💿 Orbital listening club 💿

  1. Brown
  2. In Sides
  3. Snivilisation
  4. Middle of Nowhere
  5. Green
  6. Wonky
  7. Blue
  8. Monsters Exist
  9. The Altogether

Almost impossible to choose between the top two. If you out a gun to my head I’d probably say Brown because it was the first one I got into. Green might be higher except for 12 minutes of Desert Storm gubbing up the middle of the record.

Would happily listen to any of the top 6 all the way through. Not a bad hit rate.

Let’s not ever talk about The Altogether again. We owe the guys who made Halcyon that much.

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You should sort that out, for your sake :slight_smile:

oh, alright then

  1. Brown
  2. In Sides
  3. Wonky
  4. Middle Of Nowhere
  5. Snivilisation
  6. The Altogether
  7. Green
  8. Monsters Exist
  9. Blue

Top two are way out in front of the others, and The Altogether is only as high as it is because of the Doctor Who theme, which I properly love.

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  1. Snivilisation
  2. TMON
  3. Wonky
  4. Brown
  5. Green
  6. In Sides

Non-canon:
The Altogether
Monsters Exist
Blue

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The Middle of Nowhere
Brown
In Sides
Wonky
Green
The Altogether
Snivilisation
Monsters Exist
Blue

The Middle of Nowhere
Insides
Wonky
Snivilisation
Brown
Green
Blue
The Altogether
Monsters Exist

Yeah that’ll do

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On to Blue Album then. Given the voices in this thread the DiS consensus is that this one’s a stinker, and I’m here to plead its case as the misunderstood child with the heart of gold in the Hartnoll household.

Transient starts us off wrong footed. Its metalic percussion and melancholy strings are a complete contrast to the nonsense on The Altogether and it’s genuinely moving, a twisted soundtrack to a period drama set in some cavernous boiler room, the noise of pipes melding into a swirling harpsichord arpeggio. One of the weirdest and yet beautiful things Orbital have ever done. Pants follows and you can already tell the production has improved on this album - everything has its own space in the mix. Pants prowls around like a curious cat, a fussy tippy-toe percussive synth under the big yawny lead giving it a shuffling propulsion, maintaining the off-kilter mood. So far, so subdued.

You think things are going to stay the same at the start of Tunnel Vision but again the Hartnolls pull the rug from under you and the air changes again as fear-inducing sirens and alarmclocks invade your space and you’re suddenly part of a chase scene in an early 2000s sci-fi movie. The skittering drums are some of the Hartnoll’s best. Lost continues the sci-fi soundtrack feel, and makes me think of the Dunes of Arakis with its Arabian, Vangelis-like melody. The dulcimers bring it back to In Sides territory.

You Lot feels like classic Orbital with a twist, the only properly sample-driven track on the album and the point where this brooding teen shows its sense of humour. Chris Eccleston takes the lead and we get something fantastically new in the Orbital ouvre - vocoder! Is it a successful experiment? Maybe not. Is it peak Orbital fuckaboutery? Absolutely. It’s unusual, comes completely out of leftfield and it’s Orbital all over. You may disagree, but it’s ok to be wrong. Bath Time next, a bizarre little baroque interlude that’s stately and jaunty at the same time with a dark undercurrent. It doesn’t really go anywhere and overstays its welcome.

…and then the fun starts. Acid Pants was my introduction to Sparks. I had no idea what to think. This is simultaneously one of the more horrible and brilliant pieces of music Orbital have ever made. It is designed to utterly disorient; its dizzying acid arpeggio and ultra fussy bass combined with the crazed insistence of Russell Mael fading into a creepy whisper until the laughing bag comes in and the lead has turned into a psychotic circus theme and it turns into some sort of satanic clown rave and oh god I’ve always wanted to be at a club and have this play and watch everyone fucking freak out. Evil genius.
Easy Serv brings us down (thank god) with its gentle digital island calypso.

Which brings us to One Perfect Sunrise, the denouement of this willful oddball of an album, a track that easily slips into the best of Orbital’s work. It’s instant hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck stuff, Lisa Gerrard’s soaring, majestic voice is sublime against the huge rolling bass. It’s pure sunset at a festival stuff, brazen in its euphoria, utterly sweeping you along, a paean to the death and rise of the sun, to sad farewells and new horizons. It was the Hartnoll’s proper ‘Goodbye’ and a monumental mic drop on an album that could never cap off a career the way everyone wanted because no one wanted them to go. I think Blue Album has been treated pretty unfairly over the years and it’s really due genuine reevaluation, but going by its sad placing in everyone’s lists on this thread, perhaps 2021 is not the year of its rediscovery. A shame, because I think it’s better than Wonky, its bolshy, bratty little brother. And that’s next.

