Orbital – A Beginners Guide: Review

Share on BlueskyShare on X

Orbital’s way of looking at things means that it’s the less easy choices that intrigue.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, a youngster will ask an elder: ‘Did people really dance together, all in the same place? And did they really all listen to the same music, all chosen by one person, sharing the moment together?’

The reply: ‘Yes, as strange as it sounds, once upon a time they did.’

This might seem a little far-fetched, but with almost 500 venues closing forever and any number of festivals being cancelled since the pandemic, there’s every chance that in a generation’s time what people have taken for granted for hundreds of years might ultimately become a relic of the past.

Orbital were one of the architects of its renaissance by association with the acid house movement, a welcome shift that changed nights out from being a fifty-fifty shot between either having a bottle wrapped round your head or being forced to listen to Walkin’ On Sunshine.

Brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll lived rave’s new punk aesthetic by making a record in a cupboard for less than a fiver.

Naming themselves after the M25 motorway which party-goers traversed every weekend en route to one field or another, Orbital’s debut single Chime was one of the first tracks of its kind to eventually crossover into the mainstream, a snippet of something then still counter cultural when placed against the banality of Top Of The Pops and the rest of the overground.

Like punk in that it was never designed or conceived of as anything with permanence, acid house was eventually claimed by that same mainstream, and clubbing as an experience was homogenised.

Where many of its progenitors gave up and returned to obscurity, the Hartnolls persevered, releasing a series of acclaimed albums and ultimately becoming one of a select group of artists from their oeuvre to become festival main stage headliners.

Having a couple of years ago released a projects compilation in 30 Something and the all original Optical Delusion in 2023, A Beginners Guide is a compilation with a twist.

Wisely, given Orbital’s vast back catalogue and the tendency for longstanding fans to nitpick over selections, it has, the pair claim, ‘The perfect introduction to the groundbreaking musical world of Orbital’, and accordingly has, ‘Not been designed for the initiated or the completists’.

It’s a bold mission statement, but the approach is a clever one, taking the pressure right off over which favourite to pick.

It’s also interesting to imagine a world in which tracks like Chime, Satan, Halcyon On And On, Lush or Belfast might never have been heard by a listener before, but in the random playlist era you have to concede it’s possible.

Orbital’s way of looking at things means that it’s the less easy choices that intrigue – Style has an alien feel still, whilst Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson revives the political activism of old splendidly on Dirty Rat and, speaking of guest singers, mutual brother-in-law David Gray handles things nicely on Illuminate.

Completists or not, there’s still a huge latent power to old skool heaters like Are We Here?, whilst the transcendent pops and stabs of Remind – which recently made it back into the duo’s live sets after a gap of 15 years – will also bring back reminders of a blinder.

The show closes with a 10-minute freak out via The Girl With The Sun In Her Head, a pipingly hypnotic track to which you might wish to dance to, maybe someplace where other people go.

The idea of mass enjoyment is already facing some kind of extinction; A Beginners Guide is simultaneously a history lesson and a survival kit for its future.

Related news:

Apparat – A Hum Of Maybe: Album Review Iron And Wine – Hen’s Teeth: Album Review TVAM – Ruins: Album Review Buck Meek – The Mirror: Album Review The Sophs – GOLDSTAR: Album Review