it's nice that were having a meaningful conversation for a change! For me the essence of the Orb was always intelligent, defined - one might always say  articulate - rhythms: eg. delta mk II, valley, plataeu, or like Molten Love, which is like a soukous track in space (actually, I think the Orb are best when there is that kind of African feel to the music)...the first five tracks on orblivion each give you something completely new...delta mk II subtle use of d'n'b, the wonky melodies and drill'n'bass of ubiquity, the poly-rythms of Asylum with that magic bass and clinical digitial sounds, Bedouin's kind of West African, irregular, shifting, bassline...all those tracks are completely unique stylistically...its clear that they haven't approached any project since with the same intensity, and I think the albums since have suffered from being bitty and facile, bikes/trikes being the dismall lowpoint...also I find all these orbmissions stuff a bit pointless,
 although i haven't heard 2 yet...i don't even mind&nbsp;the whole kompakt/berlin thing that much, even though okie sounds like it was thrown together in 2 weeks...another thing, does anyone&nbsp;else agree that they used to&nbsp;be much better live? amazing to think they used to be brave enough to play things like spanish catsles in space, where as now everything&nbsp;seems to just be 4/4 techno crap, with alex playing 2 hours&nbsp;of ibiza style dance music at the Koko gig last year...only&nbsp;high point of that evening, a magic version of Alles ist schon from Fritz which just shows what lx could produce if he&nbsp;really understood what is special about the orb<BR><BR><B><I>Tim C &lt;timc_orb@comcast.net&gt;</I></B> wrote:  <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">&gt;I seem to remember a lot of people slagging Orblivion when it <BR>&gt;was new. It's not bad, but the songs are just two short. It <BR>&gt;should
 have been a double with the same songs, just longer.<BR>&gt;<BR><BR>Forgot to mention - Orbscure Trax has several improved versions; would have<BR>been nice if the album had been more like that.<BR><BR>&gt;LX also told me that Youth "wants to make a "real" Orb album". <BR><BR>Listen to "Apple Tree In My Backyard" and I think this is not a surprise!<BR>So another notch on the "big hope for the next album" scale!<BR><BR>T<BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Orb mailing list<BR>Orb@mailman.xmission.com<BR>http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/orb<BR>Report list abuse to list-abuse at studio-nibble.com<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>