{"id":15170,"date":"2018-09-14T05:30:54","date_gmt":"2018-09-14T09:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15170"},"modified":"2018-09-05T08:21:08","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T12:21:08","slug":"album-review-the-orb-no-sounds-are-out-of-bounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/14\/album-review-the-orb-no-sounds-are-out-of-bounds\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Orb &#8212; No Sounds Are Out of Bounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-15160\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/the_orb_nsaoob.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"349\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/the_orb_nsaoob.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/the_orb_nsaoob-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/the_orb_nsaoob-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Whether it was an association they originally wished for or not, the Orb were pegged early on as a sort of modern-day answer to Pink Floyd. Though the project (Alex Paterson and collaborators) has always been about more than ambient, dance-oriented space music \u2014 hey, they\u2019ve worked extensively with reggae icon Lee\u201d Scratch\u201d Perry \u2014 there are some sonic similarities between the Orb and the premier space-rock band. The hypnotic, pulsing vibe of the Orb\u2019s music takes the Floyd aesthetic and applies it to a dance-oriented context. And the Orb went so far as to collaborate with David Gilmour on 2010\u2019s <i>Metallic Spheres<\/i>; the result doesn\u2019t quite have the rocky hooks of Pink Floyd\u2019s best work, but it\u2019s a worthwhile sort-of-mashup project, one that isn\u2019t miles away form Pink Floyd\u2019s belated farewell, <i>The Endless River<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>If one digs the found-sound m\u00e9langes, the throbbing bass lines and the alternately glacial and kinetic textures of the Orb\u2019s catalog, the duo\u2019s latest, <i>No Sounds Are Out of Bounds<\/i> will be a welcome if slightly familiar addition to the catalog. Some north African and reggae vibes find their way into the mix, and old-school samples (possibly a vintage Optigan, I\u2019m thinking) give the middle eastern flavor to the proceedings. Imagine the early Porcupine Tree \/ Steven Wilson project <i>Voyage 34<\/i>, set against a Moroccan landscape. It\u2019s that kind of an album.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWofbane\u201d comes curiously close to pop, with stronger melodic content than is customarily the Orb\u2019s wont. The political nature of its vocal parts provides a strange, jarring (but not unwelcome) sort of cognitive dissonance.<\/p>\n<p>The most space-rock\/ambient outing is the closer (on the vinyl version, at least), the fifteen-plus minute \u201cSoul Planet.\u201d The track moves through minimalist passages, sultry dance-floor rave movements, and deeply textured soundscapes that (if one is so inclined) will leave the listener on the edge of his or her comfy chair; there\u2019s a palpable sense of something&#8217;s-coming, whether it ultimately shows up is wholly beside the point. As is so often the case with engaging experiences, it\u2019s the journey not the destination.<\/p>\n<p>A modern psychedelic chillwave aesthetic is at work here; though dance beats show up here and there, often as not <i>No Sounds Are Out of Bounds<\/i> is more a listening record than one designed for dancing. Kindred spirit Jah Wobble helps out on a few tracks. A lavish 2LP vinyl version features colored vinyl and dazzling yet subtle cover art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whether it was an association they originally wished for or not, the Orb were pegged early on as a sort of modern-day answer to Pink Floyd. Though the project (Alex [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,26,49,65,73],"tags":[2174],"class_list":["post-15170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ambient","category-electronica","category-new-release","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-the-orb","cat-5-id","cat-26-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15178,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15170\/revisions\/15178"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}