Orbital In Sides CD

Initial pressings of IN SIDES contain a bonus disc with five extra tracks, including a 28-minute version of "The Box."

"The Box" and "Out There Somewhere?" are contained on two tracks each.

Since 1989, when they released their first single, Orbital's Hartnoll brothers have represented a less beat-heavy side of techno. Rather than rhythmic brawn and hyperkinetic RPMs, Orbital's music was driven by modern compositional style owing to Glass and Reich, with Eno's spacing thrown in for good measure, and electro-pulses providing the only things seeming beat-worthy. Theirs are sound sculptures consistently apart from their contemporaries--more melodic, more contemplative and soundtrack-like.

1996's IN SIDES, their fourth full-length release, is a fine representation of Orbital's sonic environment, and a great place to jump into the ways of the Hartnolls, if only because it's their cheeriest album. Bright melodies carried by shinny, happy keyboard textures enlighten a good deal of IN SIDES, most fruitfully on the expansive second part of the closer "Out There Somewhere?" where they keep streaming in like sun beams through sonic windows. As counterpoint, there's the needling mystery of tracks like "The Box," which marries an edge-of-your-seat piano score to some fuzzed-out guitars and lo-fi breakbeats.

Orbital: Paul Hartnoll, Phil Hartnoll.

Additional personnel: Auntie (vocals); Clune (drums).

Old#124087Rolling Stone (8/8/96, p.62) - 3 Stars - Good - "...On IN SIDES, the duo has incorporated elements of trip-hop and jungle, and the result is more melancholic than the housed-out bliss of Orbital's earlier work....making jungle's fragmented break beats seem as graceful as the bossa nova."
Spin (8/96, p.104) - "...Orbital construct simple, arching keyboard melodies that survive any change in synth and rhythmic texture..."
Entertainment Weekly (6/21/96, p.66) - "...IN SIDES vibrates with energy, unraveling in a breathtaking symphonic display of layered beats and melodies that combine the mathematical construction of Aphex Twin with the galactic tinkerings of the Orb." - Rating: B+
Q (12/99, p.90) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s."
Option (9-10/96, pp.123-124) - "...intelligent and complex textures that sound simply gorgeous....haunting, dark, absorbing and mysteriously meandering thought processes....feminie vocal snippets...add a harmonic, song-like quality to newly incorporated syncopations influenced by ambient techno and jungle rhythms..."
Melody Maker (12/21-28/96, pp.66-67) - Ranked #31 on Melody Maker's list of 1996's `Albums Of The Year.'
NME (Magazine) (12/21-28/96, pp.66-67) - Ranked #3 in NME's 1996 critic's poll.
NME (Magazine) (4/27/96, p.50) - 9 (out of 10) - "...Orbital's peerless gift for mood manipulation...feels like an emphatic retreat into the personal domain....IN SIDES is the best Orbital thus far....feels dangerously close to perfection, while also standing tall and utterly distinct..."