Orbital

Orbital (Paul and Phil Hartnoll) did for techno what the Art Of Noise did for hip hop: they transformed it into a refined art of complex compositions entrusted to intellectual “auteurs.”

Their first hit, Chime (O-Zone, 1989 – FFRR, 1990), simply targeted the rave scene with a catchy melody and a killer rhythm, but the subsequent singles, Omen and Satan, played with sampling and rhythms. Building on those insights, their first album, also known as Yellow (Ffrr, 1991) or Green, became a milestone of the rave era. Its strength lay particularly in metamorphoses: cascades of electronic effects sculpted long tracks with an ethereal, atmospheric sound. Belfast opens with cymbals keeping a jazz rhythm and cryptic electronic phrases reminiscent of Eno; as the polyrhythms take hold, the mix adds soprano opera trills (O Euchari by Hildegard of Bingen), a minimalist piano pattern, a cello drone in the background, and gradually the track becomes increasingly symphonic and driving.
Moebius (the most adventurous track) starts packed with jungle effects and launched on a dizzying African polyrhythm, but soon everything becomes rhythm, and within the tangle of beats other beats continuously emerge. Desert Storm is all rhythm, supported by a framework of driving samples (with a singular wind-instrument effect) and African percussion, evolving into a study of how to change timbre, frequency, and volume without creating discontinuity. The industrial anthem Satan, reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails, caps a work of breakthrough.
Their polyphony of danceable music stems from a unique combination of idioms: the melodic progressions of Giorgio Moroder’s instrumental disco, the complex ethno-funk arrangements of David Byrne, and the electronic-jazz fusion advocated by This Heat.

Preceded by the single The Naked And The Dub, another brilliant sampling experiment, the album II (Ffrr, 1993), also known as Brown, took another step forward and marked an entire era. Something had definitively passed in the world of techno music. The epileptic dances of Remind and Walk Now represent the past, when the composer’s task was to establish a hellish rhythm around which a flock of harmonic eccentricities could whirl. The layering of sounds served primarily a percussive purpose. That vertical montage approach was giving way to an art of horizontal montage, collage, and puzzle. The percussive aspect was quickly relegated to the background, and the narrative aspect returned, albeit in a radically different form. Unlike ambient and cosmic music, Orbital’s suites belong more to fashion parades than to streams of consciousness. They are cold, aestheticizing displays, metamorphoses detached from any context. They are studio tours before they are musical compositions.
The album is thus a monument to mannerism, from the “sci-fi” dissonances of Planet Of The Shapes, which gradually dissolve into elongated sitar drones, to the “speaking” keyboard fanfares of Impact, from the metallic melodies of Monday to the cycles of angelic trills in Halcyon (which on the single becomes an eleven-minute collage, one of the landmarks of ambient techno), to the two melodic tracks Lush (which on the single would see several remixes). Everything is meticulously produced (planed, smoothed, diluted) to strip any emotion from the music.

The singles Times Fly, with drum’n’bass undertones, and especially The Box (Internal), which could be a melancholic ballad, applied these experiments within the context of rapidly evolving electronic music.

Snivilisation (Ffrr, 1994) is perhaps their most ambitious work, spanning house to hard rock, using the voice in the subtlest ways, and integrating samples in almost camouflaged forms. It is also their most “bodily” album, which attests to the duo’s greatness. The twelve minutes of Attached hark back to the symphonic style of the second album, but the rhythmic aspect reasserts itself powerfully in the single Crash And Carry, and Quality Seconds veers into thrash. The experimental elements are concentrated in Are We Here, a collage of industrial music and drum’n’bass rhythms, and Kein Trink Wasser, particularly its opening piano section of rapid staccato chords reminiscent of Michael Nyman.

