In Sides

Orbital have never made a bad record. In a section of pop's hypermarket where product freshness is ensured by a shelf-life often measured in minutes, this techno duo are remarkable for both their longevity and their consistent excellence.

With their last album, Snivilisation, they created a masterpiece and masterpieces are notoriously hard to follow up. Even among your admirers, there tends to be a feeling that you have made your statement, and anything you add is unnecessary.

It's a mark of just how good In Sides is that, after a few plays, comparison becomes not just unhelpful but thoroughly irrelevant. In Sides has a lightness and lucidity that is rare in the rather solemn world of electronic music. It's not too fanciful to claim that Orbital are making something akin to modern chamber music, albeit far less stiff-necked than that description might suggest.

Orbital are particularly rare among techno acts in that their music is instantly recognisable. They perform a kind of sequencer origami, folding and tucking their tracks into intruiging shapes. Their skill isn't in doubt; what makes them special is the result is more than an intellectual exercise for the connoisseur of electronica. As pop music, it's thrilling.

The Girl With The Sun In Her Head glows with the easy radiance of tanned country lasses in a Betjemen poem. Appropriately, it was recorded using Greenpeace's mobile solar generator, pictured in the sleevenotes along with the information that it generates enough electricity to power a typical household. As it needs an 18-wheeler flatbed truck to carry it around, I doubt we'll all be getting one in a hurry. The point of this being that Orbital's music takes us on a different resonance when one sees the packaging. Snivilisation came across as a bitter indictment of the consumer society that put it into the shops, and while In Sides is gentler on the ear, I have heard it differently since I encountered the caustic images that decorate the CD.

With this in mind, the sinister edge of tracks like P.E.T.R.O.L. and Adnan's take on a new and specific meaning. For a record devoid of lyrics, this is some achievement, although what kind of achievement, I'm not exactly sure. In Sides is only made possible by the technology it castigates. The sound of teeth clamping onto food-laden hands is never a pleasant one. One simple solution is not to think about it, and the music, somehow contriving to seem lush, austere and deliciously ornate, makes it easy.

In the end, In Sides appeals to all senses bar common. Former single The Box and vast, eerie closing Out There Somewhere? are songs you can go for a walk in, taking different turnings each time, constantly glimpsing new oddities. Few albums merit repeated explorations; even fewer reward it so generously. For all its huge complexity, In Sides plays like a simple pleasure.

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[ Also: All In Sides reviews ]