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NewSchoolScience

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    Orbital 30

    in New & Upcoming Releases

    Posted

    9 hours ago, X4creek said:

    ...guess its finally time for me to check out these guys

     

    Where should I start? I was thinking In Sides since a lot of people I trust absolutely adore that one but im curious to hear your picks (if you just say "start from the beginning" id also understand lol)

    Brown, Snivilisation and Insides. Golden era pearlers.

    • Like 2

    Orbital 30

    in New & Upcoming Releases

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Silent Member said:

    I have to say that Orbital doesn't really hold up unfortunately. Most vintage 90s electronic/idm stuff still sounds pretty great to me, but I just can't listen to Orbital anymore. It's all flat, puny and cheesy to my ears now, I fucking hate it. Sorry. :cattears:

    Cmon, the Brown album is a timeless classic.  The three track run of 'Lush 3-1', 'Lush 3-2', into 'Impact (The Earth Is Burning)' is outstanding.  It still hits as hard as it did back in the day.

    • Like 3

    Orbital 30

    in New & Upcoming Releases

    Posted · Edited by NewSchoolScience

    On 5/12/2022 at 6:53 PM, purlieu said:

    1. Tension
    2. Funny Break (One is Enough)
    3. Tunnel Vision
    4. Oi!
    5. Pay Per View
    6. Lost
    7. Tootled
    8. You Lot
    9. Shadows
    10. Monorail
    11. Transient

    Yeah, that would work pretty well. On the whole I actually quite like The Altogether. It took a long time to click but I'm fond of it now. I wrote this about it on Discogs:

    Orbital cut ties with their club roots - temporarily at least.

    The Altogether got a lot of flak when it came out, from myself included. The chunky drum sounds, the long unfurling epics interspersed with occasional club bangers: all gone. Orbital's pop album: something, it seemed, that nobody really wanted. Strong lead single - and the most classic-Orbital sounding track here - 'Funny Break', gave listeners false expectations. So the disappointment on initial plays led to an understandably negative response.

    In hindsight, I find it a lot easier to be positive about the album for what it is: a very brave record. Previous album The Middle of Nowhere was solid, but found them out of new ideas - Orbital by numbers. Instead of continuing down that path with diminishing returns, they decided to mix things up entirely. The snippets of pop songs and '70s sci-fi that littered their tracks in the past now take the fore. Parts of the record - most notably 'Shadows' - preempt the hauntology movement, with a strong influence from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. 'Waving Not Drowning', ties together folky acoustics and basic analogue electronics in a disturbingly cheery kids TV theme. 'Pay Per View' skews lounge music into strange territories; 'Tootled' does the same with metal, sampling heavily from Tool. 'Tension' and 'Oi!' have tongues firmly fitted in cheeks, retro sounds and chirpy melodies mashing together rockabilly and rave.

    It's not all great. 'Last Thing' is b-side quality, 'Doctor?' is a novelty step too far - a fun live track that should have been kept to the stage - and the less said about David Gray's appearance on 'Illuminate' the better. 'Meltdown' is decent but totally unfitting for the album. The album's artwork is really quite bad, even by the retro tongue-in-cheek feel of the album (bring back the old logo and swirly emblem!)

    The Altogether is never going to be reassessed as a masterpiece, but I think it's time it gets a wider reappraisal. It's a bold record, a band trying a totally different approach after taking their classic sound as far as possible. It's intentionally retro sounding, and intentionally poppy, so those kitsch, cheesy sounds people often complain about are being unfairly misjudged. It might not be the most successful experiment ever, but it's an admirable one, and one that yields some excellent results in hindsight.

    The US version features a generous, if slightly muddled, bonus disc, featuring all the original non-album material from the 'Style', 'Nothing Left', 'Beached' (sadly not 'Beached' itself, with the rights being owned by 20th Century Fox) and 'Funny Break' singles, plus the Altogether DVD bonus track 'Monorail'. Although these are almost all ostensibly the band's remixes of their own material, Orbital come from the same school of artists as FSOL and Underworld when it comes to reworking their own tracks into wonderful new, often unrecognisible, tracks. The menacing electro-breaks of 'Beelzebeat', for instance, started life as 'Funny Break', although one would never know by listening. 'An Fhomhair' is an acidic (and far superior) take on TMON's 'Otono'. 'Weekend Ravers' turns 'Funny Break' into a storming progressive trance number. 'Old Style' begins by reprising the melody from 'Style', before moving into an entirely new piece with an early rave feel. The sole wholly original piece here, 'Mock Tudor' is possibly the best, a stunningly beautiful piece of analogue techno in 7/4.

    In terms of consistency and track quality, this bonus disc is one of the finest discs in the band's extensive catalogue. Unfortunately, the production styles of The Middle of Nowhere and The Altogether are incredibly at odds, giving the mixed running order a somewhat clumsy feel. 'Beelzebeat' seems immediately garish when followed by the chunky analogue sound of 'Nothing Left Out'; 'Monorail' suffers similarly sat between two more TMON-era pieces. A purely chronological running order, putting the various 'Style' mixes next to each other would have made an equally unsatisfying listen, but I still think the running order could do with more work to make the disc sound more cohesive.

    Regardless, despite the criticisms I do have of this two CD set, they are mostly minor in comparison to the numerous highlights found here. To any newcomers to Orbital potentially put off by the negative response The Altogether has received, I'd strongly recommend giving this 2CD set a listen, as there is a lot to love if approached from the right perspective.

    This is a great write up, thanks for sharing.

    The Middle of Nowhere was the last Orbital album I really enjoyed from start to finish, the last of the great ones.  Downhill from there, sadly.  Every album since has had highlights, but each just hasn't seemed to hold together as a whole.

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