Orbital takes live to another level

By Howard Ho
Daily Bruin Contributor

When one thinks of electronica artists, live performance is
usually not in the vocabulary of thought. After all, any computer
nerd can mix together a few drum beats and melodic lines without
worrying about dealing with an audience. Yet for the techno band
Orbital, live performance is an integral part of their music.

“What we’ve been doing is the live side of things,
being able to perform live in a loose and relaxed way,” said
Phil Hartnoll who, with his brother Paul, makes up the group
Orbital. “People didn’t think you’d be able to do
that with electronic music. There was a lot of ignorance around us
in the beginning about how the computers make the music and how
it’s so sterile, which is not true.”

Promoting their most recent release, “The
Altogether,” Orbital hopes to demonstrate the power of live
electronic music throughout their American tour ending at the
Hollywood Palladium on Oct. 25.

Though based in England, they never hesitate to tour in America,
doing it whenever they can.

“We love it there and really enjoy going over
there,” Hartnoll said. “I’ve learned a lot out of
the American audience in regards to performance, because the
American audience tends to … demand more hands-in-the-air
communication. They haven’t got a problem with it. Whereas
the English are a bit stiff upper lip and a bit embarrassed to let
themselves go.”

Much of Orbital’s music and electronic music in general
owes their inspirations to American musical styles, such as disco,
hip-hop and house.

The integration of styles continue to be the driving force of
electronic dance music, possibly the art music of the 21st
Century.

“As more people come along and get influenced, they
diversify and you end up going off into little branches, like
jungle and big beat. It’s more like a weeping willow where
the branches are reaching back down to the roots again,”
Hartnoll said.

Perhaps the most essential element of their musical roots is
live performance. In their studio, the Hartnolls convert each
individual track of music onto a midi computer sequence, whereby
they can manipulate them during a concert.

“We’ve got all the mixing elements that we’re
messing around with, various levels and tweaking and effects and
things like that,” Hartnoll said.

Like conventional bands, Orbital is able to improvise and come
up with new ideas. Rather than playing a solid product that gets
performed verbatim each night, their music is an organic
work-in-progress.

“We were playing a gig in Spain the other day. Paul, my
brother, made a mistake and brought in a drum rhythm from a
different track totally by accident but it sounded fantastic.
We’re keeping that in the set now. All that development
happens over the period of a tour, even in one night as well.
It’s not how you hear it on the record,” Hartnoll
said.

While the 11-year-old band has gained a following around the
world, Orbital still has yet to hit the mainstream the way Prodigy
did a few years ago. This is a condition, however, that the
Hartnolls accept and even enjoy.

“We’ve sustained this level of not being massives
like Prodigy was in America. If you go to those dizzying heights,
its hard to stay there. I think people tend to be a bit like
“˜that was then and this is now.’ Whereas we’re a
lynchpin at the bottom of it, just keeping the kettle burning.
We’ve been bubbling under all the time,” Hartnoll
said.

Credit for longevity must also go to Orbital’s music, that
expands listeners’ expectations of electronic dance music.
The culmination of their artistic expansion was 1996’s film
score “The Box,” a four-movement piece that demands a
higher attention span than for a typical five-minute ditty.

While validating primarily Orbital as a bonafide artistic force,
longer and more artistic pieces can also be seen as a product of
dialogue between Orbital and its audience.

“We get a lot of feedback off the audience and if
they’re enjoying a bit, we can sustain it for more bars, take
it away, and bring it back, you know, play around a lot,”
Hartnoll said. “We can make a song last a minute or an hour
if you want to be ridiculous about it. It’s a really good
freedom to respond and get a vibe going.”

But an Orbital concert is not just seeing two people push
buttons and turn knobs. The Hartnolls promise a light show and
video array to create the mood.

“We invest a lot into visual accompaniments, which
we’ve always done. We’ve got these wacky projection
screens that do twists and turns and all sorts of things. Lighting
is an extension of the music,” Hartnoll said.

The 30-something Hartnolls have seen much of their older
audience subside. Yet Orbital has little problem finding its new
audience among the youth.

“When we did the last tour with Crystal Method a couple of
years ago, there were 17-year-olds coming to the gigs. It’s
lovely to see that cross section of audience,” Hartnoll said.
“We’re still going strong. If I realized that people
weren’t enjoying what we’re doing, we wouldn’t
exist.”