Friday 28 January 2011

250 mentalism, part 2

To continue this ridiculous musical quest Orbital followed Gomez yesterday, I just couldn’t be bothered to write again in the evening. Dance music and me don’t seem like an easy mix, I grew up listening to Green Day and Blink 182 and this still have a love of pop-punk overriding most of my other musical tastes. So the plunge into Orbital’s first record, Orbital, was one sort of into the unknown.

However, I’m not averse to a bit of electronica, the likes of Simian Moblie Disco have wormed their way into my brain over the years so it wasn’t with too much trepidation that I fired up Spotify. And, guess what, I liked it. Q’s description (Proved that hardcore electronica could be popular) seems to be correct, sure it’s a constant stream of electronic beats, but it’s very listenable. It’s an oddly gentle record, beeping away in the background while you work on whatever is important in your life.

I was a bit unsure when I saw the lengths of all the tracks, Desert Storm lasts an epic 12 minutes, but the time flew by leaving me amazed to suddenly find myself on the last track (perversely only 50 seconds long) after what seemed like no time at all.

There are two live tracks on the UK version of the record, including Orbital’s breakthrough song chime. As it’s a dance record it’s not like hearing a raw live rock record like Green Day’s Bullet In A Bible. It’s polished, but at the same time a different version than that you’d have heard back in the infancy of the 1990s.

So, to summing up I would recommend it to you. Hardened dance fans will probably be very familiar with it already, but those of you who’ve not ventured into the synthesised world of electronica will find this a great place to start.

Fun Fact: Opening track The Moebius samples the Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode “Time Squared”.

Next up would be Sugar’s 1992 album Copper Blue, however it’s not on Spotify so the wait for it to download delays its entry. So, with genuine terror I now move on to Slipknot’s self titled debut. Gulp.

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