Much like the longer passages on The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld, Metallic Spheres is made up of languid grooves drifting among big washes of synthesizers, meandering guitar melodies and the occasional dubbed vocal. Gilmour's guitar and lap steel sound almost like they've been sampled from earlier Pink Floyd records (or, rather like Steve Hillage's contributions to early Orb LPs), affecting an almost country meets ambient house sound. As for Dr. Alex Patterson and Youth, with this album they move away from the dense, high-energy techno of recent Orb albums, returning to the expansive feel of their early releases, with mid-tempo house and dub beats anchoring the affair. While many reviewers have faulted the album for its generally relaxed approach, avoiding radical experimentation in favor of the tried and true, I'd argue that recent Orb releases have been simply obnoxious assaults by a collapsing wall of sound and that this return journey is a welcome way to while away an hour. There's even a very warped cover of a song by Graham Nash, here titled "Hymns To The Sun," which was in part the genesis of this project. It is not a particularly long record at around 50 minutes, and being divided into only two tracks makes things seem to shimmer for just a little while ... and then fade away. This sphere is more fluffy than metallic, like little clouds over a sunset in Arizona.
You can give it a listen yourself by reserving it through this link:
Metallic Spheres
No comments:
Post a Comment
What can I post on your wall?
Commenting & Posting Guidelines
Welcome to your library on social media!
Pima County Public Library (PCPL) offers blogs and other social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter for educational, cultural, civic, customer service, and recreational purposes. They provide a limited (or designated) public forum to facilitate the sharing of ideas, opinions, and information about library-related subjects and issues.
By choosing to comment or post on our social media accounts, you agree with the following:
Comments and posts are moderated by library staff, and the library reserves the right to remove any that are unlawful or off topic. Posts containing the following may be deleted:
Copyright violations
Off-topic comments
Commercial material/spam/solicitation
Sexual content, or links to sexual content
Threatening or harassing postings
Libelous or other kinds of personal attacks
Conduct or encouragement of illegal activity
Content that reveals private, personal information without permission
Vulgar language or content
Comments in support of or in opposition to political campaigns or ballot measures
Content that degrades others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability or other classification
P.S. Protect your privacy. Don't post personally identifying information in these public spaces, including details like your library card number, phone number, or medical information, etc.
Young people under age 18, especially, should not post information such as your school, age, phone number, and address.