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Paul Hartnoll (Orbital) and Vince Clarke (Erasure) new collab album

Pirtek

By Pirtek
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Pirtek Grand Master

Pirtek

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Clarke:Hartnoll - 2Square. Out today:

 

http://www.cdbaby.co...clarkehartnoll2

 

Album notes:

 

2Square and is the first release from newly formed VeryRecords. Clarke and Hartnoll have composed and recorded 8 tracks in the style of Home House, a new electronic sub-genre which is defined as music you can dance to, in the privacy of your own living room. Paul Hartnoll (Orbital) recalls how it all came about. Vince approached me and asked if I wanted to work with him on some tracks he had demoed. I set about adding and fiddling around and then we both spent a week finishing and mixing the record in my Brighton studio. Between us weve chalked up more than 50 years of making electronic dance music, were both Dads, and it was time to hold out the hand of collaboration and help each other up onto the dance floor to dance as only Dads can.

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azatoth Grand Master

azatoth

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So cringey bad that it's only suitable for home listening? All I can see is sweaty 40 something office workers rocking out to this half-ironically with their tied tied around their head at the yearly office get together in some hotel conference room because this is apparently what their teen kids are into.

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Silent Member Grand Master

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Should have called it Dad House.

 

The samples sounds like tv background music, or menu screen music circa 2002.

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purlieu Grand Master

purlieu

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Finally listened to this. I dunno, I mean the 8:58 album was a bit underwhelming, although had some really great tracks that could have been on Wonky, and even in its lesser moments it had some very typical Orbital sounds which were comforting in their familiarity.

 

This is so, so bland though. Completely anonymous sounding generic 'dance music' from about ten years ago. Underwater is pleasant, but just sounds like an Orbital fan having a go. Single Function is actually pretty nifty, the only track here I'd voluntarily return to. The rest is just dull though, could have been written by any kid on a laptop.

 

Paul seems like a really nice bloke from everything I know, he's really chatty on Twitter, and it's become obvious over time that he was largely responsible for writing Orbital tracks, so it's really sad to hear such empty, hollow music coming from him. I keep seeing him with a controller and a Macbook and thinking - Jesus, the amount of gear you must have, what's with the plasticky digital approach? Give us some big deep analogue sounds from your synth collection. Doesn't he realise how fucking amazing stuff like Snivilisation sounds even today?

 

Also there's something a tad depressing about famous artists selling through CD Baby.

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Alcofribas Grand Master

Alcofribas

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^^ dude well fucking said. recently i came across his blog and the demo of belfast he put up really made me go back and revisit that first album. he just whipped that track up on a rainy day after work while he was at his parent's house. fucking incredible.

 

imo orbital peaked with in sides. i think that record was just such a majestic, beautiful and rich work of intricate compositions, perfectly integrated sampling, lush as fuck synth work. it's like a classical cd, but dance music. every one of their albums just got better and better up to that. MoN was pretty deece but it seemed to be the beginning of less compelling, cooler works with less bite and vitality. the following records all had wicked material but seemed less essential imho. i saw them live a couple times too...and it was goddamn ecstatic.

 

it's weird how some artists lose their mojo over time whereas some just get better and better. when i think of coltrane or the 'chre brothers i see visionary, powerful shit just growing and evolving and gaining momentum and force. later works of great artists (not saying ae are at this stage) have that kind of solid crystal force of mastery. but then some artists become more tame over time, seemingly more comfortable within a set of familiar boundaries and their works grow softer, more superficial, less full of blood.

 

idk, i feel genuinely shitty saying anything negative about paul tho. the guy is an absolute legend and for me orbital was one of the first set of artists that dropped the bomb of electronic music into my life and their first few records are like part of my dna. perhaps it's better and even more accurate to say it is my taste that has changed and to recognize that i probably can't really listen to newer shit by the 'tnoll bros after having such an intense connection to their albums back when i was a minuscule lad.

 

in any case, long live orbital and a lifetime of xoxoxoxo to the hartnolls.

 

fun fact: an early revelation for me was when i was listening to "i wish i had duck feet" and realized that the time-stretched sample was saying "[plastic?] suuuuurgery." i think that was the first time i understood time stretching w/o knowing what it was at all.

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Silent Member Grand Master

Silent Member

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but the minute you get into the synths like the Jupiter 8 and the Junos with their choruses, I figure you may as well take the mono out anyway, and use the chorus from Logic its cleaner.

:cerious:

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purlieu Grand Master

purlieu

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I was listening to the bonus disc from the US version of The Altogether last night, and it's amazing the difference in sound between the Altogether b-sides and the TMON b-sides on it. Beelzebeat sounds ok until it's followed by Nothing Left Out, which just has so much more depth in comparison. The difference is almost like listening to something on laptop speakers followed by something through a nice pair of monitors. Although I've actually grown to quite like The Altogether with time (it was quite a bold move in its own way), something happened between 1999 and 2001 that totally reshaped the sound of the Hartnolls' music and that sound has continued through both eras of Paul's solo stuff as well. I don't get it.

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Pirtek Grand Master

Pirtek

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^^ dude well fucking said. recently i came across his blog and the demo of belfast he put up really made me go back and revisit that first album. he just whipped that track up on a rainy day after work while he was at his parent's house. fucking incredible.

 

imo orbital peaked with in sides. i think that record was just such a majestic, beautiful and rich work of intricate compositions, perfectly integrated sampling, lush as fuck synth work. it's like a classical cd, but dance music. every one of their albums just got better and better up to that. MoN was pretty deece but it seemed to be the beginning of less compelling, cooler works with less bite and vitality. the following records all had wicked material but seemed less essential imho. i saw them live a couple times too...and it was goddamn ecstatic.

 

it's weird how some artists lose their mojo over time whereas some just get better and better. when i think of coltrane or the 'chre brothers i see visionary, powerful shit just growing and evolving and gaining momentum and force. later works of great artists (not saying ae are at this stage) have that kind of solid crystal force of mastery. but then some artists become more tame over time, seemingly more comfortable within a set of familiar boundaries and their works grow softer, more superficial, less full of blood.

 

idk, i feel genuinely shitty saying anything negative about paul tho. the guy is an absolute legend and for me orbital was one of the first set of artists that dropped the bomb of electronic music into my life and their first few records are like part of my dna. perhaps it's better and even more accurate to say it is my taste that has changed and to recognize that i probably can't really listen to newer shit by the 'tnoll bros after having such an intense connection to their albums back when i was a minuscule lad.

 

in any case, long live orbital and a lifetime of xoxoxoxo to the hartnolls.

 

fun fact: an early revelation for me was when i was listening to "i wish i had duck feet" and realized that the time-stretched sample was saying "[plastic?] suuuuurgery." i think that was the first time i understood time stretching w/o knowing what it was at all.

I totally agree with you!

 

For me, Orbitals best albums are Brown, Shiv, Insides and TMON

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