Orbital - Classic or Dud?

p & p are real cool in person, too.

http://www.kidsthelabel.co.uk

tracks : patchwork guilt/gloopy

and both are very classical orbital styled tracks ..

personally offended to learn from Ned’s post that they’re doing a second visit to California this year and not going further north

They were fucking awesome in April this year. One of the best gigs I’ve been to in years.

that compilation mentioned above was released yesterday: https://orbitalofficial.bandcamp.com/album/a-beginners-guide-best-of

oh and they're in LA/SF/Austin next week, anyone going?

https://orbitalofficial.com/live/

ok, we've got it covered, Ned is going :)

finally picked up the Green album reissue, it's totally different than the version I know - unremixed version of Speed Freak, three tracks I hadn't heard before, live versions of Chime and Midnight, no Choice or Satan...feels like a much different album

I do remember hearing a while ago that there was some obscure Orbital track that used a Tom & Jerry sample...Macro Head has got to be it

xpost I did! And I wrote about it:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/116468582

It is a real trip going back to these high-impact-for-me albums (in this case In Sides) and listening to them straight through without skipping. It is a strong reminder of what made me love them so much in the first place.

Like, why do I skip “P.E.T.R.O.L.”? It’s fucking brilliant

Remastered and expanded Brown Album dropping next month 😍

https://www.orbitalofficial.com/2025/04/04/the-brown-album/

tracklist here, nothing too new at first sight (diversions EP, etc), just a 1992 show - https://orbital.tmstor.es/product/Brown-Album-4CD

The new single is very "cult recruitment video".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q52U_XhnzRA

i hope they'll post it to bandcamp as well, townsend music can go to hell.

there is a live broadcast of the last Green / Brown show in a couple of hours (you have to buy a £5 ticket to watch)

what if you’d been recruited into that cult in 1989

They’ve done a remix for Confidence Man which fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggpt2MjMgvs

Radiccio EP newly streaming so I guess they're continuing the rollout of remastered singles?

wait is this a new track or one of those "Stringy Acid" things where they polished up an old tune? kinda hard to tell, it sounds good though

its cool that they still have this working relationship, she's pretty unforgettable in the video for "The Box", she was relatively unknown back then too I think

from the newsletter:

All vinyl cut at half speed for maximum audio fidelity, however this album was not re-mastered as the engineer told us “it was perfect as it was”, so there you go!

and in regards to Deepest:

Released due to phenomenal demand after the iconic actor made a surprise appearance at Glastonbury 2024, joining Orbital on the Park Stage. Available as part of the 'Radiccio' EP.

wait is this a new track or one of those "Stringy Acid" things where they polished up an old tune?

what if you’d been recruited into that cult in 1989

Deeper was the B side to their debut single (Chime).

This is a rerecorded version with Tilda Swinton doing the spoken word parts xps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DZ1_DZ0zqw-

ahh yes "Deeper" that's the track I was thinking of. Orbital's early period has always confused me, like half the tracklisting of the reissued Green album is different from the CD I have

agreed that Brown doesn't need a remaster. gonna be fun to revisit that one again

tracklist here, nothing too new at first sight

nothing missing at first sight either, unlike last time - the only released music not included I think are five tracks from Glasto '94 (and the Rave On single by Industry Standard, which would be fun to have clean versions of, but don't fit with Brown)

that live stream of the last show of the tour in London (which has already started I guess) includes 48 hours of replay : https://lounges.tv/lounge/details/EiDmGz8AnL

having only recently decided to ruin my finances by getting into vinyl - was surprised how hard Insides and the brown album were to come by. so last week i picked up that beginners guide record, which has the box and a couple tracks off brown. and of course they announce the release of remastered brown a matter of days latter... and of course i am getting it.

fuck, they just played Belfast and now i'm crying
it's like the elegy for everything we lost, back then we were so sure we were invincible

remix trade is in - Confidence Man version of Lush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvSpRMsyW_Q

Confidence Man dismantle the original and wire it back together — sharper, stranger, and unstoppable.

“Confidence Man have done that rare but always strived for thing with a remix. It’s totally Lush, totally Orbital, totally modern, and totally Confidence Man! How did they manage to get all that into one track! I’m even going to nick bits of it for when we play festivals over the summer, that’s how much we love it!”

“Lush is one of our favorite dance tracks of all time, so we were like rabid dogs with the stems in our hands. Kids in a cooked candy store. Dreams really do come true if you dream hard enough, and we’re proof.”

instrumental version on soundcloud, if you haven't eschewed it due to AI yet

nothing missing at first sight either, unlike last time - the only released music not included I think are five tracks from Glasto '94 (and the Rave On single by Industry Standard, which would be fun to have clean versions of, but don't fit with Brown)

looks like three extra tracks on the digital version: studio version of Semi-Detached from Trance Europe Express (also on the 4LP?), a Vapourspace remix of Lush that was released as Spacewalk on Themes From Vapourspace, and an American remix of Lush from the US Impact single, 1926 Trancendance Mix.

digging that Confidence Man remix, love how it brings in elements of 3-1, 3-2, and the recent live takes

I like how Orbital's catalogue is this ever evolving thing like Kraftwerk's. except they actually do make new music every now and then :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dOXhSun08

going to see them in a week, first time for about 25 years

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002cqm8

"Paul Hartnoll of electronic music duo Orbital talks about the reissue of the band's Brown album which was originally released in 1993, with the addition of 23 extra tracks of rarities and previously unreleased material and about the intersection between dance music and politics."

ooh, Gary Davies

The Peel Sessions EP is now available on streaming (although it's called Radio Sessions for some reason)

https://open.spotify.com/album/11MS2lOastXVWQL2FcwIx6?si=FdOkiuvCSi-o46ZoFInXjA

somehow missed Optical Delusion completely when it came out. it's very enjoyable!

