I have very little inspiration or inclination do, well, anything today. I do feel however, that I should try and type out a few pages of my "book project" so that I can have a little sense of accomplishment today, ya know?
So with that in mind, I'm busting out another lost cassette with which to keep me entertained while I do just that, specifically this Orbus Terrarum album by The Orb.
Released in 1995 (the bands third full-length studio album), this album is the perfect response to a music scene swamped by what Paterson himself called "lame ambient noodling for 70 minutes," Orbus Terrarum brings the mothership back to earth for a collision with some surprisingly harsh percussion and noisy synth.Where their first two records had explored the outer cosmos of dance music, Orbus Terrarumis an earthier, less spacy ambient record, more devoted to mapping the sounds at hand. It goes to extremes to avoid the hooks of their early work, and there's barely even a hint of dance beats. When they do appear, they're mutated, bassy, more to pass through the body than to move to.
The melodies and dub lines of previous Orb recordings are still in the mix, and the esoteric bent of Pomme Fritz is muted somewhat. Orbus Terrarum is definitely not the place to start, but it's still a worthy successor to U.F.Orb. The final track, Slug Dub, is an ambient epic with vocal samples taken from a children's story ... which is cool too.
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