Despite Orbital's 15-year association with the dance scene, you don't need to be on ecstasy and wearing fluorescent yellow cycling shorts to appreciate their music. The Hartnoll brothers have as much in common with Steve Reich and Michael Nyman as they do with the Chemical Brothers, though it's hard to think of a 20th-century minimalist who could get 80,000 Glastonbury ravers to wave glowsticks in the air. Like Kraftwerk 30 years earlier, Orbital's clean lines and precision-engineered beats summon visions of idyllic technological utopias, before a well-placed sinister key change makes everything seem just a little too perfect. This time around, snatches of Christopher Eccleston in Russell T Davies's The Second Coming enliven You Lot, and the Hartnolls' 1970s shadows Sparks contribute to Acid Pants. The Blue Album, sadly, is to be Orbital's last.
IHT Records