Orbus Terrarum

It doesn't make you want to get up and dance, nor does it put you to sleep. Instead, Orbus Terrarum makes you dream awake. Rather than simple pop hooks hanging on to a thumping beat, the melodies create a subtley ever-changing sonic landscape. For that matter, the beats, where they appear, are more driven by the melody than vice versa, a nice reversal from what most people think of as electroni... read more

Description: The Orb's third full-length studio album states its intention with its title: where their first two records had explored the outer cosmos of dance music, Terrarum is an earthier, less spacy ambient record, more devoted to mapping the sounds at hand. It goes to extremes to avoid the hooks of their early work, and there's barely even a hint of dance beats. When they do appear, they're mutated, bassy, more to pass through the body than to move to. Considered as music to "listen to," it's mostly pretty dull (though the 17-minute "Slug Dub" is worthy of the Augustus Pablo records and stoned realizations that insp The Orb's third full-length studio album states its intention with its title: where their first two records had explored the outer cosmos of dance music, Terrarum is an earthier, less spacy ambient record, more devoted to mapping the sounds at hand. It goes to extremes to avoid the hooks of their early work, and there's barely even a hint of dance beats. When they do appear, they're mutated, bassy, more to pass through the body than to move to. Considered as music to "listen to," it's mostly pretty dull (though the 17-minute "Slug Dub" is worthy of the Augustus Pablo records and stoned realizations that inspired it). But then Orbus isn't meant to reward attention--it's an album to sit down and dream to. --Douglas Wolk ... (more) (less)