ORBITAL (BAND)

'Orbital' was an English techno duo from 1989 until 2004, consisting of brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll. The name was taken from the raves that occurred in the late 1980s near the M25 orbital motorway that circles London. They were initially influenced by early electro and punk rock.

Career

Early years

In 1989, Orbital recorded a track called ''Chime'' on their father's cassette deck. It was released on Oh Zone Records in December 1989, and 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 EPs 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 forty, but it included probably their most well-known song, ''Halcyon''. The 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 (Triazolam) 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'', which comprises nothing but a repeated sample of a Michael Dorn line from , "...where time becomes a loop". The album reached #28 on the UK album charts, staying in the top chart for fifteen weeks. ''Halcyon'' was remixed for the album, as ''Halcyon + On + On''. 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''.^[1] 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 flashlights behind banks of equipment (although Spanish techno performer Chimo Bayo wore head-mounted flashlights in his shows since 1988,^[2] and in an interview on MTV Spain in 2006 claimed that Orbital started using the same flashlights after him).^[3] 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 #11 in the UK, and its parent album ''In Sides'', released in May 1996, became their second top five album. It revealed a less obviously dance-oriented sound than previously, and had more in common with soundtrack music. 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 #3 in the UK.

Later albums

1998 saw a return 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.
2001's ''The Altogether'' 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, ''The Blue Album'' (which, unlike the untitled previous green and brown albums, was actually named ''The 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 August 6 2007. He lives in Brighton with his three sons, Louis, Milo and Conrad.
Orbital released a 2 CD/DVD compilation on 11 June 2007. The collection contains over 2 hours of music recorded from the group's performances at the festival over the course of a decade of appearances there.

Political commentary

Orbital sometimes incorporate 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 for its destructive ways; 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.
They recorded ''The Girl With The Sun In Her Head'' from ''In Sides'' using Greenpeace's mobile solar power generator CYRUS. They named an early record ''Belfast'' after playing live in the city of Belfast at the height of The Troubles in 1990.^[4] Other album track titles suggest environmental concern such as ''Kein Trink Wasser'' ("no drinking water" in German) from ''Snivilisaton'' and ''Dŵr Budr'' ("dirty water" in Welsh) and ''P.E.T.R.O.L.'' from ''In Sides''.

Videos

Orbital have put much effort into the videos accompanying their music. Tilda Swinton starred in the video for ''The Box''; and they released a DVD version of ''The Altogether'' with a video for every track, with Brian Cant starring in the track ''Waving not Drowning''.

Selected discography

Albums

★ ''Orbital'' (aka the ''Green Album'') (1991) #71 UK

★ ''Orbital'' (aka the ''Brown Album'') (May 1993) #28 UK

★ ''Snivilisation'' (1994) #4 UK

★ ''In Sides'' (1996) #5 UK

★ ''Event Horizon'' (1997) • with Michael Kamen #83 UK

★ ''The Middle of Nowhere'' (1999) #4 UK, #191 US

★ ''The Altogether'' (2001) #11 UK

★ ''Work 1989-2002'' (Singles/Rarities Collection) (2002) #36 UK

★ ''Octane (OST)'' (October 2003)

★ ''Blue Album'' (June 2004) #44 UK

★ ''Halcyon (Best Of)'' (2005)

★ '' (2007)

Singles/EPs

★ ''Chime'' (1990) #17 UK

★ ''Omen'' (1990) #46 UK

★ ''Satan (III EP)'' (1991) #31 UK

★ ''Midnight/Choice'' (1991)

★ ''Mutations'' EP (1992) #24 UK

★ ''Radiccio'' EP (1992) #37 UK

★ ''Lush'' (1993) #43 UK

★ ''Peel Session/Diversions'' (1994)

★ ''Are We Here?'' (1994) #33 UK

★ ''Belfast/Wasted'' (1995) #53 UK

★ ''Times Fly'' (1995)

★ ''The Box'' (1996) #11 UK

★ ''Satan Live'' (1996) #3 UK

★ ''The Saint'' (1997) #3 WK

★ ''Style'' (1999) #13 UK

★ ''Nothing Left'' (1999) #32 UK

★ ''Beached'' (In collaboration with Angelo Badalamenti) (2000) #36 UK

★ ''Funny Break (One is Enough)'' (2001) #21 UK

★ ''Illuminate'' 12" Only (2001)

★ ''Rest/Play'' EP (2002) #33 UK

★ ''One Perfect Sunrise/You Lot'' (2004) #29 UK

Compilations

★ ''The Bedroom Sessions'' (Various Artists, selected by Orbital, released with the April 2002 issue of Mixmag.) (2002) UK

★ ''Back to Mine (DJ Mix album)'' (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 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, hoping not to cause any more confusion.

Featured songs

★ ''Hackers'' (1995) • ''Halcyon + On + On'' (shortened version) • used as the film's theme

★ ''Mortal Kombat'' (1995) • ''Halcyon + On + On''

★ ''Groove'' (2000) • ''Halcyon + On + On''

★ ''CKY2K'' (2001) • ''Halcyon + On + On''

★ ''Mean Girls'' (2004) • ''Halcyon + On + On'' (not on soundtrack)

★ ''Johnny Mnemonic'' (1995) • ''Sad But True''

★ ''The Saint'' (1997) • ''The Box''

★ ''A Life Less Ordinary'' (1997) • ''The Box'' and ''Dŵr Budr''

★ ''Spawn'' (1997) • ''Satan'' (with Kirk Hammett)

★ ''π'' (1998) • ''P.E.T.R.O.L''

★ ''Human Traffic'' (1999) • ''Belfast'' • Played when the ravers are driving back from the house party

★ ''The Beach'' (2000) • ''Beached''

★ ''xXx'' (2002) • ''Technologicque Park'' (original to this film) • Orbital appear in the film during the night club/rave sequence

★ BBC 40th anniversary celebration of ''Doctor Who'' (2003) • ''Doctor?''

★ ''Keen Eddie'' • (original to this programme) score for first episode (2003)

★ ''Wipeout'' • various

★ ''Forza Motorsport 2'' • ''Left Behind''

★ ''ER'' (episode: "Insurrection") • ''Frenetic''

Notes

1. Q Magazine lists The RockList Site, accessed 29 May 2007
2. live performance by Chimo Bayo
3. interview with Chimo Bayo (minute 1:33)
4. Belfast: the war against cliché BBC, 24 January 2003, accessed 29 May 2007.

the orbital song "crash and carry" was featured in the movie "shopping" from the year 1994

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