Doing a 180: Orbital and Orton

Orbital, 1 / 2: As has so often been the case with techno-dance artists from the UK, Orbital never came anywhere near to matching their UK chart success in the US, to the point where you’d be hard pressed to find all that many Americans who even know who they are, but if you’ve got a soft spot for dance music that uses unique samples and delivers songs that are memorable enough to keep you interested even when the majority of their tracks top out well beyond the five-minute mark, you’ll want to investigate their first two albums – cleverly entitled 1 and 2 – and hear how great they sound when reissued on 180-gram vinyl.

In the case of the songs released as singles from Orbital’s debut album, the most interesting by far come from the III EP, which features “Satan” and “Belfast.” The former features samples from the Butthole Surfers song “Sweat Loaf,” and the latter utilizes a sample of soprano Emily Van Evera performing “O Euchari,” which – funnily enough – could also be heard on The Beloved’s song “The Sun Rising.” On 2, the big hits were “Halcyon” and “Lush,” with the former sampling Opus III’s “It’s a Fine Day” and Yes’s “Leave It.” As ever, we’ll gladly help offer up our thoughts as to which of these two is the absolute must-own – it’s 2, to be sure – but they’re both great, and now they both sound better than ever.

Beth Orton, Daybreaker / Comfort of Strangers: Although she released her debut album way back in 1993, it took until the turn of the millennium for Beth Orton to become something approximating a chart force to be reckoned with. Oh, sure, she was on the cusp with 1999’s Central Reservation, but it wasn’t until 2002’s Daybreaker that she finally crossed the threshold. We’d like to think that at least part of that was due to “Concrete Sky” and “This One’s Gonna Bruise,” her collaborations with Johnny Marr and Ryan Adams, respectively, but whatever the reason, the album went into the UK top 10 and, amazingly enough, hit #40 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Alas, 2006’s Comfort of Strangers wasn’t quite as successful – perhaps because of the delay between studio efforts? – but the singles “Conceived” and “Shopping Trolley” were both memorable, and the album still cracked the UK top 25.