A dance pioneer who's just going round in circles

dance the orb cydonia (island) hhh

IT'S more than a little ironic that a band who built a career on signposting the future should find themselves virtually redundant once it actually arrives. There is more than a whiff around The Orb these days of a musical collective whose time has passed.

It has been 10 years since Little Fluffy Clouds embraced the euphoria of a generation discovering the joys of dancing deliriously while off its collective face. Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld went on and pioneered a path into the heart of ambient noise; UFOrb mixed dollops of sci-fi paranoia with terrifying soundscapes and dub and dance beats; and, in short, the Orb created the perfect soundtrack to the ultimate comedown.

Of course, Orb music was always hard work too - just ask anyone who has stood in a field waiting, waiting, waiting for shapeless electronic meanderings to solidify into anything with more than a passing resemblance to a rhythm or a tune. They got there but - by God - they took their time.

The fact that electronic dance music has moved on since the days of rave need not in itself mean that the Orb no longer have a place in our hearts. Many bands have produced their best music when stripped of the culture which produced them. The Rolling Stones came up with their darkest, deepest work when they stared into the rotting face of a counter-culture grown rancid on heroin and cynicism. The Clash reclaimed the glorious myths of rock only after punk had hardened into a yobbish straitjacket.

So when the Orb gaze out on the tarnished cheese of trance, the jazzy cul-de-sac of drum'n'bass, the forced glamour of garage and the replacement of spontaneous parties with expensive and elitist superclubs, what sense can they make of the journey they began in a very different world all those years ago?

Not a lot, judging by Cydonia. The album's sole innovation is the harnessing of the ambient twitterings to bland female vocals. The result strips the Orb's music of majesty and mystery and reduces it to the role of a backing track in songs which frankly don't rise above the most routine trip hop.

Elsewhere there is a lot to enjoy but not much to startle. You get the usual funny samples, the odd ethnic influence, even some sleek dancefloor rhythms. And thankfully the self-indulgence of most recent Orb outings has been pared away and Cydonia is certainly Alex Paterson's most focused effort since those heady days.

It's enjoyable, it's fun - but it's not going to change the world again.

Richard Walker

HHHHH Alex "Hurricane" Higgins

HHHH Alex Chilton

HHH Alex Paterson

HH Alex Cox H Alexis Carrington

Copyright 2001
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