Happy May to everyone.  Once again, time seems to be whipping by as the month of May just seemed to pop up on me.  Ok, time for some random thoughts.  

Trying to get back into the swing

For about a week now I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of things, but I’ve had a little – if any – luck with this.  I’m massively behind on my RSS reading (yes, I hate that), I haven’t had any energy to cook (I’m so sorry, yeswecook.com) and there is plenty I have to take care of at the office.  Basically, I feel a bit behind.

I’m going to try to use this weekend, once again, to get back into a pattern of reading/posting/cooking.  I hope to be successful at this one.

The Orb’s New Album

A few months back I posted a bit of exciting news about The Orb, they have a new album coming out this July title “Baghdad Batteries”.  Well, thanks to Resident Advisor we now have access to the tracklisting:

1. Styrofoam Meltdown
2. Chocolate Fingers
3. Baghdad Batteries
4. Raven’s Reprise
5. Dolly Unit
6. Super Soakers
7. Suburban Smog
8. Orban Tumbleweed
9. Pebbles
10. Woodlarking
11. OOPA

What I really like about this album is the Thomas Fehlmann addition.  I really like the minimal aspect he adds to Orb work. 

The Prodigy Tours North America

For you North American Prodigy fans, you’ll have a chance to see them once again.  The Prodigy will be stateside in the month of May on a mini-tour in order to promote “Invaders Must Die”

Let me just say this… DON’T GO.  The Prodigy, by far, is the worst live performance I’ve ever had the chance to see stateside.  Sure, they pack every venue in the rest of the world – I’m sure they will do so here – but their show is surprisingly uninspiring.  They have the whole “rock star” mentality just doesn’t seem to fit here any longer and cannot be justified by their work (any longer).

Let’s face it, they are a shell of who they used to be. Unless you have a desire to relive the old days, I strongly suggest you pass on the show.

The Rookie

I’m sitting here typing with “The Rookie” on in the background.  The feel good story about a man who makes it to the majors as a 38 year old relief pitcher.  I don’t have a review to write… just impressed how strong the emotion in the movie is.

Fiat is the new Chrysler

As I am sure you know by this point, Chrysler is now in bankruptcy.  Funny thing is you wouldn’t know that from reading their press release. They decied to focus the first portion of their “news” on a partnership with Fiat.

By partnership I mean that Fiat will buy the majority of Chrysler assets.  Oh, yea, that and the company gets an additional 8 Billion from the government to go into bankruptcy.  Funny how that works, isn’t it?

Here is what I would like to know, it’s the two questions that I’ve consistently asked:

1)If Cerberus, Chrysler’s parent company, is not willing to put any more money into the company why – WHY – should the the government?  The parent company obviously sees no value in the Chrysler brand(s), why should anyone continue to support it?

2)The second Daimler Group saw how bad the brand was they ditched, took a loss, and went on with life. What is Fiat thinking?  Are they looking at this as an opportunity to gain a foothold in the U.S. market?  Are they looking for the intellectual property the company has?  Are looking to suffer like those that came before them?

I don’t care what anyone says, this will not end well.  People must adjust to the fact that this brand (except for the Jeep assets) need to fade into history.

Ok, I’m off…

I’m not sure if Alex and Youth decided to get to get together to some song in the way of their classic “Little Fluffy Cloud” or it there making a statement they’ve grown past that time point. If one listens to the samples, some comments appear to directly contradict others.

The apple tree in my back yard plays samples in the same method of LFC did. You hear yellow, creams and reds…. again someone breaks in with “things have changed very much, so no it wouldn’t happen.”

Obviously, this can be interpreted as an anti drug video. That doesn’t sound much like The Orb. Reading the subtext found in the video it may be as if the Orb was of saying we will never be that band again, but we will be growing.

Here is the video, what do you think?

Oh, and yes, I love this video.

And, this allowed the group to preform on the now defunct “Top of the pops”.  How did they celebrate the honor? By not performing, of course.  Would you expect anything less?

For the time the music would play, they group members were play chess as all these visuals would go on around them. I found it to be quite funny and classy at the same time. The second video is form Asylum.

I would love to know what the TotP viewers though when they saw this as the performance…. bu if you missed that, you can also check the Live performance they did for MTV:

Classic Dub song by the Orb, and this video appears to be of a live skit in their early days.

Just trying to relax and use any means available. I think Retail Therapy may be next.

