The Orb - Baghdad Batteries Orbsessions Vol iii

Vinyl version of the highly acclaimed Baghdad Batteries featuring a whole side of unreleased material. Baghdad Batteries is actually the third volume in Malicious Damage's ongoing Orbsessions series, but whereas the previous two were compiled from nuggets trawled from the vaults, these are new tracks recorded at Thomas' Berlin studio, which also provide the soundtrack for Austrian director Werner Boote's film Plastic Planet. It rather recalls when Pink Floyd did the music for a film called More in 1969, which appeared as an album in its own right to great success and is a brilliant move for The Orb.The opening Styrofoam Meltdown rains in with similar sense of extra-terrestrial shock and awe which would levitate the heart-strings when The Orb revved up their live shows with O.O.B.E. in the early 90s, a kind of heavenly carwash explosion of interstellar frequencies which here sees the inter-acting pulses joined by kick drum, even, at one point, invoking the ghost of Giorgio Moroder's I Feel Love. Chocolate Fingers starts as a beatless floater drenched in shimmering keys and shining melodic strands setting off an aural firework display, stun-quotient doubled when the chord changes kick in. The title track is gorgeously haunting as marimba tones melt over swirling effects before one of the highlights - the pastoral Raven's Reprise, a poignant tribute to the late Killing Joke bassist. This celestial electronic space symphony is followed by anotherŠ oh bollocks, they're all highlights! Dolly Unit is a dense, throbbing tech-flavoured pulser, sprayed with bluesy guitar peelings, giving way to an ancient rock steady beat before the muted house shuffle of Super Soakers. The beat carries on into Suburban Smog, deploying spaced tribal percussion and lush, organic ambience. Big Hammond chords highlight Orban Tumbleweed before the spoken interlude of Pebbles. Old mucker Max Loderbauer from Sun Electric came in on the breezy sax and bleep vamp of Woodlarking while the creaking resonance of OOPA takes the album out - actually a non-movie nugget first released on noted German electronic Skitkatapult last year [the initials stand for Out Of Place Artefact].There's a very special atmosphere to this album: two men bouncing  ideas and exploring in classic Orb style to make a classic Orb album, hitting the magic place Alex always strives for, but this time with a lustful vengeance tempered with new gentleness and a movie in their heads.

Stage A Styrofoam Meltdown 3:45 Chocolate Fingers 5:14 Baghdad Batteries 5:09 Raven's Reprise 4:13 Stage B Dolly Unit 5:02 Super Soakers 8:42 Orban Tumbleweed 3:33 Stage C Suburban Smog 6:52 Pebbles 1:08 Woodlarking 3:48 OOPA 6:12 Stage D Chucks Peaks 9:22 Dolly Unit Remix 8:48

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