I’m not sure why my love of Orbital has just resurfaced, although their music makes the perfect backdrop to cruising around with the top off your car, so perhaps that’s part of it.

It’s strange to feel how a simple hop across the Atlantic can change the status of your musical tastes. Orbital are pretty well-known and loved in the UK and a lot of my friends there are die-hard fans. But all of a sudden I’m living somewhere where hardly anyone seems to have heard of them, except maybe in passing. A quick change of address and I’m suddenly “underground” (relatively speaking.)

But anyhow, here I am, back deep in the first dance music which ever really caught my attention.

And it’s not without a sense of sadness in a lot of ways, because Orbital have hung up their synthesisers (or so they say) - no more live gigs, festival or otherwise; no more albums.

Perhaps it’s for the best. After the release of “In Sides” in 1996 they’d really hit their highest notes. The later albums have a few beautiful moments on them, but they feel bitty and confused, the stand-out tracks like sore thumbs between increasingly ham-fisted attempts at doing something “the same, but different.”

Perhaps the saddest thing is that their attempt at a sort of “Greatest Hits” album, “Work”, is a neutered, weak version of all that was good about Orbital. In order to fit a broad selection of tracks on the disc nearly all the songs are in truncated 4-minute versions, often missing some of their most sublime moments. And the Metallica-ruined version of their classic _Satan_ should be burning in hell, not residing on this collection.

It feels like an attempt to appeal to two markets - would-be fans who find 15-minute techno opuses offputting, and absolute completists who’ll be happy with a few off-cuts which haven’t been published before. I don’t think either camp wins.

I’m a big fan of burning CD compilations for the car these days, so this week’s project has been a proper “Best of Orbital” collection. It ended up at 2 discs, slightly randomly organised on a whim, in an attempt to alternate faster, briefer songs with some of their longer, slower tracks (oh, and fit everything into 2 80-minute CDs.)

Anyway, apropos of nothing, here’s my eventual listing (which, I suspect, will spawn at least one comment on this piece… you know who you are…)

Disc 1

1. Forever (1994 - Snivilisation)
2. One Perfect Sunrise (2004 - Blue Album)
3. Lush 3.1 (Original) (1993 - published on “Work”)
4. Funny Break (One is Enough) (2001 - The Alltogether)
5. Impact (USA) (1994 - Diversions; original version on the Brown Album)
6. Satan (1991 - Green Album)
7. Way Out → (1999 - The Middle of Nowhere)
8. Halcyon + On + On (1993 - Brown Album)
9. Out There Somewhere? II (1996 - In Sides)

Disc 2

1. The Girl With The Sun In Her Head (1996 - In Sides)
2. Frenetic (2002 - Work)
3. Doctor? (2001 - The Alltogether)
4. Style (1999 - The Middle of Nowhere)
5. Sad But New (1994 - Special version of “Snivilisation” track “Sad But True”, published on the “Times Fly” EP)
6. Illuminate (Short Version) (2001 - Originally on The Alltogether; this version from “Work”)
7. Are We Here? (1994 - Snivilisation)
8. The Box (Single Version) (1996 - Full track on In Sides)
9. Belfast (1991 - Green Album)
10. Chime (Original) (1990 - Their first track)
11. Planet of the Shapes (1993 - Brown Album)

Yes, many people might have problems with this collection. All three of the “overly poppy” songs which “serious” Orbital fans love to hate (Funny Break, Frenetic and Illuminate) are on there, but that’s because I secretly love good pop, and Orbital really did know how to make it.

Some people can’t forgive the fact that Orbital finally made a studio version of their Doctor Who theme cover; always a staple of live sets that drove the crowd wild. But it captures the essence of what they did best on stage in front of a field-full of blissfully happy hippy types, and it reminds me of my stints as one of those hippies.

Elsewhere are some of their longest, most intricate tracks; some people find them boring and repetitive (Somewhere Out There, Are We Here? and Planet of the Shapes in particular). But these are the other end of the spectrum - the places where their compositional mastery comes to the fore - these songs are modern Classical Music.

A quick note on the inclusion of Sad But New, rather than the original. It’s broadly the same track, but begins with the final words of a John Major speech - “…new age travellers [applause]“. Something about that sums up the mid-90s in Britain for me - the awful scapegoating of minorities by a struggling Conservative Party; anyone who was alive in Britain at that time doesn’t need the rest of the speech to know what it said.

And yet by shortening it to a patently ridiculous soundbite, somehow the track makes a profound statement about those politics. All the more profound given that Michael Howard chose to rail against “travellers” again in the 2005 UK General Election. Plus ça change…

I could go on for years about what makes Orbital’s music amazing. It’s somehow very, very British, mixing introspection and the occasional dash of politics with odd moments of humour. And amazing breakbeats. And beautiful melodies.

So where to start if you’ve never partaken? Because really, even if you’re not into electronica, you should try it some time.

For me, the classic albums are probably the Brown Album ( Lush 3, Impact, Halcyon + On + On together with a 2-minute loop of Lt. Worf from Star Trek: TNG and some digeridoo!) and Snivilisation (an album with a consistent mood, and stand-outs Forever, Sad But True, Philosophy By Numbers and Are We Here?).

If you’re a little older than I am and not that into glowsticks and hundreds of Beats per Minute (hello Dad!), then In Sides probably contains the largest number of truly melodic, “classical” tracks (the two-part, 24-minute closer Out There Somewhere? has to be heard to be believed). Just beware of later versions which have a version of the theme to “The Saint” as the final song. It’s not a terrible track, but it’s not how the album was originally recorded.

But whatever, get hold of some Orbital and revel in the fact that the tiny, rainy island of my birth can bring forth such beautiful sounds.

Oh, and by the way, if you see your mom this weekend, would you be sure and tell her SATAN SATAN SATAN…

This article first arrived on the interwebnet on Tuesday, June 28th, 2005 at 12:37 am .
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