Album Review: Orbital – Optical Delusion
It’s exhausting to imagine, however Optical Delusion is the Hartnoll brothers 10th album in a profession that spans greater than 30 years… albeit with just a few breaks to recharge their iconic torch glasses. This isn’t the 30th anniversary album deliberate by the techno duo (COVID-19 bought in the best way of that) however as an alternative is a extra collaborative affair, working with artists new and previous.
The album additionally displays Phil and Paul Hartnoll’s sociopolitical and geopolitical stance, particularly within the alternative of collaborators. It’s clear, for instance, which aspect of the political divide they align to when the primary single from the album was their work with Sleaford Mods; ‘Dirty Rat’. Meanwhile, ‘Ringa Ringa’ (with The Mediaeval Baebes) takes the previous plague-inspired nursery rhyme and quick forwards it to COVID-19. The Mediaeval Baebes and Sleaford Mods apart, Anna B. Savage, Dina Ipavic, Penelope Isles, The Little Pest, and Coppé additionally function… that’s extra featured artists than the remainder of Orbital’s earlier albums mixed.
Strangely, though it was ‘Dirty Rat’ that each drew me in and was the sneak preview of the album, it’s in all probability the weakest observe, each for Orbital and Sleaford Mods. It’s a heavy-handed rant with a comparatively easy backbeat from a band identified for his or her lyrics assembly one identified for his or her complicated polyrhythms. It’s additionally a political polemic that stands proud a bit of far in an in any other case extra nuanced album. It works… however there are stronger tracks and each Orbital and Sleaford Mods are higher than this. That being mentioned, it’s one heck of an indignant rant, with strains like ‘the resin-coated lifeless egg of nowhere’ shining a lightweight of intense frustration on these elements of the UK in deep decline.
Staying with the ‘that includes…’ tracks, top-of-the-line is ‘Home’ that includes Anna B Savage, an English singer-songwriter who’s herself price following (assume Nick Drake meets PJ Harvey). ‘Day One’ with Dina Ipavic can be good and arguably the least Orbital-like observe on the album, with ‘Are You Alive? (feat. Penelope Isles)’ interesting half and half to each hyperpop and die-hard Orbital followers.
However, it’s when Orbital step again to what they know greatest is when this album shifts into greater gear. Crunked up instrumental tracks like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem for the Pre-Apocalypse’ are basic Orbital; clever electronica chord progressions with quick, but ageless drum ‘n’ bass, performed with sufficient dynamic vary to sound comparatively straightforward on the ears, but highly effective sufficient to be anticipated to be performed at clubby ranges, and one hell of a break too. It’s nearly nostalgic for the clubbing expertise of the Nineties, however nonetheless recent in that distinctly Orbital type.
The album closes with ‘Moon Princess’ that includes legendary Japanese electronica artist Coppé, an ethereal quantity that might have simply been one thing out of Blade Runner or Akira, but fully basic Orbital.
The fear right here is I’ve used the time period ‘basic Orbital’ lots; it might simply be an album of the Hartnoll brothers ‘phoning it in’ and making one thing samey bordering on the stagnant, like they forgot to reset the synth and sequencers. It’s a possible downside with electronica; there’s solely a lot a band can sequence earlier than it sounds prefer it’s sampling its again catalogue. On the opposite hand, radically altering type typically means disenfranchising your core. The slim path between these two is tough to observe, however I feel Orbital have achieved it. The extra you hearken to the album as an entire, the extra you’re drawn into their world, and it has modified. The collaborations won’t all work, however they add an environment of experimentation and exploration that maybe started with 2018’s Monsters Exist. I didn’t discover that album as explorative as Orbital Delusion, so there may be extra occurring right here.
OK, Optical Delusion isn’t any In Sides, however my expertise of that album is massively formed by listening to ‘P.E.T.R.O.L.’ a gazillion occasions whereas enjoying WipEout on the PlayStation for months on finish within the mid-Nineties. And, given the subject material of this concern, Optical Delusion sounds rattling superb on double xLP, too. It’s bought some bangin’ tunes and will probably be on the platter for a while!
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March 20, 2024 at 01:42PM
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