quoted 7 lines For the sake of dissenting opinions, I'll just throw it out there that, of>For the sake of dissenting opinions, I'll just throw it out there that, of
>all the Orb's releases, _Pommes_ probably gets the most play in this house.
>Furthermore, I performed following Dr Alex DJ-ing at an event last
>December, and in our post-gig chit-chat he told us all about _PF_ in a most
>animated and enthusiastic fashion...Anyway, IMHO, _PF_ is quite an
>interesting >listen, and has more serious content than usual for the Orb.
>Disconcerting, >but admirable.
i totally agree. "pomme fritz" was the album beginnning with which the orb
finally started becoming interesting for me. with _adventures_ and _uforb_
i had to admire their production talents and their mastery of a particular
fusion of electronic and dance music styles new and old (house, dub,
psychedelia, space rock, etc.), but beyond that their music just seemed a
happy throwaway commodity (except maybe for the first 10 min. of "oobe"),
benefitting in its trasience from a particular moment in musical and
cultral history.
with "pomme fritz" and particularly _orbvs terrarvm_, however--two albums
which also owe a great debt to alex's experiences working with thomas
fehlmann and robert fripp on _ffwd_, another phenomenal album to easily
outdo any of the orb's previous--the orb's rhythms began expanding beyond
the simple parameters of four-to-the-floor "ambient house" (a term which
still makes me cringe) and the textures and melodies took on lives of their
own, soaring into what can finally be described as a truly original sound,
rather than just a more or less substitutable collision of very easily
identifiable influences. i know many have objected to the album's
"thinness," pining for the return of kris weston's deep, velvetene synth
washes and simple, repeating figures, but with this album patterson
actually began drawing from dub rather than simply replicating it, pushing
his highs up high and reserving the lows for deep, rumbling accents which
didn't simply bounce mindlessly along like in "perpetual dawn" or any of
bill laswell's umpteen stuttering repetitions. i could go on in my
adulation, but i think the point is that after weston's departure, the orb
switched from being a "mere" pop group (nothing wrong with pop, mind you)
to something, thanfully, a whole lot less manageable.
what i find most ironic is that the orb's earliest work (along with the klf
and irresistible force) is generally credited with reviving ambient music
for the club crowd, while to my ears it's only with "pomme fritz" and
_orbvs terrarvm_ (and of course _ffwd_ before them both) that patternson
actually begins seriously pursuing ambient as the organizational principle
of his music (and not just some spacey, noodly electronic interlude to plop
between his flirtations with, alternately, the dancefloor and the pop
charts). easy to say, of course, when that process--now several years into
it--seems to have needed to happen, anyway, but still ironic...
sc