January 11, 2005 | Posted by Blair at 5:23 PM

Orbital Sander or Orbital Lander?

visionary?
"One Perfect Sunrise" by Orbital -- This is the last track from the latest, and final, Orbital LP, entitled Blue Album.

This track is just on the edge of cheesy, I know - so proggy, right? But it was their last single, and I think its really good in a throwback kind of way that I certainly know how to appreciate.

This is classic Orbital, the huge build-up, leading to the driving techno-break track and buzzy synths - it sounds like it could almost be from the early 90s, but at the same time it sounds fresh too - a lot of folks have tried to copy the Orbital sound over the year's, but there's never been anyone that could replicate it.

Maybe its the two-heads-are-better-than-one thing, because Orbital was brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll. They got their start as Orbital back to the late 1980's, when their insanely good first single, "Chime" was released on Oh-Zone/FFRR and cracked the British Top 20 in the spring of 1990 - fun fact: the single was made in their garage using their father's four-track recorder and mastered directly onto cassette, but became a smash hit regardless.

They were also famous for their live act, which featured live video projections, live musical arranging and sequencing on the fly, making their shows entertaining, improvised and truly "live" - they're supposed to have had truly legendary shows at Glastonbury (oh, if only I'd been a teenager in the UK in the 90s... damn!).

You can buy the Blue Album here - I reccomend it, because there's a good variety of the styles they worked in represented. Also, highly reccomend you check out Snivilization for a bit of early-90s UK-history (lots of Criminal Justice Bill stuff in there) and Middle of Nowhere (a late-90s gem) if you're interested in hearing where they were coming from.

Also, check out their site - its HUGE and there's tons of audio samples and live-gig stuff there to dig through.

(ed: and Yes, I did pull the Low post because the label asked us to remove the track - after taking the song down, what's the point of the post? Stay tuned for another Low song in a couple of weeks though. Also, I really do appreciate the feedback a lot)

Comments

their second, untitled album, known as "the brown album" is their masterpiece. an absolutely jawdropping collection that changed me from an indie-obsessed anorak into a dance music believer in 70 minutes.

Posted by: anon imus at January 12, 2005 10:09 AM

ooh. look it's orbital. good stuff!

and for those interested, and mp3 of the encore from the last orbital show can be found here.

Posted by: antitext at January 12, 2005 6:06 PM

Yes Blair, as a teenager in Britain in the mid-90s, I can say that Orbital were truly stellar, and created a massive scene in their wake...great stuff!

Posted by: Joe at January 14, 2005 1:20 PM

wow. i am utterly emotional listening to this track. orbital sent me off on a musical excursion 10 years ago, and i never looked back. now, amongst my collection of clicks, cuts, blips, bloops, and bleeps, i can look back to that magical summer of 1996, when i found underworld, the chemical brothers, and orbital. "Insides" and "Orbital 2" have always been and remain to this day my favorite albums of all times. this being the last track from their last album (frankly i wasn't so into their output for the last few years) this is it. this is the perfect fade out, the last opus before it all sinks away. the perfect song for the end of an era, and i am actually quite sad that the song is now over. thanks for posting this.

Posted by: rogerniner at January 15, 2005 1:08 AM

What about "Insides"??? That is one of the best albums I have ever heard in my life. Perfection from beginning to end.

Posted by: DigitalDjigit at January 16, 2005 3:01 AM

Hi. Cool theme, but this is interesting too:

Posted by: bob at June 21, 2005 12:34 AM
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