Back To Mine - The Orb - Various Artists

Back to Mine – The Orb

The Back to Mine series is a series of records that are compiled by well known musicians and DJ’s to give to their fans an idea of what the music would be like if they went back to a party with them. The CD has the slogan “A personal collection for after hours grooving” which pretty much sums it up. The series started back on the 1st February 1999 and was compiled then by DJ Nice Warren. Since then there have ...
...7 in the UK charts back in 1990. Track nine is one of The Orb’s own tracks and is another silly one. About a land that is never in the same place twice that was built by a magician who was very fond of flowers and vegetables. Another one of my favourites.

Back to Aphex twin for “Blue Calx”, a track that seems to be building up to a mad, heavy dance beat but never does… Just keeps floating along in the land of ambient noises… It sounds ... more

Back to Mine – The Orb

The Back to Mine series is a series of records that are compiled by well known musicians and DJ’s to give to their fans an idea of what the music would be like if they went back to a party with them. The CD has the slogan “A personal collection for after hours grooving” which pretty much sums it up. The series started back on the 1st February 1999 and was compiled then by DJ Nice Warren. Since then there have been a further 24 albums with the most recent being Röyksopp in April 2007. The 25 different artists have included the likes of Groove Armada, Underworld, Faithless and the Pet Shop Boys.

This time it was the turn of The Orb. The Orb started out in 1988 and were DJ’s Alex Patterson and Jimmy Cauty. Since then they have gone through a series of different DJ’s including Kris Weston, Simon Phillips and Andy Hughes although Alex Patterson has been a Permanent fixture throughout. Currently he works alongside the German Producer Thomas Fehlmann. The Orb tends to work with samples that are changed beyond recognition and when playing live have a mad visual show on too. An interesting article on the last 20 years of The Orb is available to read on Wikipedia.

This album opens on the Aphex Twin track “Polynominal C” which is a fast paced tune that you can picture an entire crowd jumping up and down to in a club somewhere. This is followed by Charles Webster’s “Be No-One” which instantly takes it down a couple of gears into a chill out. Following this is a space age sounding track called “Nitrogen Pt. 1” that would fit nicely in a Matrix style gun toting scene. Incidentally, I just fired the name into Wikipedia and the second line says that Juno Reactor did some stuff for the Matrix score!

The fourth track “Interim” is a nice ambient track that follows on nicely after “Nitrogen Pt. 1” as it is setting up for the 5th track, “Ow Much!”. This is my second favourite track on this album and the reason why I bought it. It’s brilliant. It’s essentially a mad little guitar riff, matching bass line, heavy drum beat, some mad noises and an American auctioneer rattling numbers off. How anyone can speak that fast is quite beyond me! Each track has a reason for why Alex Patterson put it on the CD and for this track it says “$$$$ “Ow Much?” My brothers finest hour, it rox the sox of any 2nd hand car salesman. Pure fun my son.”

Track six is “The Chi-Lites – Have you seen her”. The Chi-Lites are a soul vocals quartet from the early 1970’s and Have you Seen Her was their second biggest selling track which came out in 1972. This track is soul at it’s finest.

Now, my favourite track of the album! “Thomas Fehlmann – I wanna be a fishy”. The title of the track pretty much sums the song up but it’s a nice happy boppy song with the lyrics;

I wanna be a little fishy
Yes I do, yes I do, yes I do.
I wanna swim all around
Be a little fish clown
Cause it is so cool
To be under the water!

Brilliant. How to follow such a silly song? No idea.

The following track is by Julee Cruise who is an American pop singer and this particular song was the theme tune for Twin Peaks. The song got to number 7 in the UK charts back in 1990. Track nine is one of The Orb’s own tracks and is another silly one. About a land that is never in the same place twice that was built by a magician who was very fond of flowers and vegetables. Another one of my favourites.

Back to Aphex twin for “Blue Calx”, a track that seems to be building up to a mad, heavy dance beat but never does… Just keeps floating along in the land of ambient noises… It sounds a bit like drips of water in a really big, echoey tunnel.

Track 11 is probably the best version of the song “Barbie Girl” that you might ever hear, although it could be argued that any version of Barbie Girl just isn’t worth listening to. Back to another ambient track with Joachim Spieth’s “You Don’t Fool Me”. It is another very laid back, chill out track. “Hempire” is a continuation of the same theme from the last track and sounds a bit like someone playing with interference. Moving in and out of an on stage monitor, much like some of the stuff that David Bowie has done.

The final track is a great little ending to the album as it brings together some of the heavier electro elements from before and combines them with the chilled out ambience of the later tracks.

-Track Listing-

1. Aphex Twin – Polynominal-C
2. Charles Webster – Be No-One
3. Juno Reactor – Nitrogen Pt. 1
4. B12 – Interim
5. Creature – Ow much!
6. The Chi-Lites – Have you seen her
7. Thomas Fehlmann – I wanna be a Fishy
8. Julee Cruise – Falling
9. The Orb – The Land of Green Ginger
10. Aphex Twin Blue Calx
11. Electric Chairs – Barbie Girl (TF Long Version)
12. Joachim Spieth – You Don’t Fool Me
13. F.F.W.D. – Hempire
14. Shneider TM vs KPT mich.gan – The Light 3000

-Cost-

This album cost me £5 in Fopp and was a bargain! A sneaky peaky on Amazon lets me know that they are charging £12.48.

-Would I recommend it?-

Yes, it’s a great album. If you like your electro or ambient chill out music then it’s definitely worth a fiver. If you don’t like electro then you won’t enjoy this album in the slightest!

Take it easy,

John. 

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