Twin Bleeps

October 1992 - Select Magazine

Interview: Robert Howe

 

Rumblings about progressive house don't seem to bother the Hartnoll brothers, aka Orbital - probably because they've been progressive and house all along. "As far as I can gather, progressive house means Guerilla Records," says Paul as they relax in Phil's garden in Finsbury Park. "It's just a new name for genuine house," adds Phil. "Like, many of the people who were making house music originally are people who are doing that style of music now. But because there's nothing you can really describe as house now, suddenly it's called progressive house."

They obviously don't lose too much sleep over it, but then why should they? Orbital are now elder statesmen on the UK house scene, respected enough to get mix jobs for everyone from The Shamen to Meat Beat Manifesto, and smart enough to make 'Chime' a hit twice (Top 20 in 1990 and again this year on the remix EP 'Mutations'). Now the release of their next single launches a new label, Internal Records. They've christened the three-tracker the 'Radiccio' EP, apparently to illustrate how British people live like vegetables. Seriously.

'Halcyon' is the flipside of the hardcore attitude, a shimmering, dream-like embrace that repeats a backwards-looped sample of Opus IlI's 'It's A Fine Day' over eleven minutes of mantric Orbital house The accompanying 'The Naked And The Dead' performs a similar trick with Scott Walker's version of Jacques Brel 's 'Next'.

"It's nice to work with really good singers," says Phil. "I like aggressive music but you don't have to be aggressive yourself. I find a lot of raves very aggressive and very macho and I'm not into that attitude."

The new Internal label is designed as an escape route from brain-dead rave fodder, and the Hartnolls want to use it to further the cause of proper live techno.

"What we want to get into," says Phil eagerly, "is MlDI-ing up with everybody so you've got four electronic bands having one big jam. So instead of mixing records you play sequences and drum rhythms using impulsive improvisation."

Sounds very Star Wars.

"Ah, yeah! I remember this scene in Return of the Jedi," says Paul. "There's this weird Jim Henson elephant-type thing playing a strange circular keyboard and all this disco music's coming out. And I remember thinking, that's a real voice, a real guitar, a real drumkit- what's going on? He can't possibly do that!

"Then we did a gig and there we were making sounds exactly like that. And I sat there afterwards ans thought, Fuck, I am that elephant."