Orbital - Wonky

  On 2/21/2012 at 6:28 AM, Margatroid said:

Thanks for reminding me how good this is. Incidentally, was it ever released on CD? I've only listened to it via youtube and all I can find for sale online is vinyl.

It certainly was.

I had the digipak version of it once, but it got stolen (the burglars left my 2x12" and 2x7" copies though). I was never that fond of it, actually, so I never replaced the CD version.

Times Fly isn't one of my absolute favourites, but Sad But New on the EP is brilliant. I've never owned a proper copy of it, really should get it one day.

The Box was the first CD I ever bought, so is a very special one for me. Still one of my favourite records, I think.

  On 2/21/2012 at 3:01 PM, purlieu said:

The Box was the first CD I ever bought

WOW

Ok, you win at life. If anyone ever tells you you have bad taste in music, or you're an idiot, or anything like that, you can take comfort in the fact that the first CD you bought was The Box, and theirs was probably something by Hanson or The Spice girls.

  On 2/21/2012 at 8:57 AM, Springymajig said:

Is that Capsule in your avatar?

 

Also... I have a version of Insides which has a bonus CD. On that cd is Times Fly and The Box EP (oddly all 4 parts are strung together into one track). Mine says it's a promo copy but I'm very certain it was released commercially.

Yeah, it is! I'm a big Nakata fan.

I have the American reprint of In Sides where the bonus CD has a couple versions of Satan, The Saint/The Sinner and that one live Bon Jovi/Belinda Carlisle version of Halcyon. My friend in high school had the other CD with Times Fly and The Box on it, although at the time I had no idea what Times Fly was. I definitely remember being enthralled by that 28-minute version of The Box.

Orbital rarities are really hard to come by in the states... I think the only single I ever saw in person was a copy of Are We Here at a record store around 1997.

  On 2/21/2012 at 2:01 PM, Jamesqdot said:

It certainly was.

 

I had the digipak version of it once, but it got stolen (the burglars left my 2x12" and 2x7" copies though). I was never that fond of it, actually, so I never replaced the CD version.

Sweet, I'm gonna track that down now. Or maybe I'll just find a copy of the alternate In Sides disc, lol. Probably cheaper...

  On 2/21/2012 at 3:01 PM, purlieu said:

Times Fly isn't one of my absolute favourites, but Sad But New on the EP is brilliant. I've never owned a proper copy of it, really should get it one day.

The Box was the first CD I ever bought, so is a very special one for me. Still one of my favourite records, I think.

Sad But New is awesome. And I gotta agree with Springymajig: best first CD purchase ever.

Also, I found this last night, which I had never heard before. Diggin it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93HjDCAsMh0

I saw the video for The Box on Top of the Pops and it was just incredible... I was 11, nobody at school understood what the fuck I was listening to. :D

If I remember rightly, Equinox is a remix of Times Fly isn't it? Wish these speakers worked.

  On 2/21/2012 at 10:25 PM, purlieu said:

I saw the video for The Box on Top of the Pops and it was just incredible... I was 11, nobody at school understood what the fuck I was listening to. :D

 

If I remember rightly, Equinox is a remix of Times Fly isn't it? Wish these speakers worked.

lol, I bet they didn't. I think The Box would have freaked me out a bit at age 11, not to mention stuff like "Out There Somewhere..." That scared me even at 17.

According to the comments Equinox is some kind of remix or sampling of the theme tune to a show of the same name on Channel 4. I'm not British so I don't really know what that means!

  On 2/21/2012 at 11:06 PM, Margatroid said:

According to the comments Equinox is some kind of remix or sampling of the theme tune to a show of the same name on Channel 4. I'm not British so I don't really know what that means!

It was a science documentary series that ran from the late 80s till the early 2000s. This was the opening titles for it:

  On 2/21/2012 at 10:25 PM, purlieu said:

I saw the video for The Box on Top of the Pops and it was just incredible... I was 11, nobody at school understood what the fuck I was listening to. :D

 

If I remember rightly, Equinox is a remix of Times Fly isn't it? Wish these speakers worked.

To the best of my knowledge, Times Fly was born from Equinox. So technically, Times Fly is a remix of Equinox.

Ah, interesting. I think I prefer Times Fly, the more acoustic sounding drums sound better to my ears. I remember having Times Fly and Radiccio on order at my local record shop for about six months but they never came in. :(

I envy you guys for being so clued-in back then and having access to that whole rave culture that didn't really exist over here (not in Texas, anyway). I was pretty much on my own being an Orbital fan most of the time, since most of my friends didn't like electronic stuff very much and the band had no real airtime in America other than when MTV showed The Box on their old "Amp" show.

The funniest thing about my Orbital fandom is that I didn't even realize Snivilization existed until 2001... I would just go to record stores and buy whatever Orbital albums they had that I didn't own, and it took me that long to find that one. It was kind of awesome actually, because at that point I thought I had exhausted their LP discography a long time ago, and then I discovered one of their best albums. I was literally in disbelief when I first saw it, lol.

