ORBITAL will play Live at the Big Top, Limerick Milk Market on Thursday March 16. BROTHERS Phil and Paul Hartnoll grew a huge following in the 1990’s for their innovative use of samples and live instrumentation and would go on to become giants of electronic music. Their debut single Chime redefined what dance music could do on record and in a live setting. Orbital’s music with its intricate, layered soundscapes, blew audiences away at Glastonbury Music Festival in 1994 and blazed a trail for future electronic acts to bring dance music to rock festival stages.
Watching Orbital playing live is a visceral experience and where Paul says the duo want to experiment.
“We see every live show as an opportunity to push ourselves and take our music to new places. Playing live is like being on a rollercoaster – it’s a massive thrill, but there’s always that sense of danger.”
Their tenth album Optical Delusion was released in February.
Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and beguiling images from recent times, when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnoll brothers watched on TV as kids finally came true.
The new album is the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for Orbital, who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House. The Orbital thirtieth-anniversary package 30 Something – featured reinterpretations of “Chime”, “Satan”, “Belfast” and more by fans ranging from Jon Hopkins to ANNA to David Holmes, plus studio versions of Orbital live favourites – reintroducing Paul and Phil Hartnoll to a worldwide fanbase.
Orbital playing in the intimate setting of the Milk Market is a big coup for Seoda Shows and Dolans, www.dolans.ie for the last few remaining tickets.
