Canonised within the realm of luscious pastures and Pyramid Stages that is Worthy Farm, the headlamps of Sevenoaks bros Phil and Paul Hartnoll (known to iTunes and Other Stage aficionados as Orbital) have lamentably never shone quite so bright outside of Somerset. However that gently disheartening and slightly dim reality may be about to be radically torched by the emergence of eighth studio LP Wonky, a record that witnesses the duo named after much-lambasted motorway the M23 accelerate toward an inordinately greater cultural relevance.
Wonky is – as now is and ought to be expected – a greasily slick and well-oiled conveyance: opener One Big Moment is fresher than pools of morning dew in the widest of eyes, its lifecycle concluded with a gloriously expansive blossoming of polychromatic plinks and variegated washes of affable sound. Quite appositely, it's the sort of welcoming euphoria that seeps in through your every pore that first time the temporary metropolis that is Glastonbury emerges over the crest of Pilton hill, the image striking your retina and splashing in undiluted rapture and vim. The dawning of the segueing Straight Sun however signals brothers Hartnoll getting down to a strand of business that's instantaneously more ominous than any Doctor Who episode past, present, or indeed future: it is futurism channeled through nostalgia; '80s analogs rebooted for 2k12; entrenched irrevocably in the 'now'. And aside from the odd pandering to contemporary custom (the clacking and warped Crystal Castles-y vocal samples of Distractions detour from Wonky's otherwise direct approach; the wobbly dubstep of Beezledub recalls Pendulum at their most abrasively diabolical; and the mechanical electropop mess of the Lady Leshurr-featuring title track makes Azealia Banks out to be some sibylline subdeity) – or perhaps because of it – Orbital's appeal may well go full circle to allure the unending legions of gurners and grinders emerging unremittingly from the neck, head, shoulders, knees, toes of every wood.
As with any Orbital recording, Wonky assumes the fluid dynamic of a soundtrack as Phil and Paul exhibit a great dexterity about their vast banks of hardware as they cast a brilliant spectrum of sound and with it contrasting emotion. Again, given the recent successes of the Kavinsky-hefty soundtrack to Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, the siblings have returned to the fray at as unerringly lethal a time as any and indeed previous single New France, bolstered by the inimitable futuro-banshee groans of Zola Jesus, could glide smoothly into said release. Jesus' intervention in turn could, realistically, slip quite seamlessly into Conatus tracklisting however her involvement additionally aids in extracting feeling from what is largely inanimate and emotionless apparatus. Thus as per, Orbital's greatest strength is in their unfailing ability to construct records of a perfectly cyclical nature whilst simultaneously conjuring something homely and ultimately organic out of the largely exclusively electronic and they conclude as they commenced with placid joys coming to a blissful head on closer Where Is It Going? From clunky Miami bass, to crescendoing synth chord progression, to blippy arpeggiation it explicates with a supreme succinctness quite how easily Orbital could compile a record in whichever vein they were wanting to intoxicate. As it fades away, in every respect the most logical reaction is to recommence and repeat.
