.

I was serious about Orbital 2, though.

New album June 21st:

Orbital - Blue
http://www.loopz.co.uk/discog/album/blue.html

Old-skool atom cover, original Orbital loop, named after a colour... these are all good signifiers. I'm hopeful for a return to form here.

Tracks called 'Pants' however, fill be with horrific versions of Altogetheresque comedy techno.

further evidence they're becoming/have become the Simply Red of techno

will 'You Lot' sample 'The Magnificent Seven' i wonder..?

It features Sparks, who are back on top form, how fucking great is this going to be. Simply Red, pah.

Nice cover. "Pants" sounds rubbish but the fact that it's followed later in the album by "Acid Pants" may redeem it.

Yes, I have no problem whatsoever with tracks called 'Acid Pants'. Orbital wouldn't dare use the word "acid" in a track title and have anything less than three simultaneous 303 lines squoinking away over one another.

Word has it that the new album is more InSides/Snivilisation than the last two albums, with the exception of Sunrise which is meant to be proper euphoric Halcyon hands-in-the-air stuff.

The sample from You Lot goes something like: "Unravelled DNA and at the same time youre cultivating bacteria strong enough to kill every living thing. Do you think you are ready for that much power. You lot ? You lot? You're running around science like kids with guns." Which needs to be a huge Snivilisation/Forever-esque rant over the top otherwise I will be hugely disappointed.

I have absolutely no reason to be excited by this, but I am nonetheless.

What Matt has just written there has made me piss my pants, like.

i'm sure i'll love this no matter what

Orbital were really something once. I found M of N pleasant, but...hmm. I heard one song from Altogether and was like...THAT was Orbital?? I didn't bother purchasing it. I agree that in hindsight the Brown album was really where it was at. Infact, I almost want to jump off a bridge right now for selling it once. I heard it playing in a store recently and was ridden with guilt. I just figured I'd be able to buy it again someday. Maybe I'll go straight to the store after writing this and rectify this horrible situation immediately.

The Brown album hangs together better because one song flows into another, one idea flows into another.

Thank god there's a CD store just up the street. I feel SO much better now.

Oh HOW I USED TO WORSHIP THEM THEN!!!!

I still have my Orbital jersey really really I do! It's deteriorated but you should have seen my chemistry professor's face when he saw those atomic orbitals on the front!

Not to mention the fact it said "Orbital" on the back. In Chemistry class. Insane!

IT IS NOT ALL ABOUT ORBITAL 2. IT IS ALL ABOUT IN SIDES.

My Snivilisation peeps, represent!

IT IS ALSO ALL ABOUT SNIVILIZATION, TIM'S OTM

Uh, they're all good?

Snivilization as an album was a disappointment when it came out...a bit puzzling really. They vastly improved with "The Box" EP and yes, there are a few songs on In Sides that are some of the best of their career by far

but still...Orbital 2 had the cohesion, the consistency. To maintain that over an entire album's length is pretty rare.

I dunno I think the cohesion and consistency of Orbital 2 is kinda overrated - an artist album that works like a DJ set is a good idea obv but, y'know, DJ sets that work like DJ sets are pretty cool too.

Plus with Orbital 2 you get this amazing run from "Lush" through to the end of "Remind" but the "cohesion" of the rest is only notable in comparison to the schizophrenia of Snivilization. Most of the allegedly unique qualityies of Orbital 2 are present in Middle Of Nowhere as well (the excellent flow of the first three tracks; "Nothing Left" as a sequel to "Halcyon" only even vaster).

Orbital 2 is still an amazing album obv, but I'm not sure if its qualities are automatically superior to Snivilization - whose perversity and restlessness frequently captivate me.

Of course if Orbital 2 had the full version of "Impact (The Earth Is Burning)" it might *well* be unbeatable.

there's an even bigger version of "impact?" the one on orbital 2 is well over ten minutes, if i recall.

in sides is still an unreal experience start-to-finish. 2 benefits quite a bit from tracks running together, but i hardly notice the transitions on much of in sides, even when they incorporate a change in beat and key. they're cleverly done.

The reworked version of Impact USA was the best version of Impact - they tidied up the melodic bit at the beginning slightly and then prolonged the messy apocalyptic Cry For Survival bit at the end with loads of extra squealy noises on top.

The best version of Impact was the one played on the MoN tour, where they reversed the parts so you got the hard bit first and then uplifting first section kicked in later. Destroyed the concept, but sounded incredible (especially when it was sandwiched in between Spare Parts Express and Know Where To Run as part of a continuous mix).

InSides is the most coherant thing they've done. Incidentally, dodgy as The Altogether may have been, all the haterz overlook the 9 minute majesty of MELTDOWN, especially the sublime closing section. More of that please.

i put the altogether dvd on last night and cracked on with stuff with that in the background .. tis a grower .. found myself really digging it far mroe than originally.
anyone heard that soundtrack album thats in the HMV sales ? worthy of 6 shiny coins ?

If I ahd to take two into outerspace with me it'd be 'Brown' and In Sides, definitely.

'The Altogether' remains unfairly misjudged. people always think David Gray and Tool when they should be thinking FUNNY BREAK, LAST THING, TENSION, OI, PAY PER VIEW, SHADOWS and MELTDOWN

STEVEM COMPLETELY OTM (and also the David Gray song is actually great if you pay attention to it and aren't busy going "I AM FAR TOO COOL TO LIKE SOMETHING WITH DAVID GRAY ON IT FNAR FNAR FNAR")

matt otm re: meltdown - there's just so much wonderful stuff going on in that track. i can't believe at first i completely dysmissed that track and now it's one of my fav's.