Paul Hartnoll (Orbital) on the new Electribe

apapdop · Post by **apapdop** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 8:22 am

Good to see the paintbrush. A clean studio is a happy studio...

Ted3000 · Post by **Ted3000** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:10 pm

Paul Hartnell from Orbital, guys. Orbital. And he says he finds it fun, a joy, useful, and that he's going to use it on his next solo album.

Reaction: "He's lying!" (not mostly from this forum.)

I wonder what would have caused zero controversy? What would have avoided the pile of negative comments that every gear video ever made racks up?

1. First of all, Orbital would have to mean more to everyone personally. So let's somehow put The Altogether in the top five of every viewer, by electronic magic.

2. Paul would have to praise it with total hyper enthusiasm - lots of empty calorie words like "AMAZING" and "SO MASSIVE" and of course "REVOLUTIONARY," and you should see him tossing his old gear into a scrapheap.

3. Then, the patterns he plays would have to be in the exact genre and style that's your favorite - and everyone would agree. The tracks would not be little sketches recorded over a room mic, but fully mastered and slamming, somehow coming out of the machine directly.

4. You'd also have to not be nursing a grudge against whatever feature was left out of the pot when they cooked this thing.

5. The concept of trolling would have to take a few weeks off.

Then, and only then, would the comments not be negative.

apapdop · Post by **apapdop** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:14 pm

It's "Insides" for me. "Out There Somewhere Pts 1 and 2". Oh lordy...

Ted3000 · Post by **Ted3000** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:27 pm

Hard to argue against In Sides. The Box pt. 2 is such a landmark, those weird off-axis drum loops!

colulizard · Post by **colulizard** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 4:10 pm

So, my feeling was he likes it but doesn't love it.
I'm guessing this from the fact that if he didn;t like it he would have not endorsed it.
As a comparison of enthusiasm levels, here's him talking about the Bass Station 2 a couple of years ago. In this demo the loops he plays are also pretty uninspring
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqJvXEtwNBc

He played a gig recently on the same set as Mistabishi, and i know that he was very impressed with what Mr Pullen was doing with one machine and one hand (his words).
So i think he probably does like it.

_INTER_ · Post by **_INTER_** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 4:38 pm

If you look closely you see someone threatening him with a gun in the shadow.

colulizard · Post by **colulizard** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 5:16 pm

I posted a blank reply, which is a bit annoying.
I can't be bothered to write it all again and so I'll just summarise.

Here he is commenting on the NovatioN Bass Station a year or so ago. I'm not sure if he sounds more or less enthusiastic here compared to Electribe....
The loops he plays though are also uninspring. But that's because he's demo'ing the sounds... maybe that explains the Electribe loops... a demo of the sounds he's tweaked from it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqJvXEtwNBc

Pygmy · Post by **Pygmy** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 7:35 pm

Hey Ted3000, here's the video that Paul actually *wanted* to do

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2015/ ... p-odyssey/

Pygmy · Post by **Pygmy** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 7:45 pm

colulizard wrote:Here he is commenting on the NovatioN Bass Station a year or so ago. I'm not sure if he sounds more or less enthusiastic here compared to Electribe....

For real? He only mentions 10 times the bassstation is amazing, how it's helped complete his album, how all the basslines he was struggling with were replaced by bassstation synthlines, how it kept him from having to reach for the modulars for that... and on and on.

Lotek · Post by **Lotek** » Thu Nov 12, 2015 7:48 am

He does sound a tat more enthusiastic in that Odyssey video. By a margin of let's say: 25%, so the Odyssey must be 25% better than the electribe.

Am i right?

colulizard · Post by **colulizard** » Thu Nov 12, 2015 9:04 am

Lotek wrote:He does sound a tat more enthusiastic in that Odyssey video. By a margin of let's say: 25%, so the Odyssey must be 25% better than the electribe.

Am i right?

Of the demos I've seen him in the ARP looks the most enthusiastic.

Frenzies · Post by **Frenzies** » Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:24 am

The 20 odd minutes through the brown album from Planet of the Shapes, through Lush, Impact and remind are about as good as dance music has ever been. He can say and do whatever he likes forever now, he gave me that, and he gave me Glastonbury 1994, the best live dance set ever.

I like Orbital.

Does it show?

colulizard · Post by **colulizard** » Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:47 am

Frenzies wrote:The 20 odd minutes through the brown album from Planet of the Shapes, through Lush, Impact and remind are about as good as dance music has ever been. He can say and do whatever he likes forever now, he gave me that, and he gave me Glastonbury 1994, the best live dance set ever.

Are you me?

Also, there was a New Years Eve at Brixton Academy on the turn of 93 / 94 Orbital played at. It was better than Glasto.
But those merged tracks on the brown album are amazing - still to this day totally amazing

Frenzies · Post by **Frenzies** » Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:56 am

colulizard wrote:
Frenzies wrote:The 20 odd minutes through the brown album from Planet of the Shapes, through Lush, Impact and remind are about as good as dance music has ever been. He can say and do whatever he likes forever now, he gave me that, and he gave me Glastonbury 1994, the best live dance set ever.
Are you me?

apapdop · Post by **apapdop** » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:00 pm

My walk to work in the late 90s/early 00s used to take slightly longer than "The Girl With The Sun In Her Head" and "Out There Somewhere Parts 1 and 2" played one after the other. Playing these three tracks on a fine spring morning on my MiniDisc Walkman and i swear, my heart would be singing with joy by the time i got to work. When Orbital were good, they were very, very good. I was always struck by how "vanilla" the sounds they used were, but hell's teeth they could put a track together.

Gotta say, i was well chuffed when i saw this video, one of my musical heroes using and praising a piece of kit (in an entirely level headed and down to earth fashion) that i really like. I don't class myself as a wide-eyed innocent when it comes to advertising and shilling, but in this case, to think that he said what he said purely because he was paid to do so is cynical and just plain lazy.