It is!

Fucked Up put out a cover of "Quality Seconds" on a b-side a couple years ago: https://fuckedup.bandcamp.com/album/cops

the muted reception to Optical Delusion surprises me. idk if people thought parts of it were too Orbital-by-numbers, or if other parts of it were too out there, but I like pretty much all of it. something like "The New Abormal" reminds me of all the reasons I fell in love with them in the first place. and the wackier stuff at least reaffirms their dedication to finding odd noises. I guess the album is kind of exhausting but you could say that about Middle of Nowhere too

Yeah I like it more than Wonky or the Blue Album, surprised I missed it.

Maybe under the radar since it came out in 2023, it was a weird time. Not like 2026 when we've got shit under control.

it's much better than Monsters, which i don't think i listened to since it came out.

Paul's collab with Kneecap last year was a bit by the numbers but nice!

What do the Orbital hardcore consider to be their best album of the 21st century? I got off the bus around Middle of Nowhere, having seen them live a ton and been obsessed with Brown and bits of In Sides and Snivilisation. Funny Break was the last thing i remember liking.

Blue album is half great half bad. I rate The Altogether a bit above it and Wonky still.

Wonky is the only proper album i never listened to, i still love shopping for cds so was holding off hoping i'd find one eventually, but i've never seen one for sale, while you can find pretty much every other Orbital album - i don't know if that's because folks do love it better compared to others or because it was released in smaller numbers

I've probably mentioned it up thread but the best new shit they've done post 2000 is the Don't Stop Me / The Gun is Good single. Why those aren't on an LP and why they didn't work on anything else around that time (it was released in between the Blue Album and Wonky) is beyond me. Those tracks are top notch and very much overlooked imho. Blue, Wonky, Monsters Exist and Optical Delusion just all sound samey with a few nifty bits here and there. Probably should revisit The Altogether, but thought it was very much not like them and not that great, basically trying to pull a Vespertine vibe or something, but maybe I was off there

Everything I've enjoyed from them post Middle of Nowhere has been either live stuff or their 30 Something anthology. Them having guest vocalists with lyrics on their last few has felt very... un-Orbital. Their use of samples and sampled monologues has always been more their thing and they often don't lean enough into that.

They still crush it live, though - very much enjoyed their last visit here.

i had a real moment with wonky when it came out, love every track on that thing

The Altogether I thought was fun but it doesn't feel like an album to me, it feels like one of those compilations of stuff that was too gimmicky to put on an album but too good to not release. Admittedly it's spotty but if you include the bonus disc there's a real good hour in there.

Blue Album is okay but you can tell they had one foot out the door, I think the Hartnolls even said they wanted it to just be an EP but wanted to give back to the fans. So again it doesn't feel like a proper album but it's definitely got some great tracks and some that are a lot of fun. They really punted the Sparks vocal though.

Wonky to me felt like a total comeback, maybe quite not on par with their classics but as good as you could reasonably expect I think. I dug how they really leaned into their sound and produced something unmistakenly Orbital, when I'm in the mood for the band but don't know what to put on I reach for this a lot.

Monsters Exist is kind of a dud, I'll defend it somewhat but I think what happened was, they split up and got back together again, started writing some more trademark Orbital stuff like "Copenhagen", got halfway through the album and realized, hmmm maybe we should try something different this time, inspired perhaps by Brexit/Trump filling them with dread, so they took things in a new direction but didn't quite realize it fully. Anyway, P.H.U.K. still rules, prob the direction they wanted to go in the first place.

Optical Delusion, as I've mentioned above...great, probably on par with Wonky. I think it maybe suffers a bit from going a bit too hard, also I think it could've used a big epic in the end...I think what might've worked it putting Are You Alive? at the end and extending it to a full on rave up.

Wonky’s good! Monsters Exist doesn’t really exist. Still waiting to hear the Mark Ayres mix of Optical Delusion (currently going for a mere $187 on ebay) before forming a strong opinion. Kneecap collab total banger. The Ideal Condition > 8:58 for Paul solo albums

The Ideal Condition is a cool record, its like an imaginary soundtrack album, I love how ornate and intricate it gets. title track in particular is really cool.

agreed 8:58 wasn't as good, in fact it's got some outright bad tracks on it, but "Cemetary" I think is as good as anything Orbital did in the 21st century

yeah frogbs otm with that summary above, but still feel all of those albums still can't really hold a candle to even Middle of Nowhere

Middle of Nowhere was the first Orbital album I bought and I do really love it. With hindsight, it's the end of their imperial phase - Altogether is patchy although the US bonus disc is great; Blue felt half baked; Wonky I LOVED and for some reason I haven't really clicked with any of the other comeback stuff.

should also point out there's a deluxe edition of Monsters Exist with a bunch of bonus tracks - its not really clear to me what they are exactly, but I'm guessing they were early cuts for the album that got swapped out once they changed direction (again, not sure if this is exactly what happened)...they're pretty good though

also seek out The Altogether bonus disc if you don't have it...I thought only the USA release had it but I could be mistaken...it's mostly Middle of Nowhere era remixes but there are some great B-sides..."Monorail", "Beezlebeat", and "Mock Tudor" are better than most of the album proper