The Orb - Baghdad Batteries

There's always been two quite contrasting sides to The Orb's centrifugal epicentre Dr Alex Paterson. One is the purveyor of hook-ridden songs laden with vocal toppings or memorable samples, as heard on last year's delightful collaboration with Youth and Tim Bran, The Dream, which Alex describes as 'pop'. The other is more serious, focusing primarily on the sound itself, noticeably rearing in the mid-90s almost as a reaction to The Orb's initial success on under-rated masterworks like Orbus Terrarum.

This is when the good Doctor sets the controls beyond any Earthly confines and gets down to stratospheric sound painting and advanced sonic science, prinkled with an avant garde disregard for conventional structures. These startling electronic odysseys are often hatched with long-time collaborator Thomas Fehlmann, The Orb's Berlin connection who's been there from the first album and last made his towering presence felt on 2005's Okie Dokie album for the renowned Kompakt label, bastion of KOLN minimalmuzik.

Such is the case with Baghdad Batteries where the pair have injected some of these breathtaking outings with a subterranean house pulse beamed up from the Earth's core, resulting in a new form of space disco which sounds as old as time itself while brushed with the most future-pointed minimal techno shadows.
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