On Orbital the duo aimed to make more atmospheric music than the dance raves of their first album. They used more complex rhythms and denser arrangements on the appropriately named pieces entitled "Lush" but still proving themselves capable of making quality pop music on "Halcyon + On + On", with vocals from Kirsty Hawkshaw of Opus III. The album begins with "Time Becomes", which uses the same speech sample by the actor Michael Dorn in which opened their first album. The piece uses phasing, a technique popularized by Steve Reich, in which two identical samples are repeated at slightly different speeds. The brothers enjoy aural puns, and the use of the sample from Star Trek: The Next Generation was meant to play with listeners by making them believe for a few seconds that they had bought a mispressing. The muffled intro on "Planet of the Shapes" has the intentional addition of record static and crackles, followed by the sound of a needle skipping grooves then scratching across the record, also meant to trick fans who bought the vinyl edition, by making them think their copy was less than perfect. The second song on the album, "Planet of the Shapes", contains a sample from the movie Withnail & I. "Impact" also samples a line from "a French film dubbed into English" with a "conspiracy, alien plot" that the band no longer remembers the name of. Meat Beat Manifesto were an influence on the album, after Orbital toured with the group in the United States ahead of recording it. The breakbeat on "Impact" was provided by Jack Dangers and "Remind" is an instrumental re-recording of Orbital's "Mind the Bend the Mind" remix of "Mindstream" by Meat Beat Manifesto, which removed all elements of "Mindstream" from the piece. The remix and final work was inspired by the Fabio Paras remix of React 2 Rhythm's I Know You Like It. "Walk Now..." samples the sound of a Sydney zebra crossing alert and a didgeridoo, which were both recorded after a trip to Australia to perform at an illegal rave named Welcome 92.
Critical reception
The album received widespread acclaim. In the UK, NME praised the record, saying, "The techno album is a doughty brute to master. Only a few have managed it successfully but Phil and Paul Hartnoll have done it twice... The expression 'intelligent ambience' is bandied around to describe spacey dance music with undue regularity, but Untitled actually satisfies the description. Scientific and terrific." Q also recognised that the duo had made a second successful album, saying, "Like their first album, Orbital's current effort is a finely balanced combination of muso trickery and astute dance tracks... Again, like the latter, it benefits from repeated listening." Melody Maker claimed that "This new album puts them firmly back in the firmament". In a reference to the most talked about band at the time of the album's release, Suede and their sexually ambiguous frontman Brett Anderson, and including a pun on "Anarchy in the U.K.", the debut single by the Sex Pistols, the review concluded, "As warm as plasma and as eerie as ectoplasm, Orbital's body-music is the true sound of Androgyny-in-the-UK." Vox observed that "this collection sees Paul and Phil Hartnoll drifting still further into the heart of the machine, touching upon the sometimes fragile soul of Techno", before declaring that "Orbital are still leading the field".
Accolades
This album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die alongside their 1994 LP 'Snivilisation'. It was also included in Q magazine's "90 Best albums of the 1990s". In 1996, Mixmag ranked the album at number 9 in its list of the "50 Best Dance Albums of All Time". In 1999, Ned Raggett ranked the album at number 21 on his list of "The Top 136 or So Albums of the Nineties".
Track listing
"Time Becomes" – 1:43
"Planet of the Shapes" – 9:36
"Lush 3-1" – 5:39
"Lush 3-2" – 4:40
"Impact " – 10:27
"Remind" – 7:57
"Walk Now..." – 6:48
"Monday" – 7:05
"Halcyon + On + On" – 9:28
"Input Out" – 2:11
All track names except 1 and 10, as well as the contents of the parentheses of track 5, are stylized in all capital letters. On cassette, "Planet of the Shapes" was re-titled "Planet of the Tapes" and placed as the first song on side 2, before "Walk Now..." in the track listing; the track is identical.
Use in other media
"Halcyon + On + On" and parts of "Lush 3-2" were used in the 1995 Mortal Kombat film soundtrack.