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I don’t agree with it, but I loved reading it. :smiley:

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Multiple, tumbling samples mark the beginning of Wonky, Orbital’s 2012 come-back album, and despite the blushes with dubstep that follow, it’s really the first clue that the Hartnolls are looking back to their early days with this album, perhaps to its detriment. It’s an album that dwells on the past, certainly, with some modern flourishes that let us know the Hartnolls have been paying attention while they’ve been away.

One Big Moment (a cheeky title nod to their last track?) doesn’t live up to its promise but it is a pretty pleasant chiming 6 minutes let down by some of the flatest production to date. The opening section of Straight Sun is once again reminscent of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra feel Orbital sometimes inhabit. There’s some whoomphy dubstep bass and a nice oldschool rave pads in play and the production opens up a bit, the drums siginificantly more distinct with their two-step clatter (reminds me a bit of Moderat, come to think of it). Sadly there’s some weird clipping around the 4 minute mark that I’m not sure is intentional. Never next. It’s ok as Orbital filler goes. New France, on the other hand, is Wonky’s first great track, Zola Jesus getting a credited featured vocal and it’s a zappy alien pop number that’s absolutely going to be an end credits song some day if it hasn’t already.

Love the ultrafast arpeggios and vocal samples of Distraction with its unashamed rock beat, it’s one of the few tracks on Wonky that doesn’t have at least one foot in the bucket of the past and sounds like a genuine new direction for them. “Growing” indeed. Kind of wish it didn’t segue into Stringy Acid the way it does, it’s very clunky - it’s these little things that I keep getting stuck on with Wonky - it lacks a sense of care and attention. The track itself is a nice 4/4 Acid stomp but it’s as backwards as Distraction is forwards - probably exactly what I should expect from Orbital, really. It could have come from either of the first two albums. As if to really rub the past in, the next track is the mighty Beelzedub. It’s undeniably great, but it’s really just a cheeky dubstep rework of Satan. Love the jungle break that comes in around 3 minutes in.

And then, oh god, the title track. For me, the worst thing Orbital have ever done. It’s relentlessly awful, Lady Leshurr’s rapping a complete incongruity on the album. “This is about to go down down down!”…yet instead of a drop the track sounds like a chorus of unhappy cats. The dynamics are all over the place. The electro section about 3 and a half minutes again is the only good bit before we’re back to the hiccuping rap and the build-up with no pay-off. Yes. Yes it is a hideous cow.

Thank fuck for Where Is It Going? then, another stone-cold great Orbital closer that mirrors elements of the previous track but actually knows what to do with them. The production is * chef’s kiss *, so crispy and bright. A big night out banger in which the only fault is its brevity - I want more of where it’s going, please. I will, eventually, get more in the form of Copenhagen on the next album Monsters Exist, but that’s a journey for tomorrow.

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Love this, again don’t agree with it :smiley:

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I’m back! And so are Orbital. For whatever reason, Orbital 2.0 were only a thing for about 10 minutes, in which time they pushed out Wonky and, er, Pusher, a soundtrack I haven’t heard for a film I haven’t seen. They then said ‘fuck it’ in late 2014. Breakup 2.0 lasted five seconds and then they announced shows in 2017 and started lobbing singles out again. Orbital 3.0 are, as of this writing, still a thing.

And so Monsters Exist. I admit I had some high hopes for this one - the John Greenwood album cover was incredibly exciting and probably brought with it some expectations the album just couldn’t meet overall - his previous two covers adorn the absolute zenith of Orbital’s back catalogue, and Monsters Exist, while not being remotely the nadir, just isn’t on the same level. Either way, we start off pretty strong. The title track does what it says on the tin with its seismic bass stabs as it struts unimpeded through the city limits and surveys the kingdom of ants before it like an impassive kaiju god. Hoo Hoo Ha Ha follows with a nasty glitch glam stomp and it’s weirdly reminiscent of of an OG Playstation-era rhythm game with a faulty disc. I don’t hate it, I just question its reason for inclusion. Fortunately, The Raid is next and its live drums and witch coven at a black sabbath panting and groaning really set it out as something new from the Hartnolls. It’s very soundtrack/end of credits to a modern Hammer Horror feel where the badguy is, er, Population Density. I think.

Oh, hello P.H.U.K. Having a bit of an identity crisis I see? It’s ok, so are we all. I actually think it has been given a bit of a bad rap in this thread as it’s pretty experimental for Orbital and it really does come into its own in the second half as they manage to bring the two disparate parts of the track together for something pretty euphoric before ending it all with an electro tweakout. Tiny Foldable Cities continues with the tweaky electro feel but it’s like proper Orbital, no gimmicks, just a well crafted bit of music. Buried Deep Within continues in this vein, as does Vision OnE - these aren’t tracks that are going to bother any best-ofs but they’re solid, enjoyable, Orbital meat’n’tatties tracks.

