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BICYCLES & TRICYCLES
(Sanctuary)
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Ten years after they invented ambient house, the Orb, at this point the baby of Dr. Alex Paterson, continue to make their own interplanetary waves. Bicycles & Tricycles — the seventh full-length the English band have released in the US — is suffused with the quaint hippie vibes Paterson has always favored. No, the Orb aren’t exactly on the cutting edge of so-called electronica (not that their music for post-club ravers ever had much of an edge to it). But if you live to be lolled by left-field vocal snippets, atmospheric textures, and rubbery beats, Bicycles & Tricycles should spin your wheels. The trance-inducing "From a Distance" samples everything from a cock’s crow to Grace Jones’s "Slave to the Rhythm" to what sounds suspiciously like the "ahhh" vocal refrain from 10cc’s "I’m Not in Love." Neville Jason lends an ominous narration to "Prime Evil"; "Tower 23" is a six-and-a-half-minute dub connoisseur’s delight. And "Kompania" is brain-fried Floydian psychedelia, as bleak and mysterious as the dark side of the moon.
