Classic album: Orbital II

Orbital II

Rave culture emerged with such a bang in 1988 that most of its vast following was left in an ecstasy fuelled daze for the remainder of the decade. It wasn’t until the early nineties that some of the producers of the era’s finest tracks began to realise the artistic potential of the acid sound. After all, the warehouse parties weren’t about standing around watching men with long hair masturbate guitars. It wasn’t about image or attitude or ego. It was about the crowd, and it was about dancing.

The people responsible for so many of those classic records were faceless. Many of them recorded under multiple guises and were never featured on the cover. But after a few years the rave population was eager for times to move on. One of the first acts to unlock this potential, and realise the euphoria of a five minute anthem across an entire album, was Orbital.

Their debut album Orbital was mostly a collection of disparate tunes, including their epic masterpiece ‘Chime’, but mostly connected by the slightly tinny sound created by the era’s limited technology. The following year that technology had improved, and with it Orbital’s vision. Instead of lumping some tunes together, the brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll worked on Orbital II as an artistic whole. The songs segued into one another, taking the listener on a sophisticated rave journey. It never pandered to the build-climax-build-climax blueprint of so many of the more poppy dance acts of the era – the acts that took rave into the charts a year or so later. It was dynamic, layered material which planted the roots of techno, progressive house, and breakbeat. Moreover, it never compromised its strictly underground sound. After all, Orbital was named after the ring road around London where most of the capital’s illegal warehouse parties secretly emerged.

‘Lush 3-1′ chimes into life after the broody opener ‘Planet of the Shapes’. ‘Lush 3-2′ then picks up the tempo, descending into the dark euphoria of ‘Impact’ and ‘Remind’. The unrelenting surge of ‘Walk Now’, with its ominous didgeridoo, eventually make way for the funk piano and helicopter rhythms of ‘Monday’. With the strength of these epics it is easy to forget sometimes what comes next – the album’s final track and coup de grace – the peerless ‘Halcyon’. It is the quintessential dance tune; all delicate piano, floaty atmospherics, and beautiful female harmonies. And that bassline.

Despite ‘Halcyon’, Orbital II doesn’t feature many of Orbital’s big hits, but it is the key long-player in their career much in the same way Technique is for New Order. Regardless, because at the time dance fans hadn’t heard anything like it. The Hartnoll brothers had proved that the genre had legs beyond the 12″. You could argue Altern-8 or Acen were the first to pioneer an artist album of rave, but who remembers them? Orbital, despite a much publicised final career performance at 2005’s Glastonbury festival, are already being lined up for headline shows this summer. Think of a world without The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, or Royksopp. They all owe it to Orbital for opening the doors of possibility, and to Orbital II – rave culture’s crown jewel.