The Hartnoll Brothers

Popular music is full of siblings who have made music together, and a lot of them have had rather tempestuous relationships. The fightin' Gallaghers from Oasis spring to mind, as do the Davies brothers from The Kinks. And, going even further back, I believe the Everly Brothers didn't speak to each other for the odd decade or two.

An exception to this rule are Paul and Phil Hartnoll from the seminal electronic act, Orbital. Hmmm... Must have been all the E they took. It's hard to stay angry at someone when you're pilling your tits off.

Despite the lack of any high-profile familial bust-ups, it's a truism of life that all good things must come to an end. And so, after four memorable appearances at Glastonbury, seven great studio albums, and a stonkingly good valedictory tour in 2004, Orbital broke up. Along with the likes of Leftfield, Underworld and the Chemical Brothers, they will be remembered as one of the most vital and innovative electronic bands of the 90s.

(If you're unfamiliar with their work, check out these videos for a taster - The Box and Halcyon).

But what are the Hartnoll boys doing nowadays? This year has provided us with the answer, so it's time to don my metaphorical music reviewer's hat and give the following pair of CDs a listen:

Long Range - Madness and Me

I saw Phil Hartnoll's Long Range at The Big Chill back in summer 2006, so I was expecting a CD of their new material pretty soon afterwards. I didn't think I'd have to wait over a year anyway!
Not to worry - it's here now. And it's got all the ingredients for a great dance album. Filthy basslines? Check. Insistent beats? Check. Heart-fluttering melodies? Check. The title track is a particularly beautiful piece of music.

The only exception to this tale of excellence is the song 'Your Face', in which Long Range 'succeeds' in sounding like some godawful German heavy metal band from the 80s. I don't know what Phil was thinking of there, but the result is complete shit.

Nevermind, things get back on track with the excellent Just One More and it doesn't detract from what's a very promising debut from this band.

8 out of 10.

Paul Hartnoll - The Ideal Condition

Wow, this is an entirely different kettle of fish. It's been said that Paul wants to get into making soundtracks for movies, and it certainly sounds like it. Much of the material comes across like the soundtrack for a movie - a bloody good one.

A lot of The Ideal Condition couldn't be described as house music - or, indeed, dance music of any kind - so a lot of Orbital fans probably won't like it. But personally I love the airy, orchestral, almost pastoral sound of tracks like 'For Silence' and 'The Unsteady Waltz'.

There are still harder, clubbier tracks (and the poppier 'Please' featuring the distinctive vocals of The Cure's Robert Smith) but the overall feel is sweeping and grandiose. For example, 'Nothing Else Matters' is one of the most beautiful electronic tracks I've heard in ages, and the final track 'Dust Notes' reminds me of the sort of grand, overblown orchestral piece that wouldn't sound out of place on the Floyd's 'Atom Heart Mother'.

In other words, it's fookin' brilliant.

9 out of 10.

So there we have it. A narrow points victory to Paul.

The feeling back "in the day" was that Paul was probably the real brains behind Orbital. I think this was mainly due to the fact that Phil, during the live shows, used to cavort around and wave his arms around and generally look like he was having just as good a time as the audience - while Paul generally kept his head down and seemed to be doing most of the 'knob twiddling'.

Despite this public impression, I reckon these albums show that the talent in the Hartnoll family was shared around fairly evenly.

Trolling the Underground: New Order July 17, 1989

I've never been a fan of dance music, especially the hyper-electronic nightclub stuff. While I can go see a blues show and dance myself to exhaustion, or join in with the fish-out-of-water- frolics that characterize a Grateful Dead audience, I just can't seem to move to music that has no other purpose than to be moved to. Perhaps it's that stronger purpose that makes New Order one of only two (with Yaz) electronica bands that I appreciate, although I still can't dance to them.

New Order is one of those enigmatic bands that can have songs I love and songs I hate on the same disc. It was in 1983 when I first went away to college and started listening to what the city kids were listening to that I discovered a beautifully haunting synth tune called Your Silent Face. I later learned that this is the perfect song to listen to while driving on a city expressway, like the Kennedy in Chicago, in the middle of the night when no one else is around. The peaceful yet sad melody complements the highway tunnels with the evenly spaced lights on each side in a way I can't describe, but can remember vividly 20+ years later. There were several other songs on that same album, called Power, Corruption, and Lies, that I like a lot as well.

On the other hand, I absolutely hated, and still hate, Blue Monday and it's B-side, The Beach. I don't care that it's the biggest selling single of the 80s. Those two songs just had nothing to say.

So as I began my little obsession with live recordings it became one of my goals to find a good sounding recording, preferably a soundboard, that had Your Silent Face and my other favorite, Temptation (which has a simple but wicked guitar line). As a bonus, I hoped to find one that had those two but not the two I hate. That's not too much to ask, is it?

Of course it is. They played Blue Monday a lot. And it seemed that this band like several others, were haunted by the spectre of poor quality bootlegs. It took a long time to find a soundboard recording at all, and even those weren't sounding too good. I finally found one that sounds pretty good a couple months ago that has both songs. It also has Blue Monday, but I don't dwell on that.

This is one time I can't delve deeply into the history, because I don't know much of it. While I appreciate this music a lot, I never felt a personal connection to the band like I have with Pink Floyd, the Dead and others. I do know that they came from the ashes of a punk band called Joy Division (I refuse to use the commonly applied term "post-punk", because it just sounds farooking stupid) which dissolved when one member committed suicide. Their sound became a bit bouncier and less gloomy as they chose a new direction as a new band.

I can say that I was very surprised listening to it, as their sound is far more layered in the studio than it is live. In fact, I initially thought that the recording was faulty, that I was missing a synthesizer or five. It isn't though, they simply keep their concerts honest by not playing a lot of taped stuff in order to emulate their studio sound. I realized that when I heard Your Silent Face and heard everything I expected to (albeit with much weaker bass than I'd like to hear).

This was recorded At Pine Knob Music Theater near Detroit Mi. on July 17, 1989.

Here's Your Silent Face (It ends a few notes early due to bad tracking on the maker's part)

Here's Temptation.

Did you dance?

The music doesn't stop here. Come see my Trolling the Underground tribute to jazz legend Max Roach at Under the Bridge.