- The Orb’s last album saw them pop up unexpectedly on Kompakt, ceding control to ex-Tresor resident Thomas Fehlmann, who painted over their oddball ambience with a cool Teutonic palette. This possible new direction has since proved a mere diversion for Alex Paterson and his revolving door of collaborators, who on The Dream abandon all hope of relevance to revisit the glory days of seminal 1992 album U.F.Orb. Now completed by the decidedly ‘90s musicians Youth and Dreadzone bassist Tim Bran, The Dream looks back, all misty eyed and fuzzy brained, to a time when The Orb pretty much invented chill out.
The details of The Dream are scarcely worth recording, as they’ll be familiar to Orb fans and of little interest to anyone else. Yes, it includes dub, ambient house and bouncy acid, and yes, it is peppered with soulful vocals and offbeat samples. It’s not bad, but it’s nothing new, and to twenty-first century ears it sounds underdeveloped and uninteresting. With the exception of ‘High Noon’, which charts a new path between DJ Shadow and dub techno, the tracks could be outtakes from the U.F.Orb sessions, which is an indication of their quality but also their irrelevance.
Inevitably, what sounded groundbreaking fifteen years ago is now hackneyed, and so worn out by crusty New Age types that The Dream should come with promotional joss sticks. The smart money is on Paterson having already pitched the idea to his record company, besotted as he is with all things Eastern and mystical and unafraid as he is of clichés. A glance at track titles like ‘The Truth Is…’ and ‘Mother Nature’, for example, will make even ardent hippies long for the days of ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’, when at least poking fun at flower children was amusing. Perhaps it was the band’s other founding member, Jimmy Cauty of the KLF, who was responsible for applying The Orb’s tongue to its cheek, but whatever the reason, the knowing postmodern attitude of old is gone—and this new naiveté is hardly a substitute.
While U.F.Orb was great at the time, the world’s not exactly crying out for a remake (especially as the original was re-mastered, remixed and re-released just last year). Maybe it’s time for The Orb to call it a day and bury their wacky samples in a time capsule labeled ‘1992’.
Tracklist01 The Dream (The Future Academy Of Noise, Rhythm And Gardening Mix)
02 Vuja De
03 Something Supernatural
04 A Beautiful Day
05 DDD (Dirty Disco Dub)
06 The Truth Is...
07 Phantom Of Ukraine
08 Mother Nature
09 Lost And Found
10 The Forest Of Lyonesse
11 Katskills
12 High Noon
13 Sleeping Tiger & The Gods Unknown
14 Codes
15 Orbisonia