Orbital's career is ending, fittingly, on the festival circuit. The duo have announced that they'll be taking their final bow at this summer's T in the Park, after headlining the Other Stage at last week's Glastonbury, the site of the stunning 1994 and 1995 performances that secured the band's legend and destroyed the myth that dance acts can't connect with audiences without the home-field advantage of a club. Orbital, of course, were no slouches in the studio either, producing some of the greatest electronic albums of their time and an immaculate string of singles that effortlessly segue from early acid and rave through the headier ambient techno of their mid-90s.
Orbital's swansong, The Blue Album-- their seventh-- is billed, worryingly, as a culmination of their 15-year run-- which, at least conceptually, implies a grab bag of token nods to better-realized ideas, or an unnecessary Cliff's Notes version of their career. Thankfully, it's instead a fitting footnote, one that leaves a much better final taste in our mouths than the mostly disastrous The Altogether-- a record so misguided that it seems to have cloaked its underrated predecessor, Middle of Nowhere, in an ill-deserved shadow of post-In Sides disappointment.
The Blue Album being a stroll through the past, innovation is not something one should expect from the record. In a way, the album simply highlights many of the reasons why Orbital have been so beloved for the past decade-and-a-half. However, one wouldn't come to that conclusion from the album opener, "Transient". Almost beatless, this kaleidoscopic web of harpsichord, strings and bass, unfurls an almost foreboding yet captivating sound, recalling Philip Glass circa Koyaanisqatsi.
From there, Orbital deliver on their promise, taking us on a Russian Ark-like stroll through their career, echoing elements from In Sides (the serene "Pants"), Snivilisation ("Bath Time") and The Middle of Nowhere (the remarkable urban clang of "Tunnel Vision"). Of course, as on The Altogether, Orbital's stabs at humor here produce more cringes than smiles, as neither "Bath Time"'s blend of children's TV theme music and Jean-Jacques Perrey nor "Easy Serv"'s ice cream van xylophone-- add much to the record. Perhaps it would have nice to exorcise the tracks in favor of the sadly discarded "Initiation" and "What Happens Next", but a sense of humor has thankfully always been one element of Orbital's career and, if nothing else, this album is true to their legacy.
More than anything else, however, The Blue Album is reminiscent of Orbital's first two self-titled records, more commonly known as the Green and Brown albums. Sparks collaboration "Acid Pants" is an old-school, almost tribal banger, while the foreboding, abstract "Lost" sounds like an early effort from the Warp camp. Best of all is album centerpiece "You Lot", the one track that could be segued into Orbital's first record without the bat of a single eyelash. More track-y than most of their recent efforts-- but with a soft ambient core, over which is layered a sample of Christopher Ecclestone babbling on about the shrinking distance between the power of man and God-- "You Lot" is the record's best confluence of what made Orbital so special.
The Blue Album closes with "One Perfect Sunrise", the sort of post-rave/pre-dawn euphoria that Orbital perfected on "Halcyon". And although the track borders on the nostalgic with the same potentially pointless intensity as a Jet track and the same emotional manipulation as a trance version of an 80s hit, here context can melt even the most time-hardened heart. As the sunset to Orbital's glorious career, it's fitting that the track encapsulates the dawn, the time of day that has so often ended the most glorious moments of Orbital's career.
