Orb: Live Recordings from Various Acid House Club Nights, Circa 1989
I was an avid Orb fan when I was way younger, but I kind of took my eye off the ball sometime in the early naughties and stopped paying as much attention. I have recently been rediscovering some of the material that I've missed over this more recent period. Some of their very recent output hasn't really got me going though TBH, except for COW / Chill Out World! (2016), which is fantastic ambient bliss. Records like Moonbuilding 2703 AD and their very latest release No Sounds Are Out Of Bounds are a bit too beat-driven for my Orb tastes. Don't get me wrong, I love BEATS, this is obvious if you look at what I post up here on Steemit, but for Orb stuff I much prefer it ambient and mostly beatless.
On sifting through the back catalogue I have just discovered Orbsessions Volume One, something that I had written off as throwaway outakes. I was wrong to do this. This compilation has some great little snippets of acid house history on it to say the least. Some of it is more recent out-takes from early-to-mid naughts recording sessions but the last half of the album contains some live recordings from some of the prominent acid house and balearic beat clubs from back in the day and that is essentially what this blog is all about.
These recording give you an idea of what was being played live in the chill out rooms at some of those acid house nights back in the late 80s, and that really makes me want to get my anorak on. We know what the Orb sounded like on CD from 1989/1990 but we don't really have much idea what they were up to live when they first started out, other than if you were actually there, and even then I'm sure many could not quite remember, considering all the drugs that were being taken.
Now, there is very little info out there on where exactly each recording came from so I'm taking an educated leap of faith here to some degree, but whatever.. On discogs there is a list of recording session names listed, hopefully they are in the right order and match the actual track-listing of the CD. If they aren't then this is a little muddled. Hopefully its correct though.