We get a lot of messages on myspace asking if the offical Orbital Myspace is associated with the official Orbital website? Well, we decided to get this cleared once and for all. I will let the picture answer the question (Thanks Paul)

Official Orbital Myspace Page

When Orbital first took the stage at Glastonbury-on July 25th 1994-they  arrived with a reputation as innovators of live electronic music and armed with a recently completed album no one outside of their studio had heard. By the time they had finished what has since been critically and generally acclaimed as one of the greatest live performances of all time (Q magazine voted it as one of the top 50 gigs of all time) it was clear that there was something going on between Orbital and Glastonbury that went beyond the realms of just being in the right place at the right time. “It was one of the all time great Glastonbury sets,” says festival organiser Emily Eavis, “it’s gone down in festival history as a really special moment. Over the years there have been a few sets which have somehow transcended the normal ‘band-audience’ relationship, and Orbital did exactly that.”

“In terms of playing live I think of Glastonbury as Orbital’s spiritual home, in the same way as a football team has its home ground,” says Paul Hartnoll. “When we started touring I assumed all festivals would be equally amazing, but they’re not. Nothing compares to it. They were absolutely the favourite gigs of my career.”

In ten years Orbital would return to Glastonbury five times, delivering stunning, euphoric performances that stretched the possibilities of what a ‘dance’ act was capable of bringing to the live arena-both visually and sonically- and providing the defining moment for several hundred thousand people’s midsummer weekends. In the same way as the great bands and festivals of the 60’s and 70’s combined to define their era, so Orbital’s shows at Glastonbury have come to represent that time in a way that only a very singular unison of artist and arena can. When they played there in 2004 for the last time The Guardian acknowledged them as “the best live act dance music has ever produced-this generation’s Kraftwerk.”

A decade earlier, reporting from the same field the NME recounted a meeting between two friends, one of whom had just seen Orbital, and one who hadn’t . “‘What did I miss?’ asked the one who'd seen Paul Weller on the main stage. ‘You missed- you missed- you missed the whole f**king vibe, man!’ replied his pal.” For those who missed it, and for those who were in the thick of it every time on the 11th of June, a collection of these performance is available for the first time on CD and DVD as ACP Recordings release ‘Orbital Live at Glastonbury 1994 – 2004’

CD1 / DVD

1. Walk Now (1994)
2. Are We Here? (1994)
3. Attached (1994)
4. Kein Trink Wasser (1995)
5. Impact (The Earth is Burning) (1995)
6. Remind (1995)
7. Halcyon (1999)
8. The Box (1999)

CD2 / DVD

1. Style / Bagpipe Stye (1995)
2. The Girl With The Sun In Her Head (2002)
3. Funny Break (Weekend Ravers) (2002)
4. Belfast (2002)
5. Frenetic (2002)
6. Satan (2004)
7. Dr Who? (2004)
8. Chime (2004)

Listen to tracks online at the Official Orbital Myspace page.

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Phil Hartnoll is working with another producer, Nick Smith. The collective project is called Long Range and musically will be chilled out home listening through to night time club tracks.

The new album "Madness and Me" was released on August 27th 2007. The follow up album is now under production...

Longrange have an official website which can be viewed by clicking on the following link : www.longrange.tv

The live shows for 2008 are now online. More may be added within time and further details on gigs will appear over the next month.


29th Feb 2008 - The Sage Center - Newcastle - England

7th March 2008 - The Fuzz Club - Athens - Greece

20th March 2008 - XFM Remix Allnighter SE1 Club - London - England

XFM Remix allnighter promises to be a night to remember. Long Range will take over one of the rooms so not only is the Long Range full live set but there will also be a 5 hour set from Phil! More information can be found at www.myspace.com/theremix

26th April 2008 - BANG FACE Weekender Pontins Camber Sands, UK

The Bang Face weekender @ Camber Sands should be a great weekend as Phil will be djing on the Saturday and then on the Sunday Long Range will play live. The lineup for this festival is astounding and one that I will be attending for sure. Others on the lineup include Model 500 - Juan Atkins who is joined by Mad Mike Banks for the 1st ever UK Live show, Squarepusher, Altern-8, Kid606, Richard Devine, Venetian Snares, Luke Vibert, µ-Ziq, Plaid, Cylob, Jackson and His Computer Band and Plaid. Full lineup and details can be found on the Bang Face weekender website.

Let me know if you are heading down!

Phil Hartnoll of Orbital fame frees from its straight jacket his Long Range debut album Madness and Me.  Three years in the making, Phil returns alongside Nick Smith for a project which features vocal talents including Australian folk singer Kelly Malone and the home-grown Senor Mick.

Madness & Me sits like a road trip album… not unlike a Massive Attack, Moby or a Fleetwood Mac, but has that feel of a total experience ebbing and flowing from the blissed out to the broken beat; like a hitch hiker you picked up a few miles out of Seville.

