Orbital

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Orbital is a Techno / electronica duo from England, consisting of brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll. Within techno, their style ranged from acid to ambient to hardcore, with influences from jungle and soundtrack music.

Their first single, 1989's "Chime", became a huge rave hit. Not long afterwards, Orbital started gaining fans outside the dance scene (they were one of the first techno bands to do so) due to the strength of their live shows and their emphasis on their albums as cohesive units rather than merely collections of songs. Their output through the '90s is commonly cited as among the best of the UK's techno scene; the quality of their output since the turn of the millennium is disputed.

In 2004, the brothers Hartnoll went their separate ways. Phil teamed up with Nick Smith to make the techno band Long Range, while Paul composed music fusing electronic and orchestral styles. In 2009, Orbital reunited for a string of live shows, and in 2011 they announced work on a new studio album.

Not to be confused with the ambient electronic duo The Orb.

Discography:

Orbital

  • Orbital aka the Green Album (1991)
  • Orbital 2 aka the Brown Album (1992)
  • Snivilisation (1994)
  • In Sides (1996)
  • Event Horizon (OST) (1997)
  • The Middle of Nowhere (1999)
  • The Altogether (2001)
  • Octane (OST) (2003)
  • Blue Album (2004)
  • Wonky (2012)

For more exhaustive information, see the discography section of their website.

Paul Hartnoll

  • The Ideal Condition (2007)

Long Range

  • Madness and Me (2007)
Orbital provides examples of the following tropes:
  • Bald of Awesome: Phil Hartnoll
  • Band of Relatives
  • Black Sheep Hit / Canon Discontinuity / Creator Backlash: Their cover of "The Saint" (for the film of the same name) is their biggest hit. It does not appear on any of their "best of" compilations and is unlikely ever to feature in their live set again after the very few times it was played around the time it was a hit. In fact, Canon Discontinuity applies to their soundtrack work in general, which tends not to get reissued, played live or have its existence acknowledged once it's served its purpose - "Satan Spawn" is an exception.
  • Broken Record: "Never". The voice repeats the single word over and over and over...
  • Epic Rocking: Of course. Among the most drawn-out are "Out There Somewhere" and "Meltdown" (the DVD version), each 24 minutes long, and the 28-minute-long version of "The Box" from the American release of In Sides.
  • Everything's Louder with Bagpipes (and Glam Rock samples): "Bigpipe Style"
  • Evolving Music: Happens a lot in live performance. The most spectacular example is "Halcyon" - nowadays Orbital fans know it as a hands-in-the-air anthem with a heavy use of Belinda Carlisle and Bon Jovi samples, neither of which even appear on the original studio versions.
    • "Satan" eventually mutated into "Beelzedub".
    • "Remind" began life as their remix of a Meat Beat Manifesto track, "Mindstream".
    • In 1992, Paul Hartnoll made a one-off single with Mike Hazell under the name Golden Girls. The single was called "Kinetic". A while later, it was reissued with an Orbital remix, which in turn was eventually reworked into Orbital's own 2002 single, "Frenetic".
  • Fading Into the Next Song: "Lush" / "Remind" / "Impact" from Orbital II. The entirety of Peel Sessions. "Way Out" / "Spare Parts Express" / "Know Where to Run" from The Middle of Nowhere.
  • Foreign Language Title: "Dŵr Budr" (Welsh), "Kein Trink Wasser" (German), "Otoño" (Spanish), "An Fhómhair" (Irish Gaelic). As "An Fhómhair" is a remix of "Otoño" and both mean "Autumn", this may also count as Bilingual Bonus (and perhaps a non-personal example of This Is My Name on Foreign).
  • Gratuitous Panning: "Fahrenheit 3D3" and the Snivilisation album were mixed in 3D. There was also a surround-sound mix of The Altogether.
  • Greatest Hits Album: They have several, none of which include their actual biggest chart hit, "The Saint". The closest to definitive is "Orbital 20" but even that has some odd track choices.
  • Green Aesop: In Sides. The liner notes include an essay decrying "dirty electricity" and encouraging the use of solar power (noting that the first track was recorded entirely using solar power). "Dŵr Budr" (Welsh for "Dirty Water") references water pollution. And "P.E.T.R.O.L." was written in response to a recent oil spill.
  • Heartbeat Soundtrack: "The Girl with the Sun in Her Head".
  • Iconic Item: The headlights that Paul and Phil wear for live gigs.
  • In the Style Of: "New Style", which was "Style" remixed to sound like a Stereolab tune. (Orbital originally wanted Stereolab themselves to remix "Style", but couldn't contact the band in time.)
  • Last Chorus Slow-Down: The album version of "Belfast" does this despite not really having a verse-chorus structure in the first place.
  • Neoclassical Punk Zydeco Rockabilly: They occasionally forayed into some very odd places. "Walk Now..." has a didgeridoo for bass and a sample of an Australian pedestrian crossing. "The Box" is built around a zither sample and also features the heavily echo-treated creak of one of their studio chairs. "Bigpipes Style" features bagpipes. And, while piano samples are hardly unusual in techno, "Kein Trink Wasser" uses almost nothing but piano for nearly three minutes, which is rather odd. Also, the bizarre 1:23 techno-does-thrash-metal track "Quality Seconds".
  • Nothing Is Scarier: The Box EP is some of the creepiest music Orbital ever made. This adds an air of menace to the cover artwork, even though it's just a picture of a completely ordinary house.
  • No Title: Their first two albums, commonly known as Orbital and Orbital II or The Green Abum and The Brown Album. The first was supposed to be simply titled LP, MC or CD depending on the format but nobody got it.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: Inverted in "Belfast". It's real Latin (from a 12th century plainsong) and it's disarmingly beautiful.
  • One-Woman Wail / Scatting: Kirsty Hawkshaw in "Halcyon + On + On". Alison Goldfrapp in "Dŵr Budr", "The Box"(vocal reprise), "Out There Somewhere", and portions of "Nothing Left". Barbara Cohen in "Way Out". Lisa Gerrard in "One Perfect Sunrise".
  • Pop Star Composer: They've done various soundtrack commissions including a full-length incidental score for Octane and remixing Michael Kamen's score for Event Horizon. Other soundtrack commissions include "Crash And Carry" and "Quality Seconds" for Shopping, "The Saint" for The Saint, a special remake of "Satan" for Spawn and "Beached" for The Beach.
  • Portal Network: In the video for "Funny Breaks (One Is Enough)", the woman is able to travel between the interiors of suitcases.
  • Sampling
  • Signature Song: Probably "Chime", which is still played at every gig.
  • Take That:
    • The reason several of their radio edits were labelled "Industry Standard Edit".
    • When the Criminal Justice Act--which gave British police greater legal powers to break up raves--was passed, Orbital responded by releasing the remix "Are We Here? (Criminal Justice Bill?)", consisting of four minutes of silence.
  • Tempting Fate: In 1993, they produced a track called "Lush (Eurotunnel Disaster '94)". Fortunately 1994 subsequently came and went without a disaster on Eurotunnel.
  • Uncommon Time: "Mock Tudor" is in 7/4 time.
  • Under Crank: Used for creepy effect in "The Box" music video. Tilda Swinton moved very slowly during filming; due to the undercranking, the finished film has her moving at normal speed but still looking not completely natural, while everyone around her is a superfast blur.
  • With Lyrics: The vocal mix of "The Box", from the EP. Also (with the same collaborator, Grant Fulton), "Belfast/Wasted".
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