Orbital are a British
electronic duo from Sevenoaks
, England
, consisting
of brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll. Their career initially
ran from 1989 until 2004, but in 2008 they announced that they
would be reforming and headlining The Big
Chill
, in addition to a number of other live shows in
2009. The band's name was taken from Greater London
's orbital motorway, the
M25
, which was central to the early rave scene and party network in the South East
during the early days of acid
house. One of the biggest names in British
electronica during the
1990s, Orbital were both critically and commercially successful,
and known particularly for their element of live improvisation during shows, a rarity within
techno acts. They were initially
influenced by early
electro and
punk rock.
Career
Early years
In
1989 Orbital recorded "
Chime" on their father's cassette deck, which
they released on Oh Zone Records in December 1989, and then
re-released on
FFRR Records a few
months later.
The track became a rave anthem, reaching number 17 in the UK
charts and
earning them an appearance on Top of
the Pops, during which they wore anti-Poll Tax t-shirts. A few singles and
EP followed, and their first
self-titled album, a collection of
tracks recorded at various times, was released in late
1991.
In late
1992, the
Radiccio EP
barely reached the UK top 40, but it included one of their most
popular songs, "
Halcyon".
This song featured a backwards sample of
Kirsty Hawkshaw from "It's a Fine Day" (a
chart hit for
Opus III earlier that year),
and
B-side "The Naked and the Dead" was
similarly based on a line from
Scott Walker's rendition of
Jacques Brel's song "Next". "Halcyon" was
dedicated to the Hartnolls' mother, who was addicted to the
tranquiliser Halcion for many years.
The duo's popularity grew rapidly with the release of their second
album, titled
Orbital 2, in 1993.
The album featured complex arrangements and textures, and opens
with the two-minute track "Time Becomes", consisting of nothing
more than two slightly detuned, looped samples of a
Michael Dorn line from
Star Trek: The Next
Generation, "...where time becomes a loop" being played
simultaneously through the left and right channels, respectively
(until one cycle of phase difference has happened). This same
sample was used at the beginning of "the Mobius", the opening track
in the previous album. This audio pun was intended to make
listeners believe that they had bought a mis-pressed album
(
Orbital 1 packaged as
Orbital 2). The album
reached #28 on the UK album charts, staying in the top chart for 15
weeks. "Halcyon" was
remixed for the album, as
"Halcyon + On + On". Versions of this song played live by the band
have incorporated diverse samples, including "
You Give Love a Bad Name" by
the band
Bon Jovi, "
Heaven Is a Place on Earth" by
Belinda Carlisle, and most recently
"
I Believe in a Thing
Called Love" by the band
The
Darkness.
The first two albums are commonly known as "The Green Album" and
"The Brown Album", after the colour of their covers.
1994 breakthrough
Orbital
won a NME award for Vibes Best Dance Act early
in 1994, but it was their headline
appearance at the Glastonbury Festival
on 25 June 1994 that brought them most
attention. Q magazine
classed it as one of the top 50 gigs of all time, and in 2002
included Orbital in their list of "50 Bands to See Before You Die".
Orbital gave an improvisational element to live electronic music as
the brothers mixed and sequenced their tracks on the fly, wearing
their trademark head-mounted torches behind banks of equipment.
Orbital were one of the few electronic acts invited to play at
Woodstock '94.
The third album,
Snivilisation, was released in August
1994.
Alison Goldfrapp provided
vocals on a couple of the tracks, including the single "Are We
Here?". This track also included a sample from "Man at C&A" by
The Specials. Among the remixes of "Are
We Here?" was "Criminal Justice Bill?" — four minutes of silence, a
reference to the
Criminal Justice and
Public Order Act 1994, which was in part intended to clamp down
on the rave scene which had given birth to Orbital. The other track
with Goldfrapp vocals, "Sad But True", was remixed for the
Times Fly EP, the band's only release in 1995.
The single "
The Box" was
released in April
1996, reaching
number 11 in the UK, and its parent album
In Sides, released in May 1996, became their
second Top Five album.
In Sides has since come to be
considered one of their most critically well-regarded works. As
with the previous album, there was a vague theme of ecological
disaster and dissatisfaction with society.
The following year, the duo contributed to film soundtracks
(
The Saint,
Event Horizon) and enjoyed the
biggest singles of their career, with a live version of "Satan" and
their reworking of the aforementioned
The Saint theme both
reaching number three in the UK. The
In Sides track "Out
There Somewhere (Part 2)" was also included in the long-awaited
game series relaunch of
Test
Drive 4.
Later albums
In
1998, they returned to the studio
to work on their fifth album
The Middle of
Nowhere. This was released in
1999, becoming their third top five album, and
was a return to a more upbeat style, with
Alison Goldfrapp returning on vocals, and
included the single "Style" featuring the
stylophone. In
2000
the single "Beached" was released from the soundtrack to the film
The Beach, mixing the
brothers' musical style with a melody by
Angelo Badalamenti and the words of
Leonardo DiCaprio from the
film.
The Altogether, released in
2001, featured guest vocals by the
Hartnolls' brother-in-law
David
Gray, a sampled
Ian Dury, and a version
of the
Doctor Who theme. It was
to be their last album for FFRR, and had a mixed critical
reception. The following year,
Work
1989-2002 collected various singles from "Chime"
onwards.
Orbital split up in 2004.
