Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An unbelievably underrated stonker!, 24 Jun 2003
The harsh dressing-down this received from reviewers at the time was horribly undeserved. This is perhaps the greatest example of ambient dub in the world today.
This album is more consistent and memorable than Orbilivion, and carries more ballast than all of its predeccessors, yet it still remains too ice-cool to be commercial.
After lots of trouble, The Orb released this 2 years late, and hence failed to capitalise on the success of Orblivion.
However, aside this- they released "Once More" in 2001, with mechanical melodies and some really odd vocals. Fortunately the track is a real grower and is well worth relistening to, just to discover the intricate nature of its production. This is also the lead track on this album, wonferully titled "Cydonia".
It's follower, "Promis" is an utterly superb drum n'bass track, with lashings of the odd but effective sounds you come to know and love.
"Ghostdancing" is a slightly less effective track, which meanders rather than thrusts but is still a stock album track with nice moments.
Tracks like Egnable also highlights the consistent failure to take temselves seriously, and is a humorous romp with an excellent sample.
Album highlights among the many are "A Mile Long Lump Of Lard", which is a mutating industrial epic, the blissfully relaxed "Centuries", proving that vocals and a beat do not mean a lack of ambience, "Hamlet Of Kings", a classic orb ambient dub track, and the finale- "Terminus", which is quite honestly so fantastic it would fit on "The Orbs adventures beyond the ultraworld"
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This album continues to grow inside my brain, 26 Feb 2003
A year ago I was a strictly jazz and classics guy. When my wife started out on the clubbing scene and started bringing home this thumping techno music my immediate reaction was that it wasn't music at all. Nonetheless I could see how these very interesting sounds, in the hands of the right sensibilities could be used to make something entirely new, but where was it? I mentioned this to a friend and she said that she had once drifted off to sleep to this amazing band called the Orb. I duly picked up Cydonia, their latest release, from my local music shop. When I first put the disc on my first reaction was disappointment. Just more pop music I thought. That was 6 months ago. Since then, at various times each track has opened up, one by one, to become the new favourite, and now I realise that it is without doubt, one of my favourite albums of the last few years. I've played it dozens of times and I'm still finding whole new worlds being revealed in layer after dazzling layer. The intricacy of textures and depths of structure are for me entirely parallel with the best in classical music, and yet are entirely unrelated to it in method and compositional approach. I hear this as an exemplar of a whole new form of music that is an entire departure from the western musical tradition of the last few hundred years, and which seems to have matured somewhere in the nineties, amidst a lot of noise and craziness. The mission for me now is to find out who else is doing this stuff and to track it all down. As I think another reviewer has pointed out, the most extraordinary track of all, which passed me by pretty well for the first few dozen hearings, is the final track, Terminus, which in five minutes manages to express the depths of profundity, the heights of absurdity and everything between. Utterly splendiferous.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Incredible sounds and a great new direction, 19 Mar 2001
By A Customer
Having finally got hold of a copy of "Cydonia" from London (as it hasn't been released out here yet), my expectations were, naturally, riding high, to say the least. So it was with eager anticipation that I finally put it into my CD player, and as the first sounds hit my ears, I knew that all the fuss and bother had been well worth it. While it's true that The Orb have moved away from their previous sounds, that is nothing new for them, and I just loved this album. I really enjoyed "Centuries" and "Once More" - and happily settled down to listen to the other tracks that were reminicent of the Orb we all know and love. The addition of Aki Omori and Nina Walsh's voices, now in the forefront of the mix, gives The Orb a new angle and the chance to bring in new listeners, which, for any artist who has been going as long as Alex has, is a smart move. Knowing of Aki during her "Freaky Realistic" days (being a bit of a fan of her's too - and yes, I own the "Leonard Nimoy" single), and also knowing of the Bjork comparisons - if anything, Bjork sounds like her ... (as Aki was on the British music scene long before Bjork made her appearance) and its great to hear her back in action. To hear The Orb with Aki on the one album is just heaven - and I hope we get to hear more like it in the future!
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