Long Range delivers big soundscapes, (check Just One More for starters), textured techno and even energised rock!  There’s experimentation through experience.  Many miles have been clocked with record boxes and equipment dragged to reach this point.  With Phil one half (with brother Paul) of one of the most influential and creative dance/electronica acts in the world, he’s always known how to transport the listener.  Alongside Nick this journey for the listener has been refined, or even redefined with the addition of a more acoustic, atmospheric and filmatic take on the songs.

Whilst Phil has headlined festivals and dance stages throughout the world Nick has executed music for numerous ad campaigns and even notched up film credits with legends such as Ridley Scott, as well as a recording career with Dragonfly and Atomic Records.

An album birthed in the back streets of Brighton it evokes some diverse emotions from the cinematic leanings of title track Madness & Me, and equally filmatic Which Way Now, through to the more synth Just One More.  The feel of the organic is never far away and with Your Face an element of defiance perhaps a nod to the rockers or appreciation of the guitar.

The bonus track is a collaboration remix with Loopz, taking his original track to another place and a good one at that.

Release date - August 27th 2007

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1. "Lie Down"
2. "Madness And Me"
3. "Which Way Now"
4. "Run With The Rain"
5. "Dispell The Clouds"
6. "Three"
7. "Your Face"
8. "Just One More"

9. Bonus Track : Long Range vs Loopz : "Punky"

Longrange are giving away a Free download of "ONE MORE TIME (EDIT)". To grab this mp3 please visit the following link.

LONG RANGE GO LIVE IN THE REAL AND VIRTUAL WORLD

Long Range played live a few times in 2006 and finished off the year in style performing on the throbbing PA at Cargo in London. Nick and Phil were joined on stage by a highly accomplished group of musicians, who consist of rising star Kelly Malone on vocals, Mick Mula on vocals, Jimi Mula on keyboards, Sarah Tunnel playing violin and the legendary Will White of Propellerheads fame taking on the drumming duties. In a continuation of the high live production values established by Orbital, the Long Range show features amazing visuals by the subversive www.c6.org and lighting and sound by members of the former Orbital crew.

The gig was due to be streamed in the Virtual world of Second Life but technical difficulties prevented this from taking place.

The virtual gig was re-arranged and Phil, Nick and co preformed via their studio on December 20th 2006. The location was a 16-acre island, designed especially for this unique online event. Music and video was streamed live and the feedback was very positive. We have a few pictures taken at the gig below. These taken by myself and James (thanks).

Sunday, May 7th 2006 saw the first live airing of Long Range material as part of an event entitled Sound in Motion. This was created for the Brighton Festival at the Corn Exchange.

The Visual, Sound & Spoken Word collabaration has received great reviews not only for its appropiate dark electronica tunes but also for the disturbing & gross antidotes read by Irvine Welsh(Trainspotting) & Chuck Palahniuk(Fight Club). The Lighting Design was by Jonny Gaskill who used to contribute Orbital's famous live shows with the stunning visuals created by C-6.

The highlight of the event was the final piece played by Long Range which featured Sarah Tunnel on violin and Kelly Malone on vocals.

Paul Hartnoll has started work on not 1, but 2 albums. The 1st is a solo album which is so far geared towards electronica but the 2nd album is being written alongside Lianne Hall who was the guest vocalist on his debut album, The Ideal Condition.

Late last year, Paul was asked to co-produce The Music's next album alongside legendary producer, Flood! "Strength by Numbers" will be out hopefully in late spring.

Continuing his love of score music, Paul has also composed some music for the episode "An Officer and a Lady" as part of the new Cutting Edge television series. He also completed some work for a film by Jes Benstock entitled "The Man with an Extended Mind". This can be viewed via the popular YouTube website. Links are shown below:-

The Man with the Extended Mind
Part 1/4, Part 2/4, Part 3/4, Part 4/4

July 31st and rehearsal's continue in a studio in London. Sunday August 5th was the first Paul Hartnoll gig at The Big Chill in Eastnor. There are a few photos shown below plus a special video of "Belfast". There are 2 special September gigs in Manchester and London, scroll down for special ticket offer...

Paul Hartnoll - Rehearsals - July 31st 2007

On May 28th ACP Recordings presents The Ideal Condition, the solo album from Paul Hartnoll - his first major release since he and his brother disbanded their group, Orbital, three years ago. From their early success with, ‘Chime’ in 1990, Orbital became one of the most acclaimed electronic artists of the next decade. They made seven albums, and their live shows-groundbreaking both in terms of performance and production-became a legendary fixture of the festival circuit around the world and particularly at Glastonbury, where they performed for the final time in 2004. Work on The Ideal Condition began that same summer. “I wanted to do something different from what I’d done before, that was the point of not doing Orbital,” says Paul, “It just took time to discover exactly what that was…”

What evolved, whilst recalling the cinematic sensibilities and crowd-shaking rhythms of Paul’s earlier work, is a collection of songs that takes those instincts and moves them into new and at times experimental terrain. “I started trying to piece it together like a novel, each song being a chapter and building it up in the same way a plot line might do. I can’t honestly say it has a narrative from beginning to end, although it does strangely feel like a concept album without a concept.” The most obvious conceptual shift is that the balance of this record is tipped in favour of acoustic (as opposed to electronic) sounds. As Paul explains, “I wrote the whole album and then realised there were aspects of this that weren’t gonna work unless it was done with real instruments.”

