Sometimes it takes a change of scenery to really unlock potential.
In the case of brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll, a short journey had more profound implications than might have seemed believable at the time.
By 1992, as they’d gone from the edge of a DIY rave scene similar in nature to punk (low cost of entry, indie label distributed, off the industry’s radar) to outstripping that phase’s commercial and cultural boundaries and then heading off into “What next?” territory.
Unexpectedly hitting Top of The Pops with the bubbling morse code techno of Chime, the duo’s first album had then been recorded in the same home studio, the family then located in Sevenoaks, a quiet spoke on London’s commuter wheel.
For its follow-up – much to the chagrin of Paul – they relocated to a pre-gentrified Shoreditch, a then sketchy part of the capital, but the ultimate effect on both of them was catalytic.
If what had become known simply as the Green Album was, they said, “A mix of everything you’ve ever done”, its successor, made in collaboration with former Shamen engineer Mickey Mann, had an entirely new backstory.
Suddenly, as well as the external stimulus provided by touring, Orbital were routinely clubbing and drawn into the mesh of the free party scene.
With perspectives altered courtesy of spending time in haunts like Megadog, they were ready to make something for the, “Oddballs and weirdos”, they newly recognised were very much their clan.
Unofficially christened the ‘Brown Album’ (a clue that this was before the time of search engine ubiquity), its scope was grand, almost symphonic, but also unpolished.
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