Orb
U.F. Off: The Best Of...
[Island]
Rating: 7.7
What the fuck is this? Where are the goddamned guitars? This is the
sound of Disco Charlie sucking a dick and falling asleep-- it's either
wall to wall drum machines or a fistful of Yanni. I bet these guys
don't comb their hair, either.
Today's kids have been molested by techno, and not just since Prodigy
slipped a hand down their pants. Remember Soft Cell? Depeche Mode?
Jesus Christ, we may as well let anybody have a record contract! "This
is Dave Hilton. He whistles and can clap." Be sure to get me a t-shirt
when you swing by the show.
The Orb are two guys named Alex Patterson and... I'm not sure. Oates?
He's like Oates, as in "Hall and." He doesn't get to do the scissor
dance. Or maybe, like Oates, he's really the man with the plan. Oates
could've been the brains, and Hall the beauty. Who knows? At any rate,
these guys've been at it since 1990 and have turned techno on its ear.
No barre chords, no anthems, just a few beats and a whole lotta chill,
leaving me no choice but to not rock out with my cock out.
Still, I like it. It has that song from the Volkswagon commercial (better
known to the masses as "Little Fluffy Clouds") and I know I heard another
track in a different commercial. Maybe it was a soda commercial-- I don't
remember. Nonetheless, they're both here along with some other music that
becomes quite palatable... while on drugs. I really hate to stereotype or
pigeonhole or any of that other negative bullshit levelled at me and my
gross generalizations, but it's true. The rhythms burble, the samples
sprout, the synths get synthy and the cows come home to load fat bongs
and sew another patch on the fat pants. When all's said and done, you
wake up horny and begging for more, just as you have for the past ten
years of the Orb's Floyd-icious existence.
The Orb. Just like Technotronic, but without the inept rapping.
-Jason Josephes