Audio Journal: 18/10/2013 - !!!, The Orb

!!! Thr!!!er

If I was to look at what album I've listened to most over the past six months it will undoubtedly turn out to be Thr!!!er by !!! (you pronounce it chk-chk-chk). Thr!!!er was released on Warp, once the pre-eminent home of UK electronic music, but now much more interested in more eclectic concerns.

I didn't go out of my way to buy this. My family and I were in holiday in New York and we stopped in at Other Music to pick up some CDs that we'd been contemplating buying but hadn't gotten around to. In fact, it had been a while since Mrs S. or I had splurged on buying music, it was chucking it down with rain outside and the staff in the shop were so friendly that we just kept picking stuff up. It was like this last year, and also when we were there in 2005 (apart from the rain). I bought Banks by Interpol's Paul Banks, the debut Chelsea Light Moving album and a second-hand Cabaret Voltaire CD, while Mrs S. loaded up on all sorts of stuff, including the !!! album.

$100 odd dollars and another downpour later, we were sat in our hotel room trying to dry off before contemplating going out for dinner, eating soggy cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery in the Village and a sandwich from Peanut Butter & Company, and Mrs S. put Thr!!!er on. I was hooked from the opening snare hit on 'Even When The Water's Cold' and from that moment on it's been the soundtrack to many a car journey, commute to work or stay in a hotel for work.

I'm not sure totally sure why it's captivated me so. I saw the band live once supporting the Chili Peppers and they didn't exactly excite much, but there's something about the sleek disco-punk-funk on Thr!!!er that has made it a firm favourite. Mrs S tells me that this proves she has better taste than me; I concede she's probably right.

The only thing that's taken the edge of this new-found interest in this band was a recent Daytrotter session which was less slick and more sloppy, but otherwise, if it was possible to wear out a CD like people used to wreck LPs, I'd probably need a new copy now.

Listen to an Anthony Naples remix of the hedonistic and strangely wistful 'Californyeah' from the forthcoming remix EP here and below.

This week I found myself listening to 'Blue Room' by The Orb for the first time in probably ten years. I wasn't a fan of this when it first came out but intrigued me on some level (the weird 'performance' on Top Of The Pops where Alex Paterson and Kris Weston just played chess, the fact that the full length version lasted a proggy forty minutes) and shortly after its release I found myself drawn to ambient music as part of a push to try and find some means of calm in my life. I was a stressed-out teenager with all sorts of angst, and ambient music seemed to overcome that.

The Orb 'Blue Room'

I distinctly remember buying The Orb's U.F.Orb (which includes 'Blue Room') the day before my father went into hospital for an operation in 1993, and I found myself listening to it over and over in the car in Warwick Hospital car park the next day while waiting for him to come out of theatre. Later I'd turn to Brian Eno's The Shutov Assembly whenever I wanted some form of meditative state to wash over me, but for a long time it was U.F.Orb, and 'Blue Room' in particular, that usually did the trick.

Listening to it now, its forty-minute duration seems over far too quick and it remains absorbing enough across its length to never feel anything other than deeply engaging for the mind.