The Orb – A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld

Classic....Back in the day 1990-1994 almost every festival had this track played at one point. I ORB on the top of most festival flyers & many clubs having chill out rooms just for ambient. The club scene was better back then; no V.I.P. bullshit & the DJ was hidden & not like a show. People would really get lost in the music. MDMA was becoming more available during this time & w/ over 8000 copies of this record pressed it's save to say many people melted their faces off to this one at some point. Just bought a (Mint) copy to replace my old one!

Ever wondered about the origins of that absurdly long title? Well, being devotees of the ever-useful BBC Sounds Effects series of LPs, they pinched it from the tracklisting on the album "Science Fiction Sound Effects No.26" (BBC REC 420, as if you're interested). It refers to a bit of F/X wizardry by Elizabeth Parker heard in the cult TV series "Blake's 7". The Orb may have made this particular title their own, but "Machine Monster With A Black Sense Of Humour (Who Chases Our Heroes Around, Winking)" remains up for grabs.

I must say that I was suprised to see that this record had a FIVE prior to my rating it. It's a classic to be sure, but it's not a FIVE in my mind. I have been collecting the Orb's music since 1991 when someone popped in a U.F.Orb cassette(!) on the way home from a rave. What disappoints me most about the Orb is that their popularity has been slowly dwindling for years, while they have continued to release music of a much higher quality than their ealier releases. It just makes no sense. So in my mind, the Orbs earlier releases must be looked at in the context of their entire catalogue, which is vast to say the least.

Having said all that, I am fully aware that this record usually has the term "classic" applied to it. If I look at it as being from 1990, I can see where it could be viewed as original and groundbreaking, I'm just not sure it's worthy of the "classic" moniker.

The Side A track was very innovative at the time of it's release. 20 minutes in length with long ages of "ambience" (i.e. - no beats). The ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne swirling keyboard riff that repeats at different tempos through out the track can be very calming or, very annoying, depending on your mood. The Minnie Ripperton "Loving You" sample that used to bring a little smile to my face now just makes me want to hear the Minnie Ripperton song. I do still quite enjoy the use of the helicopter like beat and the horse hooves as percussion.

The B-side mixes sound equally dated to me, but as with the A-side, they are still enjoyable in the context of early Orb and early ambient house music. I believe that these mixes are still exlusive to this 12" (could be wrong) which may be a good enough reason for collectors to hunt this down (but again, be careful as I am fairly certain it was released more than once with the same packaging). However, AHEPBTRFTCOTU has been released MANY times on CD. Most of the mixes don't get too far away from the original A-side included on this 12" release. So for casual listeners, hunting down a CD will be much easier and usaully (unless you get the CD5) allow you to listen to some other Orb songs as well.

I should add that I recall enjoying one of the B-side mixes much more that the other, but I cannot which one. Looking at the song titles is not helping so I will just say that one of the B-side mixes in considerably better than the other. It's very up and danceable.