(Liquid Sound/Psy-Harmonics)

Return of ambient-house pioneers

The Orb, 2008 model, includes the Adventures In The Ultraworld/UFOrb-era duo of Alex Patterson and Youth, along with Dreadzone’s Tim Bran. New album The Dream bears many Orb hallmarks – eerie electronic soundscapes and grab-bags of spoken samples. Their glacial mood music credentials are lifted further by the regular presence on this record of ambient-prog guitar legend Steve Hillage (Gong, System 7). It also marks a lightier, airier Orb than the darker, more avant-garde direction Patterson took the music following UFOrb’s immense success. The lighter touch can be heard in the pop-soul vocals of Juliet Roberts on tunes like A Beautiful Day and The Truth Is… while toaster/singer The Corpral contributes, most notably on the cosmic dub of Mother Nature. And while the rest of the record doesn’t quite manage to top the amazing title track which opens the album (a building, dream-like epic of classic Orb proportions), tracks like Katskills succeed in reminding one who the real pioneers of blissed-out electronica are.

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MATT THROWER

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