Orbital – The Altogether

Orbital cut ties with their club roots - temporarily at least.

The Altogether got a lot of flak when it came out, from myself included. The chunky drum sounds, the long unfurling epics interspersed with occasional club bangers: all gone. Orbital's pop album: something, it seemed, that nobody really wanted. Strong lead single - and the most classic-Orbital sounding track here - 'Funny Break', gave listeners false expectations. So the disappointment on initial plays led to an understandably negative response.

In hindsight, I find it a lot easier to be positive about the album for what it is: a very brave record. Previous album The Middle of Nowhere was solid, but found them out of new ideas - Orbital by numbers. Instead of continuing down that path with diminishing returns, they decided to mix things up entirely. The snippets of pop songs and '70s sci-fi that littered their tracks in the past now take the fore. Parts of the record - most notably 'Shadows' - preempt the hauntology movement, with a strong influence from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. 'Waving Not Drowning', ties together folky acoustics and basic analogue electronics in a disturbingly cheery kids TV theme. 'Pay Per View' skews lounge music into strange territories; 'Tootled' does the same with metal, sampling heavily from Tool. 'Tension' and 'Oi!' have tongues firmly fitted in cheeks, retro sounds and chirpy melodies mashing together rockabilly and rave.

It's not all great. 'Last Thing' is b-side quality, 'Doctor?' is a novelty step too far - a fun live track that should have been kept to the stage - and the less said about David Gray's appearance on 'Illuminate' the better. 'Meltdown' is decent but totally unfitting for the album. The album's artwork is really quite bad, even by the retro tongue-in-cheek feel of the album (bring back the old logo and swirly emblem!)

The Altogether is never going to be reassessed as a masterpiece, but I think it's time it gets a wider reappraisal. It's a bold record, a band trying a totally different approach after taking their classic sound as far as possible. It's intentionally retro sounding, and intentionally poppy, so those kitsch, cheesy sounds people often complain about are being unfairly misjudged. It might not be the most successful experiment ever, but it's an irable one, and one that yields some excellent results in hindsight.

The US version features a generous, if slightly muddled, bonus disc, featuring all the original non-album material from the 'Style', 'Nothing Left', 'Beached' (sadly not 'Beached' itself, with the rights being owned by 20th Century Fox) and 'Funny Break' singles, plus the Altogether DVD bonus track 'Monorail'. Although these are almost all ostensibly the band's remixes of their own material, Orbital come from the same school of artists as FSOL and Underworld when it comes to reworking their own tracks into wonderful new, often unrecognisible, tracks. The menacing electro-breaks of 'Beelzebeat', for instance, started life as 'Funny Break', although one would never know by listening. 'An Fhomhair' is an acidic (and far superior) take on TMON's 'Otono'. 'Weekend Ravers' turns 'Funny Break' into a storming progressive trance number. 'Old Style' begins by reprising the melody from 'Style', before moving into an entirely new piece with an early rave feel. The sole wholly original piece here, 'Mock Tudor' is possibly the best, a stunningly beautiful piece of analogue techno in 7/4.

In of consistency and track quality, this bonus disc is one of the finest discs in the band's extensive catalogue. Unfortunately, the production styles of The Middle of Nowhere and The Altogether are incredibly at odds, giving the mixed running order a somewhat clumsy feel. 'Beelzebeat' seems immediately garish when followed by the chunky analogue sound of 'Nothing Left Out'; 'Monorail' suffers similarly sat between two more TMON-era pieces. A purely chronological running order, putting the various 'Style' mixes next to each other would have made an equally unsatisfying listen, but I still think the running order could do with more work to make the disc sound more cohesive.

Regardless, despite the criticisms I do have of this two CD set, they are mostly minor in comparison to the numerous highlights found here. To any newcomers to Orbital potentially put off by the negative response The Altogether has received, I'd strongly recommend giving this 2CD set a listen, as there is a lot to love if approached from the right perspective.

I'll actually skip much commenting on the album proper; suffice to say it is a credible, although not groundbreaking, endeavor. But the 2nd disc is the keeper, mainly for the sublime "Beelzebeat" (originally a B-side to "Funny Break (One is Enough)"): an aggressive beat, horror bleeps, rave breaks, laser blasts, vocoderized vocals hidden in the mist, thunderous chords, and a midwestern melody played-on-who-knows-what show the Hartnoll boys never lost it. Quite worth the price, and the hidden gem of their past decade's efforts.

1.09 Waving Not Drowning 4:31
Vocals - Kirsty Hawkshaw

On this track I don't hear any vocals at all. Am I missing something?