In Sides (FFRR, 1996 – Internal, 1996) stands, for better or worse, as one of the genre’s most emblematic works (though it is hard to even call it “dance” anymore), and the Hartnoll brothers assert themselves among the greatest studio experimenters of the era. Their compositions are not compositions in the traditional sense; they are arrangements. Techno was a pretext at the start, and even more so now that they have pushed far beyond it. The rhythmic base is so negligible that one barely notices dancing.
Now, however, the brothers seem intent on becoming composers in the sense that the tracks on this double album display a narrative logic and an emotional structure, without approaching the sensationalism typically associated with art. Their passion remains inert, not building to an epic or pathetic climax. Yet the subliminal sounds of Girl With The Sun In Her Head are undeniably striking, weaving subtle Philip Glass–style minimalism, Mike Oldfield–like pop melodies, atmospheric Tangerine Dream–style synthesizers, and a soulful organ loop. The longest track, Out There Somewhere, loses coherence in its constant reinvention and reshuffling of elements. The sheer number of events makes it difficult to follow: the thread of the discourse is continuously lost, overwhelmed by a catalog of experiments, at the end of which not a single melody, rhythm, or arrangement leaves a lasting impression. Once again, one of the most human elements comes from the female vocals, piercing the dissonant waves of Dwr Budr with an effect that is more sinister than angelic.
The second disc contains remixes of the singles. While the remixes of the ethereal Time Fly are fairly predictable, the nearly half-hour-long remix of The Box (developing one of the four movements of the original single) becomes an encyclopedic essay in their art of metamorphosis. This art draws on Mike Oldfield and Ennio Morricone, quoting popular music stereotypes, suspense-laden thriller soundtracks (complete with creaking doors), minimalist and classically inspired Michael Nyman–style scores, and even a duet between Japanese folk and avant-garde music. The tinkling toy sounds that characterized the other two versions of The Box (on the first disc) evolve into a complex harmonic castle to host the story of all stories. In this track, the brothers finally reach true music, music as an end in itself, not merely a means.
It remains music for the mind rather than the heart, but occasionally the heart does leap. The group’s greatest flaw is their passion for endless remixes, which may entertain in clubs but on record eventually tires even the most devoted fans.

The Middle Of Nowhere (London, 1999) is another superb studio production exercise: the brass fanfare in Way Out seems to emerge from a Philip Glass composition; the torrential Spare Parts Express builds a bridge between Tangerine Dream and techno; I Don't Know You People succeeds in fusing pop, trip-hop, and drum’n’bass. Experiment by experiment, tracks like Style (featuring bagpipes), Autumn, and Know Where To Run sketch a new map of post-techno dance music. The only exception is the two-part locomotive Nothing Left, which seems a concession to old fans. The album marks, for better or worse, a rediscovery of rhythm.

The Altogether (FFRR, 2001) is Orbital's worst album ever, a collection of lame short electronic songs that doesn't show a single bit of genius. In fact, it doesn't even show any interest in music at all. Tension is mildly entertaining. Oi uses Ian Dury's saxophone and Tootled uses Tool's guitar: are we supposed to be impressed? The pop-soul of Illuminate, with brother-in-law David Gray on vocals, has absolutely nothing to do with Orbital. They just had a free spot. Techno appears only in Last Thing, which would have never made it to any of their major albums. The pathetic finale of Meltdown would make one thing Orbital are truly finished. Hopefully, this was just a random heap of collaborations, leftovers, half-baked ideas, etc, and not a real album.

Orbital called it quits and released their last album, Blue Album (IHT, 2004), another disappointing absent-minded tribute to their roots that seems to be constructed mechanically out of high-tech machines. Despite the elegant intricacy of a couple of tracks (Transient and and especially You Lot), Orbital's music had become soul-less and brain-less to be a pointless exercise of studio perfectionism.

Wonky (2012), Orbital's first album in eight years, contains One Big Moment, featuring Zola Jesus on vocals.

Monsters Exist (2018) is an album of failed ideas, with P.H.U.K. being the least tedious.

They reformed after another long hiatus but Optical Delusion (2023) was equally bland. Requiem For The Pre Apocalypse is perhaps the one to salvage. It is hard to tell one song from the other on these latter-day albums.