They played a final series of gigs from June
through July 2004 at the Glastonbury Festival, the T in the Park
Festival in Scotland
, the
Oxegen festival (formerly known as Witnness) in Ireland
, and the
Wire Festival in Japan
, concluding
with a live Peel Session gig at Maida Vale
Studios in London on 28 July 2004. The release of their
seventh and last original album,
Blue Album (which, unlike
the untitled previous green and brown albums, was actually named
"
Blue Album"), coincided with this final wave of shows.
The album featured
Sparks (on "Acid
Pants") and
Lisa Gerrard (on the final
single, "One Perfect Sunrise").
Following the break up
Paul Hartnoll continues to record music under his own name,
including tracks for the new
Wipeout
Pure game for the
PSP He released his first full
length solo album, entitled
The Ideal Condition on the ACP
record label in June 2007.
Phil Hartnoll formed a new electronica duo,
Long Range, with Nick Smith. Their debut
album,
Madness and Me, was released on their own label,
Long Range Recordings, on 6th August 2007. In 2008, as Long Range,
they signed to commercial management company Angel Artists, which
also represent musicians such as
Dave Ball (of
Soft Cell),
The Grid,
Paul Dakeyne and Icehouse Project.
He lives
in Brighton
with his three sons, Louis, Milo and
Conrad.
Orbital released a two-CD/DVD compilation
Orbital: Live at
Glastonbury 1994-2004 on 11 June 2007. The collection
contains over two hours of music recorded during the group's
performances at the festival over the course of a decade of
appearances there.
2009 comeback
On 21
November 2008, Orbital announced they would be reforming to play a
gig together called "20 years after Chime" at The Big Chill
Festival 2009. They precede this show with a headline
performance at
RockNess 2009 in June.
On 26 January 2009, Loopz announced confirmed dates for their 20th
anniversary tour.
"The Orbital reformation gathers momentum
with headline shows now confirmed for Manchester
and London this September." The concerts met
with positive reviews.
On 17 April 2009, it was announced that Orbital would be playing at
The
Electric Picnic in September
2009.
On 16 June 2009, Orbital released a 2-CD collection of their
favorite tracks. The collection, simply called "20", covers the 20
years since "Chime" and contains 20 tracks. “This compilation is
the most definitive summary of our work since ‘Chime’ came out in
1989”, says Paul Hartnoll.
The band's first performance after the break up took place on June
2009 at
RockNess.
Political commentary
Orbital sometimes incorporated political and environmental
commentary into their music. The track "Forever" on
Snivilisation samples a
speech by
Graham Crowden
from the 1982
Lindsay Anderson film
Britannia Hospital, in
which he lambasts humankind; and the track "You Lot" on the
Blue Album,
features a confrontational, partially
vocoded anti-
genetic
engineering sample from
Christopher Eccleston, originally from
the TV two-part series
The
Second Coming written by
Russell T Davies.
The track "The Girl With The Sun In Her Head" from
In
Sides was recorded in a studio powered by
Greenpeace's mobile
solar
power generator,
CYRUS.
Selected discography
Albums
Singles/EPs
| Title |
Year |
UK Singles Chart |
U.S. Hot 100 |
U.S. Club Play |
| "Chime" |
1990 |
17 |
- |
23 |
| "Omen" |
46 |
- |
- |
| "Satan" |
1991 |
31 |
- |
- |
| "Midnight" / "Choice" |
- |
- |
- |
| Mutations EP |
1992 |
24 |
- |
- |
| Radiccio EP |
37 |
- |
- |
| "Halcyon" |
- |
- |
33 |
| "Lush" |
1993 |
43 |
- |
- |
| "Are We Here?" |
1994 |
33 |
- |
38 |
| "Belfast/Wasted" (split single with Therapy?) |
1995 |
53 |
- |
- |
| "Times Fly" |
- |
- |
- |
| "The
Box" |
1996 |
11 |
- |
- |
| "Satan"
(re-recording) |
3 |
- |
- |
| "The
Saint" |
1997 |
3 |
104 |
- |
| "Style" |
1999 |
13 |
- |
- |
| "Nothing Left" |
32 |
- |
- |
"Beached"
(In collaboration with Angelo
Badalamenti)
|
2000 |
36 |
- |
- |
| "Funny Break (One is Enough)" |
2001 |
21 |
- |
- |
| "Illuminate" (12" Only) |
- |
- |
- |
| Rest/Play EP |
2002 |
33 |
- |
- |
| "One Perfect Sunrise" / "You Lot" |
2004 |
29 |
- |
- |
Compilations
- The Bedroom Sessions (Various Artists, selected by
Orbital, released with the April 2002 issue of Mixmag.) (2002) UK
- Back to Mine (2002)
Orbital are sometimes confused with
The Orb,
a similarly-named band that has also been very influential in the
realm of electronic music. In its early days, The Orb (and
William Orbit) often did
remixes of other artists' songs and called the result
an "Orbital Mix", but these remixes have nothing to do with the
band Orbital. The Orb stopped this practice after Orbital became
popular, in order to prevent any further confusion.
Featured songs
Selected remixes
To clarify, these are remixes by
Paul Hartnoll and
Phil Hartnoll, but
not those which are
described as an "Orbital Mix" involving
The Orb or
William Orbit.
Notes
- [1]
- [2]
- [3]
- Q Magazine lists The RockList Site, accessed 29
May 2007
- [4]
- http://www.loopz.co.uk/begin.html
- http://www.angel-artists.com/
- http://www.culturedeluxe.com/news_item.asp?id=5455
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/13/pop-electronic-review-orbital
-
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/live_reviews/article6841688.ece
-
http://www.bestfest.ro/editia2009/english/program/index.html
External links
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search