I actually vaguely remember this - there was an episode of equinox about electronic music/rave culture. As I remember there was a brief interview with Orbital with them talking about sampling and the like, and then there was then a clip of one of their live shows where they had sampled the theme tune to prove their point.

  On 2/22/2012 at 8:11 PM, Margatroid said:

I envy you guys for being so clued-in back then and having access to that whole rave culture that didn't really exist over here (not in Texas, anyway). I was pretty much on my own being an Orbital fan most of the time, since most of my friends didn't like electronic stuff very much and the band had no real airtime in America other than when MTV showed The Box on their old "Amp" show.

 

The funniest thing about my Orbital fandom is that I didn't even realize Snivilization existed until 2001... I would just go to record stores and buy whatever Orbital albums they had that I didn't own, and it took me that long to find that one. It was kind of awesome actually, because at that point I thought I had exhausted their LP discography a long time ago, and then I discovered one of their best albums. I was literally in disbelief when I first saw it, lol.

Yeah... my Orbital fandom was pretty much just me as a teenager buying cd's and being the only person I knew who would listen to any of it (sometimes by brother much like bits here and there)... I used to research stuff obsessively on the internet... I knew the track names, track order and approximate track times of every song on every Orbital and Autechre album (I think EPs too) before I even bought the albums. I bought only online cos I live in a small hick town and didn't know you could even buy IDM in stores. Then when we visited Auckland one day I discovered the import music store, the excitement I felt when I first saw an Autechre album on a store shelf. Now they're everywhere...

Just picked this up. Hope it's good.

I'm quite looking forward to hearing this now, New France really grew on me. I'm a bit disappointed the bonus CD is yet more live versions of tracks they have released live versions of before. Is that the best they could do? Like the artwork too.

I coulda bought this last week at Amoeba but it was a CDR and i sorta hate those

http://www.discogs.com/Orbital-Wonky/release/3437878

There are samples up here> http://www.junodownload.com/products/wonky/1934860-02/

  On 3/27/2012 at 4:40 PM, coax said:

There are samples up here> http://www.junodownl...nky/1934860-02/

The last track... does not sound good... I can't remember the last time I heard something so devoid of emotion.

But the rest... actually sounds alright. I still like New France, Never is growing on me, in context Straight Sun might work. Flicking through the samples makes it sound like b-sides from the Green album (stuff like LC1, which was better than almost everything on the Green album) but with ultra clean and clinical production (which in this case... is not a good thing, I don't think that works for this kind of music).

I think I'll probably end up buying it and getting disappointed again with the full thing :P

Orbital are one of my favorites of all time. But it pains me how dramatically they crashed to earth. I mean calling the final track "Where is it Going?"? That's terrible, sounds like an English as a Second Language student. And it's a pitiful echo of their former album closer titles "Out There Somewhere" and "Are We Here?". Not to mention the beelzebeat recycling...listened to the samples, basically agree with what has already been said. Cover is nice tho, agreed.

Someone post a review...

I can't actually imagine myself listening to any of that more than once. A mixture of fucking horrific (Beelzebeat, Wonky) and completely and utterly pointless (the rest of it). The only things that sounded at all interesting, sadly, were the old acid sounds in Stringy Acid. Ah, the day has finally arrived where I won't be buying an Orbital album. Sad.

And the drum sounds... ugh. Orbital used to have these wonderful big, booming, chunky drum sounds mixed with really spacious acoustic samples and loops. What the fuck is all this?

  On 3/28/2012 at 10:34 AM, purlieu said:

And the drum sounds... ugh. Orbital used to have these wonderful big, booming, chunky drum sounds mixed with really spacious acoustic samples and loops. What the fuck is all this?

I KNOW... Even Middle of Nowhere has AMAZING drums (probably their best actually)... I still listen to that album and think how the hell did they do this? I honestly can't fathom how great their old stuff is sometimes.

Whereas the newer stuff... well... enough's been said.

This is going to be the first Orbital album that I'm not going to buy - None of any of the videos, previews, track samples have been of any interest to me. It's a real shame

  On 3/28/2012 at 11:11 AM, Springymajig said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 10:34 AM, purlieu said:

And the drum sounds... ugh. Orbital used to have these wonderful big, booming, chunky drum sounds mixed with really spacious acoustic samples and loops. What the fuck is all this?

 

I KNOW... Even Middle of Nowhere has AMAZING drums (probably their best actually)... I still listen to that album and think how the hell did they do this? I honestly can't fathom how great their old stuff is sometimes.

 

Whereas the newer stuff... well... enough's been said.

I agree with this - but it's worth noting (if I remember rightly) that some other names are credited for aiding the production process of the drums in the Middle of Nowhere.

The Altogether and especially the Blue album also had pretty weak production. But then the Brown Album and Snivilisation has a great, deep, 'chunky' sound....

I blame it all on the change of logo, swirly hand drawn logo = superb albums, once they changed it...

Here`s a positive review. http://www.bbc.co.uk...ic/reviews/nxj9