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"I SAW The Orb 20 years ago and I'd forgotten how good they were" said one audience member at the long-running electronic group's latest Brighton gig.
The comment was apt, as the first half of Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann's set consisted of material released over two decades ago; 1991's The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld was played in full.
Paterson - who founded The Orb in 1988 - is known for his heavy use of samples and he mixed and matched sounds from a variety of genres.
Arriving early in the set, the duo's most well-known song Little Fluffy Clouds utilised spoken word snippets in the process of getting the crowd moving.
It would be missing the point to identify certain songs within The Orb's expansive sound, though. Paterson has said he set out to make his most ambient record yet with latest album COW/Chill Out, World! and this point was reiterated here. The immersive longform soundscapes of COW gave way to four-on-the-floor bangers, and vice versa.
The Orb may have formed in a golden era for British psychedelic electronic music - The Chemical Brothers, Orbital and The Chemical Brothers all started around the same time - but this gig was evidence of their distinctive appeal.
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