At 10:25 AM 5/28/02 -0400, you wrote:

In a message dated 05/25/2002 1:56:43 AM Eastern Daylight Time, jtopjian@nb.net writes:

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I was really disappointed when Yungle didnt make it to the final cut.. That song has to be in my top 3 Orb songs of all time.. blows me away everytime I listen to it =)

AMEN BROTHER! Yungle totally rocks! What was LX thinking when he left this track off?

It was a bit too Andy Hughes for the final CD, i think. Pre-release Cydonias have their merits but V1 is a much harder-edged knockabout album thanks to Andy H's input on tracks like Yungle. The version that did get released in the end was much softer and more Alexy--compare Yungle wiv Thursday's Keeper for instance. Yungle's a bit harder to listen to for me because it sort of fidgets manically from idea to idea without really cohering, which is a bit unOrbly; Thursday's Keeper has a quick beat but structurally it's more like classic Orb the way it metamorphoses from variation to variation wisely and getting a good flow going. This fidget problem's even more evident on lots of the Orblivion tracks--that horrible gurgly synth melody in Ubiquity: Argh. Whether it's Andy's fault or whether it was a phase that Alex was going through or something else, the fidget factor is gone again once you get to the final version of Cydonia, and it's back to the graceful permutation-turning of classic Orb. Suffice it to say that Orblivion's my least favourite Orb album for its fidget factor, but it's got its odd stretch of good bit. :) I really miss Thrash's presence in the Orb. Hope Alex can find someone as clever as Kris in future to make tunes with. Simon, aka Kwook http://www.kwookyworld.com/