With arranger Chris Elliott, Paul set about reversing the usual process - whereby electronic music might mimic the sounds of traditional instruments - and presented his compositions to an orchestra. “It’s intimidating at first. You’re looking at 40 people-virtuoso string players and thinking, ‘I’m now going to ask you to play two notes for five minutes,’ and you think they’re going to turn round and say, ‘this is ridiculous!’ But they don’t. They’re all very discreet, they just get on with it.”

The fruits of this union-full orchestra, 32 piece choir and “the whole compliment of electronics” are heard to dramatic effect on the album’s opener, ‘Haven’t We Met Before,’ “the fullest track on the record in terms of the amount of people playing on it and number of different parts.” It’s a deliberately grand opening and one that contrasts with later songs like ‘Patchwork Guilt,’ “the only track on the album that’s entirely electronic and entirely played by me.”



Between these extremes The Ideal Condition takes a remarkable journey into the realms of the possible while also recalling the familiar aspects of Paul’s previous recordings. “This album’s got a lot of film influences on it,” says Paul, “all the old favourites the Michael Nymans, the John Barrys, Ennio Morricone, and you can hear a lot more of Danny Elfman on this one, I think. But it still finds its way back to the rhythm. I’m always trying to find a harmonic or melodic narrative-if you like going with the emotional side of it-and then as soon as that starts happening it’s like a gut instinct I can’t stop myself thundering in with the drumbeats. I almost do it for fun. Sometimes I manage not to, but I bet you on all the ones where I’ve managed not to I’ve tried it and it didn’t work!”

When “the emotional side” wins out the results, like the almost “synth-free” composition for strings ‘Dust Motes,’ are extraordinary. More remarkable still is that The Ideal Condition is an album where such songs sit comfortably with the punkish electronic squall of tracks like ‘Aggro.’

One attribute Paul carries over from his Orbital days is his nose for a great collaborator. Guests on the album include The Cure’s Robert Smith on the forthcoming single “Please.” “He’s got that whiney-bendy voice which was a lot like the lead lines I’d written for that song. I wanted someone who could do that naturally so I asked him, and he was up for it.” In addition to Metro Voices choir vocal contributions are also present from U.S singer songwriter Joseph Arthur (“Aggro”), Brighton’s Lianne Hall (“For Silence”) and South London’s Akayzia Parker (“Nothing Else Matters.”)

From what Paul calls the “Boadicea moment” of the album’s opener to the “steam driven synthesiser” of “Simple Sounds” via the old school electro of “Patchwork Guilt” and the neo-classical coda of “Dust Motes”, The Ideal Condition is a vivid testament to the scope and sensibility of one of modern music’s most innovative and resourceful minds.

Paul now has an official solo website which can be viewed at www.paulhartnoll.com

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7" Version (KIDS013)
Preorder from HERE
A. Please
B. Please44 (Culprit 1 Remix)

CD Version (KIDS013CD)
Preorder from HERE
1. Please
2. Old School Tie
3. Please (Statik remix)
4. Please (KGB remix)

12" Version (KIDS012RMX)
Preorder from HERE
A1. Please (Remember 1992?) (Paul Hartnoll Remix)
A2. Please (The Whip Remix)
B1: Please (Boss Boss Remix)
B2: Please (Delafonz Remix)

You can order the release from the Kids Records website or from various online stores listed below:-

Amazon

iTunes : Virgin : Napster : HMV
HMV.Com : Tesco : 7 Digital : Audio Jelly

PAUL HARTNOLL VS THE CRAVATS


The Cravats

Paul Hartnoll has collaborated with The Cravats on a track called "Seance".

Redditch Post-Punks Cravats provides vocal duties in a post-punk / post-rave crossover track. The link came through a mutual respect/admiration of each others previous work-and a connection with Crass Records.

The result is nothing less than a mighty Post-Punk/Rave sledgehammer of a cut that boasts a hook of mighty proportions. On this remix Paul gives the cut a prime Orbital’esque makeover that makes this a potential crossover dancefloor track of the year. Like a liaison between Joy Division and Jello Biafra at the rave this is the best meeting of minds since Leftfield and Lydon’s “Open Up”.

To hear a sampe of "Seance" then please click here.

The Cd will be released on January 29th 2007 via Caroline True Records and contains an edit, the original demo and Paul's Dance remix.

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