The End Is Nigh is a sort of weird paean to Black Cherry-era Goldfrapp that doesn’t actually have Alison on it (I don’t think that’s her). I really dig the Alan Wilder/Recoil style opening and overall I feel it’s a great track that could have been even greater if it actually had Alison on it. There Will Come A Time (feat. Prof. Brian Cox) is our ending, and it’s wilfully odd even for Orbital. Cox’s gentle manchester accent guides us through the concept of existence… no longer existing and it’s like they’ve been listening to Lemon Jelly’s Page One - “Nothing!” and playing Everything, taking note of the snippets of Alan Watts lectures that play throughout that game. It’s utterly bizarre and not a little beguiling; and it’s certainly not something you’d have expected.

But that’s not all!

Yup, Monsters Exist comes with another disc, and this time it’s actually completely relevant to the preceeding one (unlike The Altogether) so we’re (I am) going to talk a little about it. At first I genuinely preferred it to the album proper. It’s a peculiar remix-demo-rework of most of the album complete with new track titles, some of which work a bit better, some of which don’t. Kaiju is the computer game version of Monsters Exist and just as enjoyable. A Long Way From Home is a beautiful Peter Broderick style acoustic reinterpretation of There Will Come A Time, complete with a gentle hiss and vinyl crackles. It’s just gorgeous and I wish it lasted a lot longer. Fun With The System is a pleasurable early sketch without a novelty lead - more Wonky than Altogether. Dressing Up In Other People’s Clothes and To Dream Again are similar - they’re not all there but maybe that’s a good thing. I’m quite a ‘how the sausage gets made’ sort of person and I really love hearing how music develops, and the second disc of Monsters Exist does just that for me. I don’t think it can stand up on its own, though.

But that’s still not all!

HMV buyers got a fuckin third disc (was not happy when I found out after I bought the album direct from the Hartnoll’s own shop) and the digital download version comes with another 4 tracks, the most important of which is the mighty Copenhagen, which slips comfortably into a best of Orbital list. Is it part of Monsters Exist? It arguably should have made it on to the album proper; there’s certainly room - but I suspect it was ousted for There Will Come A Time, the Hartnolls opting for a bleaker, more philosophical ending than Copenhagen’s wide-eyed best-night-of-your-life euphoria. So how does that make me feel? Kind of annoyed, if I’m being honest.

And… that’s all.

Cheers for reading if you got this far. This thread has been a blast to read and these reviews/listenathons have been fun to write. Thanks to all the other players and thanks a lot, @UncleRetrospective - can’t wait for The Cure Club!

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That’s for the write ups, they all been great. Look forward to seeing you in the Cure club.

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Good write up this :+1:

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This was because 8:58, Paul’s second solo album, completely tanked.

His album with what’s his face from Erasure, did about as well, but that’s their fault for opening an album with Electroswing. :face_vomiting:

2square seems to be gone from Spotify but I don’t think I ever managed to get the whole way through it.

I’m just glad that we got through this without having to engage with the execrable pigswill that is Hartnoll & Young’s The Virus Diaries.

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I have no idea what you’re talking about. That sounds like something that just doesn’t exist…

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I’m doubting myself now. The whole thing just sounds ridiculous; surely one of them would have realised what a horrible, horrible idea this was at a very early stage. There’s no way they’d have carried on, making a whole album worth of Young’s witless drivel set to music. And even if that had happened, somebody, one of their family members, someone in the industry, anybody, must have said, no don’t do this, it’s horrendous.

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I have a soft-spot for that first Murray Lachlan Young album. It still tickles me that he somehow got a £1,000,000 deal for it and I can’t to this day imagine more than 1000 people even bought it, let alone listened to it. Everything about it is fascinatingly off. It’s so astonishingly arch and yet so cheaply made, like it’s a total scam that isn’t even trying to hide it. One Nation Under A Goatee is a bop, mind.

Honestly can’t decide if I want to hear him do his thing over a Not-Orbital album - even out of idle curiosity - or not.

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It’s almost worth it to see how much of it you can get through. I got as far as track 5. Now, just looking at the tracklist gives me the dry heaves. To be clear, the Hartnoll stuff is alright, it’s Young’s tin-eared, lazy, hack ‘ooh isn’t working from home weird’, ‘gosh, my hair’s getting so long’, ‘wow, I’m queuing up for the supermarket’ Covid observations that are so unforgivable. And that they put it out in June 2021, a full year after everybody’s crap Aunty had already expressed much the same idea slightly more poetically on your Facebook feed.