Doubt yee not the power of The Orb – with 17 albums spanning 32 years and counting, Doctor Patterson’s travelling medicine show remains as fresh and freaky as ever.
Their latest album, Prism, is a reassuring blend of familiar sounds that still packs plenty of welcome surprises.
Prism builds on the legacy of Abolition of the Royal Familia by extending the Orb’s ever-growing pulsating musical tendrils into other genres like funk, reggae, and even drum and bass.
Though there are plenty of refreshing bottles of patented Patterson elixir, with its soothing ambience and bubbling dub effervesce, to quench the thirst of long-term fans.
Knowing the Orb’s penchant for Pink Floyd-related chicanery, the title is an obvious one. The group have sampled Pink Floyd on multiple occasions, while the cover of Orb Live 93 was a homage to the Pink Floyd album Animals.
So my guess is, given the fact that the album was announced around the same time as the 50th anniversary of Dark Side Of The Moon, The Orb were inspired by that. And no doubt had a good ole chuckle at all the ridiculous manufactured outrage over the new anniversary logo and the meatheads who took the bait – What’s with the rainbow brah? Fucking liberals gave Pink Floyd the gay!
One other major point about prisms, they take a single light source and split it, refracting it into different wavelengths. This album does the same thing to The Orb.
On the one hand, Prism is perhaps the most cohesive album The Orb have released in quite some time, but it’s also clearly split into multiple tones, each track with different colour spectrums, albeit with a notable abundance of red gold and green.
Spectral Analysis
The opening track is called H.O.M.E (high orbs mini earths), even just reading that name you know what to expect. Ambient pads and spacey noises abound while a mournful violin plays and then comes the obligatory random talking new-age bollocks – yep, we’re firmly in Orb territory now.
After four mins or so we get a delicious Larry Heard-style bassline followed by a pumping 4/4 house beat, as more spacey synths and pads congeal around the main groove.
This is exactly what they used to call “ambient house” back in the day, but the production is modern and slick, with a slight touch of sidechain to give it some extra pump and suddenly I’m dancing in my chair and tapping out high-hat patterns on my mouse… yeah, the Orb are back once again and it’s fucking glorious.
Track two is called, wait for it; “Why can you be in two places at once, when you can’t be anywhere at all (where’s gary mix)”.
In addition to being a potential Guinness World Record-winning track title (poor pulsating brain’s now relegated to second), it’s a funky upbeat number with jangly guitar licks and a stomping disco beat.
A Ghetto Love Story is a straight-up reggae tune with upbeat, pop sensibilities, while Picking tea leaves & chasing butterflies keeps the reggae fires burning, this time with more of a Lee Perry vibe complete with frisky kittens and swirly psychedelic synths.
Tiger is a cheery and cheesy vocal space disco number, very reminiscent of 2020’s single Daze from their previous album. It’s an infectiously positive and poppy slice of feel-good summer music that’s as far removed from early Orb as it’s possible to get.
The exception being Perpetual Dawn but that was 30 years ago and – I don’t mean this as a criticism fyi – it’s fair to say Tiger is easily the most radio-friendly track they’ve ever released.
As though anticipating my current thought process, Dragon of the Ocean (dogon mix) brings back the ambient dub sensibilities but still keeps that same upbeat vibe. Next comes The beginning of the End, another ambient house tour the force with luxuriant string pads.
Living in recycled times was the first track I heard from the album. I think they released the single in March if memory serves.
It’s a summery drum’n’bass tune with vocals, pure lushness from start to finish but with just the right amount of brooding intensity.
As with a lot of the stuff on the album, the production is cutting-edge while still being hugely evocative of the 90s. It puts me in mind of mid-to-late 90s drum’n’bass classics from producers like Alex Reece, Adam F and LTJ Bukem.
The drums and the bass eventually relent, and the track eventually reverts to all-embracing ambience. Big respek to whoever the violin player is on this album btw, absolutely gorgeous.
The final track, Prism, transports us to a smouldering cyberpunk metropolis where lonely CS80 synthesisers howl and wail amidst clouds of vaporous reverb and smog. This is pure late-night hovercar music, distant lights twinkling far below as neon ripples dance along the rain-drenched windscreen, “too bad she won’t live, but then again who does?”
Gary’s Not Here
I really enjoyed this album.
There’s all the reassuring Orbient flourishes you’re looking for – dense layers of ambience, towers of dub, chill out tent psychedelic sensibilities and random samples of incomprehensible new-age bollocks. (It wouldn’t be an Orb album without it.)
But there’s a lot of new sounds added to the pallet too. There’s plenty of funk, there’s a whole lot more reggae and there’s also a lot more tempo and danceability.
The Orb may have built their reputation as the post-rave therapy of choice for generations of clubbers, but Prism’s not an album for just sitting there cabbaged, it’s an album that’ll make you want to lively up yourself.