Orbital #3. The Green Album: "The Moebius," "Speed Freak (Moby Remix)," "Fahrenheit 3D3," and "Midnight".

CONCEPT

The Moebius

"There is a theory of the mobius; a twist in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop."

Whirs, clicks, and whistles. It's fun and it does have a sort of panache to it, but after Belfast I think the function of this track is really to get you to the good stuff. That said, the "Moebius" quote at the beginning of the song will be sampled and resampled by Orbital in their later albums (and everyone else, too). The repetition of the song, it's circularity, the overlay of sounds and their gradual removal without a gradual sense of build to it. I think this song achieves somewhat what Trance strives towards through the ommission of everything Trancey... not necessarily a literal trance or meditation, but an acute awareness of what is present at that moment.

Speed Freak (Moby Remix)

The Moby is not only noticeable but conspicuous. Still, I don't know that he could ever cook up something quite this scary on his own, and it's done... it has the Moby driven-ness, but the weird Orbital wacky sci-fi dystopia overtones. Around the two minute mark it even shifts a little toward Earthbound battle music.

This is a fun, unpradictable, almost paranoid thing to move to.

Fahrenheit 3D3

Pure ass-shaking psy-fi Orbital fun. A sampled feminine voice, far from the lilting thing in Belfast is now chopped up as if by an oscillating fan or the helicopters from Desert Fan. The beat keeps pace like a heavy wave and the mid-ninetites piano and hand-claps scuttle like mollusks along the seafloor. Over the top, I know, but I like this song, and when I hear it I'm inclined to not take things with utter seriousness, even though there's something sinister moving against the background.

It's a Blue Whale.

Midnight

Gorgeous and a little creepy with question-asking chopstick sounds moving up and down the scale, and Dracula organ-sounds intoned behind. This song also points toward their later work.

Of all the Orbital albums I'm aware of the Green album is the most dance-heavy. It also has a germinal sounds to it, that I think the best first albums do. This isn't derived from a lack of skill, but from inexperience. There's experimentation, but naive experimentation; that which resolves from a first gimpse at the possibilities a sound affords.

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