UK’s preeminent electronic music act, came to popularity in the early 90s, and later became one of the biggest names in the genre. Orbital is Phil and Paul Hartnoll, who grew up in the English city of Dartfort, in Kent. As young men in the mid 80s, Phil was a laborer, and Paul was in a band called Noddy & the Satellites. They began recording music in 1987, using a 4 track, keyboards, and a drum machine. Their first composition was entitled Chime, a song that was reputedly recorded and mastered onto a cassette tape for around the equivalent of $5. In 1989, Chime was released as a single on Oh Zone records, and later picked up by ffrr Records who signed Orbital in 1990. The pair named themselves Orbital after the M25, a freeway that was infamous as the rout to the countryside where the British rave movement had been taking place in the preceding years. Chime was a phenomenal success, reaching #17 in the pop charts in the UK. Orbital would become infamous in March of 1990 for an appearance they made on BBC’s “The Top of the Pops”, the kind of American Bandstand/TRL television show featuring popular musicians performing their music. Phil and Paul sat at their synthesizers and sequencers, started the song’s play routine, and proceeded to sit staring at the audience. This infuriated the producers of the show and was an interesting commentary on the nature of recorded and live music. Were they performers, or were they just composers? Electronic music has often struggled to find its place in the live arena, usually relying on DJs spinning records to serve as the ‘live’ face of the music.

Orbital released their first full-length album in 1991, an untitled LP usually referred to as the “Green Album”, due to the color of its cover. Orbital was beginning to see a great deal of success, with fellow electronic composers clamoring to do remixes of their songs, including artists like Meat Beat Manifesto, Moby, Underworld, and Joey Beltram. Orbital would themselves begin a slew of remix work on songs by Queen Latifah, Meat Beat Manifesto, and EMF.

Orbital first made their impression on the American scene in 1992, when ffrr Records released their first album in the USA, and Orbital began touring with later techno superstars Moby and Aphex Twin. The Hartnolls twisted their experience with performing their material live by not relying on any recording of their song elements, instead performing pieces live, complete with what would become their signature headgear, a pair of miner’s flashlights attached to a headband, allowing them to work on a dark stage while displaying elaborate visuals and filmed material on screens behind them.

A late track on Orbitals second full album would become their biggest state-side hit: entitled Halcyon + On + On, it was a musical commentary on their mother’s 7 year dependence on the drug. It was featured in several movies, including Mortal Kombat, a film that had a weirdly good soundtrack all things considered, alongside songs by KMFDM and Type O Negative.

Orbital’s third album, entitled Snivilization, was a commentary on the 1994 Criminal Justice Bill in the UK, which effectively ended the Rave movement there. The United States would suffer a similar piece of legislation many years later, allowing police greater powers to break up long-running parties and power to prosecute the promoters who threw such events.

Orbital kept up an activist stance with In Sides, an album released in 1996. It featured a song called the girl with the sun in her head, which was recorded using only solar power from a Greenpeace mobile power station, and a song called Dwr Budr, which is Welsh for Dirty Water, and is a commentary on the misuse of natural resources. Orbital also kept up their work including their music in films, including recording the theme song to the Val Kilmer action film The Saint and scoring music for the sci fi movie Event Horizon.

My personal favorite Orbital album is their 5th full-length release, called Middle of Nowhere, released in 1999. It featured their significant club hit Nothing Left, and was a fine example of the rapid rate at which Orbital’s sound could evolve. With a lot of techno thriving on simple, repeated melodies, Orbital was composing symphonies, with albums whose songs were both individually playable and part of a cohesive whole. Here is my favorite track off of Middle of Nowhere – it’s called Know Where To Run.

2001 saw Orbital release a double-album entitled The Altogether. It would be the least well-received album critically, and contains some of Orbital’s most odd work, including a surf-rock inspired single, and a collaberation with vocalist David Gray. But it also featured some solid songs, including this remake of the theme to the sci-fi TV classic, Dr. Who. I happen to believe it is one of the best breakbeat songs I have ever heard.

Last year the Hartnolls announced they would release a final album and retire as a group. Their final album, called the Blue Album, was a distinct return to the more basic sound of their earliest releases. The tracks include nods to breakbeat, techno, and acid house, and closes with a track that is VERY similar in tone to their biggest US hit, Halcyon + On + On, called One Perfect Sunrise.
Tracks played:

Halcyon + On + On from the Brown Album
Chime from the Green Album
Acid Pants from the Blue Album
Doctor? from The Altogether