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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Best known as the prime originator of ambient house back in the early 90s, Alex Paterson has always managed to avoid stagnation. With Bicycles & Tricycles he extends his parameters even further. "From a Distance", featuring vocals from the Corporal and a sample of Grace Jones's "Slave to the Rhythm" pulses and stomps like an electro glitter band. The dark, dubby "Prime Evil", with its creepy laughter, dramatic climax and a portentous, Lovecraftian narration courtesy of Neville Jason, has an impressive Italian horror-movie feel, while "Kompania" has you thinking of Pink Floyd jamming with a crazed campanologist in deep space.
It's impressively ambitious stuff. But there's also plenty of humour, stretching from the CD case, through to "The Land of Green Ginger", with its clattering percussion and cheerful whistling, where Jason somehow keeps a straight face in recounting a potty tale of wizards and enchantments. This is the way throughout, with Paterson veering between playfulness and serious intent. In this he has much in common with the psychedelic revolutionaries of the mid-60s. --Dominic Wills
Review
Even the occasional record buyer will know that The Orb virtually invented the electronica sub-genre known as ambient house. Their resurrecting of the slower, more soulful rhythms provided the perfect soundtrack to the early days of rave culture and the bridge between '70s ambient pioneers Brian Eno and Tangerine Dream and those hallucinogenic muddy fields.
For Bicycles & Tricycles, their 21st Century return, the melodies and dub lines created by Orb protagonist, Alex Paterson, on previous recordings are still to be heard in abundance, as is the expertise of long-term collaborators Thomas Fehlmann, Simon Phillips, John Roome and Jimmy Cauty.
Similarly, as with previous recordings, their latest opus is an effective mix of sprawling environmental textures, clanging, gritty percussion and humorous samples. "The Land Of Green Ginger" brings with it mood inducing elements of downbeat, electro and even drum 'n' bass with soupy amalgams of treated electronica, shimmering rhythms and quirky vocals. While the warm synthesised tones on "Abstractions" provide a convincing bed for the midtempo house beats; "Tower Twenty Three" rocks to their better-known dub-influenced ambience of former glories.
Closet to the upbeat pop of "Perpetual Dawn" and the "Little Fluffy Clouds"-era comes in the form of the enveloping "Gee Strings" latching onto today's more club-friendly tempos. Whereas "Hell's Kitchen", a meaty soundclash of genres and cacophony of beats, is evenly matched by MC Soom-T lyrical rhymes on "Aftermath".
Bicycles & Tricycles perfectly demonstrates why The Orb are still masters of the beautifully chilled and deconstructed dub. Although not as raw and earthy as their early 'experimental' material, it is representative of where enthralling electronica currently resides. --Lewis Dene
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Orb's most prolific work to date,
By
This review is from: Bicycles & Tricycles (Audio CD)
After almost 15 years worth of albums to their names, Paterson et al have once again made an album to be proud of. Their lack of direction felt over their last couple of albums (and mix albums BadOrb.com and Auntie Aubrey’s Excursions) made me worried that The Orb saga was soon to be forgotten.This album is probably their most demanding work to date. Fusing elements as diverse as Hip Hop (Aftermath), Detroit Techno (Gee Strings), Dub (Tower Twenty Three) and Fennesz/Twine style Ambient Glitch (Compania and Dilmun), there is a great diversity between the album albeit with the usual Orb style playfulness and consistency found in the previous works. The only track that seems to fail to have any impact is ‘The Land of The Green Ginger’, a track that would not seem out of place 10 years ago. With rather tired arpeggiation and overuse of ‘silly’ narration, it seems more of a retrospective of their earlier ambient meanderings that the critics hated so much, rather than a song worthy to be upon this album. The production also seems to improved greatly over their earlier works with a far greater spectral range than that of say Orblivion and even Cydonia. It seems as if they were too aware of this evolution of sound through the ‘remix’ of their debut track ‘Huge ever growing pulsating brain that rules from the centre (of the ultraworld)’ in the track From A Distance which features Orbital style dark bass lines and layering of sound bringing their 1991 track up to date. The last two tracks also mark a completely new style for The Orb and one which I hope they continue developing in the future. Featuring the glitchy style ambience that is normally associated to Touch:To and Mego artists, they have constructed a dark ambience with incredibly rich tonal quality and a fantastic depth to the sound. Overall, this album is one which I am incredibly pleased to have purchased. This is something that will not only entertain long-term Orb fans like myself, but also as a debut to those willing to experience the more melodic side of ‘ambient-techno’ (a phrase particularly loved in the mid 90’s !). This album is considerably darker than previous releases and in turn added a lot more depth to their sound.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
return to orb,
By A Customer
This review is from: Bicycles & Tricycles (Audio CD)
a return to form on the new UK release of the album - a very different feast to the japanese version which came out last year... a little more knob tweeking has worked wonders... and a little extra bass in the mix too... its a grower....
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good album,
By A Customer
This review is from: Bicycles & Tricycles (Audio CD)
The Orb may not be as relevant to electronic music and music in general as they once were but BAT shows that they still know how to make a great album. More upbeat and diverse, this album isn't so much a single listening epic as their early stuff but just a collection of good Orb tracks, naturally filled with weird, trippy samples. The best tracks are Hell's Kitchen, The Land of Green Ginger, Gee Strings, LUCA and From a Distance all of which are classic Orb. Everything else is good but these tracks are the ones that make the album such a good listen. Worth buying but get their earlier releases to see them at their full potential.
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