Maybe no one will believe the Hartnoll brothers next time they say they’re going to split up again, having now played at least two “last ever” gigs. No matter. As electronic dance duo Orbital, Phil and Paul Hartnoll presided over the birth of British rave culture, and they’ve earned the right to as many victory laps as they like. Almost 33 years on from gamechanging debut single Chime, this three-hour celebration rifles through their 1990s catalogue, tweaking it to today’s dancefloors for their latest tour.
Much of it is pretty dispensable, with new songs Smiley and Acid Horse generic and lacklustre, offering little of the gift for transcendent melody twined around tough beats that made Orbital so iconic. Fortunately, the tour-ready updates of Chime, Impact (The Earth Is Burning) and Halcyon + On + On are much more engaging, and a trippy, strung-out Belfast rivals the original for quality. The remix discs advertise their decent taste in collaborators, with Logic1000, David Holmes and Brazilian techno powerhouse Anna delivering solid reworks. Shame, though, that there are five takes on Belfast, yet no room for new versions of the brothers’ stupefyingly pretty classics Lush 3 and Kinetic.
