Orbital #4. The Brown Album: "Time Becomes," "Planet of the Shapes," "Lush 3.1," and "Lush 3.2."

CONCEPT

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

In my own annals, this warmly human, passionate, and mechanical sounding album is one of the greatest pieces of pressed music that I've ever heard. That ranks it alongside Automatic for the People, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, Led Zeppelin IV, and Siamese Dream.

Solid and shimmering, beginning to end.

* * * * *

Time Becomes and Planet of the Shapes

The album begins with a three minute sample of a seven second clip from Orbital 1. Not only does the sample itself do exactly what the quote it contains suggests - looping time around until it arrives back at its starting point - but it duplicates this on a third level... by sampling Orbital 1 they create a continuous loop between their present (in 1992) and past work. This album will end with a fourth level; the same sample played backwards, making the feature symmetrical on Orbital 2. Add to this the name of the band: Orbital, which describes that which is constrained to a loop. Add the source of the name, which was the Oribtal expressway which loops around London (and was, thus, a convenient route to London's innumerable raves in the late eighties). Add the interesting choice for the cover art of both the first two albums (incorporating the same image) to instead utilize atomic orbitals, which are not only the most fundamental application of the word, but also an fundamental aspect of the structure and behavior of matter.

It's astounding to me that after their debut, which was not so much an album in the organic sense as a series of singles and popular dance hits cobbled together, the Harnoll brothers would put together one of the most minutely and meticulously structured albums I've ever experienced. I doubt anyone has accused Orbital 2 of being a "concept album," but it deserves the title in the most-encompassing and least-pretentious sense.

Planet of the Shapes is catchy, and long enough to really fall into, but the bulk of the song sounds standard for Hindu-influenced trancefare. Two things make the song astonishing. It begins at the conclusion of the sampled quote with the sound of a record needle loudly running along the vinyl, a trunchated dance beat, and stereo effects (the first two minutes of the song only play through one speaker). The second is the quote that plays at this point:

"Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day."

Sci-fi fare and loose philosophical ramblings are ubiquitous to electronic music, but these selections have been more carefully selected:
"Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day" is transparently true.
Step on to connect the quote with the earlier sample of the moebius... if we take literally the quote's observation of looped time, of samples, then the stopped clock becomes a mechanical manifestation of this fact. The two songs are then linked through their thematic engagement of time.
Step on: What else is a "mechanical manifestation" of looped time? Samplers! Mixers! Everything used to make good house music! So the discourse of the album now takes in time and space and the production of music. It has effectively become self-conscious.

Moreover, the quote doesn't "stop" or "start." It fades in and fades out, repeating over and over the whole time. Looping. Presumably repeating somewhere in the background. And, the timing of these fades are one cycle at the top of the song and one at the bottom, meaning that the song is bracketed by the sample.

Finally, there's one more interpretation that can be drawn along this line of thought: The sample that kicks off the album is clearly a sci-fi reference. However the second reference seems antiquated. Not buying it from the voice? For a stopped clock to tell the right time, it must be an analog clock with a face; not quartz. The fact that it had "stopped" in a day and age when watch batteries could essentially run for years also antiquates the clock. The album, then, refers to both the past and the future, which brackets and encompasses the present, just as suggested by the first and last tracks.

We're still only three minutes in.

* * * * *

Lush 3.1 and Lush 3.2

The record player shrieks and skips, and now we're on to Lush 3.1 and Lush 3.2, interconnected (demurring for the theme), and the are easily the most addictive dance songs on the album.

For all of their energy and their fast and contagious beats, there's something melancholy about these tracks, especially 3.1. A melody is carried along like whalesong and is overlain with others as if by a whole pod.

3.2 is more stripped down and agressive. It does, however, open for Kirsty Hawkshaw's vocals, which are immediately haunting and dark, a sort of sinister second to the whalesong on 3.1.

Both of these songs demonstrate how great dance music can be sad and angry and happy at the same time. But above that, they're pure wonderful. You should go listen to them now.

Lush 3.2 moves at once into Impact (The Earth is Burning) where I'll pick up next time...

END OF POST.