Dance Omniscience (Orbital in general)

Member Name: Adam0001

Product:	Orbital in general
Date:	28/02/02 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More top tunes than you've had hot dinners.

Disadvantages: Becoming formulaic with age

Orbital never fail to impress, from their early self titled pieces to the more recent 'The Altogether' they have developed and built on their rave roots. The orbital sound is always recognisable and always a pleasure to hear.

The music itself has developed from the early, happy and optimistic techno more closely associated with the rave scene into darker more paranoid territory.

The first album (yellow)was a wonderful exercise in upbeat dance featuring such classic tracks as 'Chime' and the ultimate 3am chillout track, 'Belfast'. The act made their intentions somewhat clearer with the follow up album (brown).

Te second album although retaining an obvious sense of fun introduced darker elements to the inimitale sound of the Hartnoll brothers. Tracks such as 'Lush 3.5'and 'Halcyon & On & On' take the listener on a complex musical journey dealing with warm enthusiasm and pleasure only to subtly introduce elements of paranoia and fear.

The themes toyed with in previous albums only really started to bloom with the advent of the third album, 'Snivilisation'. This is quite possibly the weakest of the Hartnoll's six albums to date. The problem with this particular album is that, although undeniably a magnificent collection of tracks, there is little fluidity between pieces. 'Snivilisation' is a rather messy collection of excellent individual recordings but has no overall theme and, as a result is not as easy to listen to as the other albums. Having said that there are moments of absolute genius to be enjoyed here such as the 15 minute epic, 'Are We Here?'

More structured then, is the follow up, 'Insides'. An audio feast from start to finish we are treated to such outstanding tracks as 'The Girl With The Sun In Her Head', 'The Box' and the wonderfully dark 'Dwr Budr'. This really is the album where Orbital seem to have found their n
iche. The overall sound acheives the perfect balance between the optimistic beaty aspects traditionally associated with techno and the darker and more atmospheric influences associated with drum 'n'bass.

Arguably the finest work the act have produced though is their following album, 'Middle Of Nowhere'. This piece concentates far more heavily on the nature of paranoia and the more negative aspects of substance abuse, 'I Don't Know You People' perhaps being the best example. Outstanding throughout but best listened to from start to finish.

'The Altogether', their most recent work, could be deemed a little to commercial sounding or formulaic. It is important to note that it is still an outstanding album but we get the impression that the act may have peaked on their previous work. Tracks of note include 'Tension', 'Doctor' and 'Meltdown'.

For the obsessive it is worth noting that the remix album 'Diversions' (import) is an excellent collection of mixes of tracks from the brown album featuring such Techno luminaries as Underworld and CJ Bolland.

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