Orbital - Orbital 2

After their groundbreaking debut, brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll quickly put trendy tags like "rave," "techno," and "hardcore" behind them. With Orbital 2, the brothers went to great lengths to show that some of their primary interests lie beyond the dance floor, as influences like Miles Davis and Steve Reich crept into the fragmented, floating arrangements. Atmospheric tracks such as "Lush 3-1" and its near relative "Lush 3-2" transcended established electronic formulas by breaking away from regular beat patterns, and they borrowed Opus III vocalist Kirsty to create the catchy, entrancing mesmerizer "Halcyon + On + On." Orbital had come a long way from their breakthrough single "Chime," and by all indications would never go back again. --Aidin Vaziri Amazon.com essential recording

Needlessly repetitive at times, but gloriously melodic

I have many seminal memories attached to one track in particular: "Lush 3-1". While I don't know why it was numbered like a Super Mario Bros. level, the basic 4-4 kick supporting a crisp overlaid arrangement worked like magic. I originally heard this song while watching the music video on MTV, which was surprisingly boring yet worked -- maybe it was because I was zonked and tired, but it showed an array of people roaming a fairground, in search of bargains. (I know, it sounds like such a clash, but it fit so well for the mood I was in.)

Orbital's always had a gift for melodies, but this is a more daunting album if you're new to them and more comfortable with their tighter radio edits that have more of a conventional song structure (like their collab with David Gray): it takes many minutes for things to unfold, new elements being layered in 8- and 16-bar sections. After awhile, if you really pay attention, it feels formulaic, but if you dance to it without overanalyzing, there's this sublime beauty of all the pieces working together.

If you're new to Orbital, I'd recommend a compilation of their work -- namely the one titled Work 1989-2002, and then travel back in time to discover how they've evolved.

One of my fave, historical electronic music groups! Long live the Hartnoll Brothers! September 4, 2008

The perfect Techno "album".

I didn't realize it at the time when this came out, but this album is groundbreaking just because it is a true album - a whole statement vs. a comp of 12-18 months worth of singles. Few dance acts pulled it off then and I sometimes think even fewer do today.

Of course the music alone makes it truly a classic. This was a huge leap forward from the cheap rave of its era and doesn't sound a bit dated. Brilliant. January 26, 2008

The culmination of Orbital's "rave" phase

This album is my personal favorite by Orbital, if only because it was still heavily infuenced by their live performances and constant touring in the vibrant rave scene of the early 90's. This is dance music for smart people. There are stomping rave anthems and goofy sonic experimentation. It holds up well after more than 10 years, and that's pretty unusual for a techno band. Some say that Orbital got even better after this one, but I personally think this was the last truly good album that they made. June 17, 2007

Not a masterpiece, but contains two great singles.

I can't think of a techno album more over-rated than Orbital 2. It appears in every overview of electronic music. I've never seen a bad review of it. It's supposed to be an all-time classic. But for me, it's a little hard to sit through.

Let's start with the first and last tracks. They don't contain any music. Both of them are short vignettes in which a vocal sample repeats one brief phrase. At the same time, the same sample is repeated at a different speed in the background, so the two voices go out of sync with each other and then line up again.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. Maybe such an idea might suddenly occur to you if you're sitting in a studio with a lot of cool equipment. Or maybe there's a deeper meaning. But I personally find it tedious to listen to. Especially the second time around. I can stand the first track, but the last one just repeats the same idea. Both of these tracks are pretty short. But still, taken together, that's four minutes that could safely be removed from the album without really changing its musical content at all.

So that leaves eight tracks that actually contain music. And some of those are pretty tedious too. Worst of all is a track called "Impact (The Earth Is Burning)" that goes on for over ten minutes. In this time, the band plays one light-funk riff on a keyboard. First the rhythm goes on for a while, then there's a break in the drums and the keyboards come on, and then the drums come back and play together with the keyboards. About halfway through, Orbital try to create some kind of forward movement. So, they sample a brass instrument and play one long note on it. One note, that's it. And then they add a ridiculous sample of a guy yelling, "It's...it's like a cry for survival! For their...survival! And for our...survival! Survival for them and for us!" This is hilarious, because the underlying music has no dramatic power. If anything, it sounds lazy and relaxed.

"Walk Now..." is similar. It starts with a low grinding noise, like a factory in a science-fiction film, and then repeats one phrase on some synthesizers that sound very much off-key. It goes back and forth between these two sounds for seven minutes.

Orbital use the same compositional approach for all of these tracks. They add new layers one at a time, very slowly and deliberately. You can see this in "Monday." First they start the piano loop and wait a while, then they add some drums and wait a while, then they build up the drums a little and wait some more, and so on. The piece builds up to a very pretty, clean melody, then there's a break back to the piano loop, and the song builds back up in almost the same way. This method favours songs that have good melodies and a lot of detail, like "Monday." Sometimes the repetition is effective, like when it's applied to the keyboard line in "Remind." But some tracks on the album don't have that much substance, and they just seem to go on forever.

So that's why I think this album is over-rated and difficult to listen to from beginning to end. But why has it received such acclaim? I think that its reputation rests mostly on the strength of two singles.

In spite of all the bad things I said about this album, there's one obvious fact: "Lush 3-1" is the best single of the nineties. It's not the main keyboard line that carries it, but the opening. The song begins with a triumphant arrangement of short, very fast major-key synthesizer chords. This sound serves as the foundation of the song, and remains in the background until the end. The beat doesn't even appear until a minute or so into the track, and then takes another minute to build up. The opening is protracted in this way to build tension and make the listener anticipate the beat more. It creates a feeling of crazed, intense joy. Actually that was one feeling that Orbital could evoke better than any other techno band.

The other single, and Orbital's most famous work, is "Halcyon + On + On." Here, too, Orbital create a sense of glazed-eyed happiness by manipulating a sample of some airy female vocals. The vocals themselves are not of particularly high quality, but Orbital cut them up, run them backwards, layer them on top of each other, add echo, and so on. The words become indistinguishable, and the song babbles rhythmically in many copies of the same voice. Variations in the echo make the voice sound alternately close and distant. It is a beautiful sound, and the band contributes a strong club beat. Like in "Lush 3-1," the opening is prolonged to magnify the effect of the main melody when it comes in.

The only complaint I have is that this isn't the best version of the song. That would be Orbital's live version, which adds other vocal samples from different songs, plays them against each other, and finally cuts them up in the same way. In that interpretation, the song becomes as maniacally joyful as "Lush 3-1." One recording of this version is available on some pressings of Orbital's later album In Sides.

Aside from these two high points, there's also one very good album track ("Monday") and a couple of others that are at least very listenable ("Planet Of The Shapes," "Remind"). So it's not a bad album, but in my opinion, not a timeless classic either. If you want an album with many good songs, Orbital's own Blue Album is more consistent, although it doesn't have any such perfect singles. August 29, 2006

Modern Masterpiece

Typicaly im quite harsh on Albums and very very rarely refer to them as masterpieces, especially music from the modern era, but Orbital have greated just that, A masterpiece.
The Brothers from Londons' second offering (thus the name orbital 2) is an epic musical journey consisting of Large electro beats intertwined with melodic textures and some down right disturbing samples.
This album is definatly 10 years ahead of its time. Being released in 1991 is something that is even more remarkable. Considering the technology available at the time, the production and origionality of composition help to make this album one for the ages.
Worth every penny. May 4, 2006

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