It doesn’t get any better than this, folks – a huge set of live Orb shows.  I am unsure of sources, and the sound quality varies from set to set.  Any Orb completest would be happy to have these.

The Orb Live at Sound City, Bristol, 1995

1. Happy Happy Joy Joy
2. Oobe
3. Occidental
4. Hidden (FFWD)
5. Reporter

Download

The Orb Live in Detroit 1995

1. Happy Happy Joy Joy
2. Oobe
3. Occidental
4. Towers Of Dub
5. Valley
6. Montagne Dor
7. Blue Room
8. An Huge Ever Growing…
9. Oxbow Lakes

Download

The Orb Live Glasgo Barrowlands 1997

1. Towers of Dub
2. We’re Getting Hot
3. Beer, Beer, Beer
4. Terminus
5. Asylum
6. S.A.L.T
7. Toxygene
8. Delta MK2
9. Majestic

Download

The Orb Live at Organicfest 1996

1. Delta MKII
2. Happy Happy Joy Joy
3. Blue Room
4. Oobe
5. Chill Out
6. Passing of Time
7. Spanish Castle
8. Unknown (?)
9. Towers of Dub
10. Unknown (?)
11. Hempire (FFWD)
12. Unknown (?)
13. K-Rock Reporter

Download

I found this over at The Chill Out…  An Orb mix session from Radio 1.  

The highlight of this session is The Orb’s unreleased remix of “Numb” by U2.  I’ve never been able to find a copy (be it an original Acetate or digital) until now.  

Here is the track breakdown:

1. The Orb – E.D.M. (Orb Remix) (Island)
2. Creature – Cuba (What For)
3. Brian Eno – The Dove (EG)
4. Ash Tracey – I’m Ready (White Label/CDr)
5. FFWD – Drone (Inter-Modo)
6. Schem – The Lost Woods of Timber (Bad Orb)
7. Sun Electric – Shuffle (Bad Orb)
8. John Carpenter – Dark Star (Citadel)
9. World Standard – Country Gazette (Daisy World Discs)
10. S.E. Berlin – Barbie Girl (Bad Orb)
11. U2 – Numb (Deaf And Numb Orb Remix) (Acetate)
12. The Orb – S.A.L.T (Oblivion)
13. John Carpenter – Mr. Sandman (Varese Sarabande) 

The mix session is uninspiring, and I swear there are a few things missing in the play list above, but any Orb collector would be happy to have Numb in their collection.  

You can download everything here.

Also – you happen to have a high quality and complete version of the U2/Numb remix please contact me.

Back in 2003 it came out that there was going to be a limited edition remix for The Orb’s classic “Blue Room.” One thing leads to another, the press (and fans) seem to forget the remix and it gets stuck on a compilation album… As a result, time passes and the remix is forgotten by history. 

Early this morning I received an email with a link to the remix in question.  It turns out that a limited release white label promo 12” was also distributed to DJs in hopes of gaining attention for the compilation release. After listening to the remix I can understand why the track was lost in the mp3 files of music history.

It appears the remix producers, Chris Coco and Rob Da Bank, simply took parts of the original mix and decided to overlay a new percussion and a few extra lead synth sounds.  I find the remix to be very unimpressive.  If I wanted the original version I would just pull out the original release.

So, for individuals who must have every remix of the Orb (such as myself) I give you the promo only remix of The Orb’s Blue Room (CocoDaBank Remix).

UPDATE: 02/26/09

This was originally posted at Chemical Beat and has a password of chemicalbeats.blogspot.com – thanks to Lazy@TheChillOut for passing this information along.

Welcome to day 9 of “31 days of Music”, and today we have a great one!  We have The Orb’s Resident Advisor Podcast.

You can download it here!  Enjoy!

It’s day 7 of “31 Days of Music” and we have anohter rare case – The Orb Live @ Glastonbury 1997

The track listing is:

1. Majestic
2. A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain that Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld
3. Little Fluffy Clouds
4. Bedouin
5. Toxygene

Welcome to day 5 of the 31 days of music!  Today is a really, really rare recording – The Orb Live at Glastonbury back in 1993.  Finding this one really triggered some memories for me.

I hope you enjoy.

The tracklisting:

1. A Morphine Drip
2. Little Fluffy Clouds
3. Sunburst
4. Blue Room
5. Towers of Dub