A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Band That Rules From the Centre of the Ultraworld: The Orb at the Queen Elizabeth Hall

It wasn’t planned.  It came to me as I waited. I could kill off ambient house music. In some sort of sound terrorist intervention smash up the stage and call the whole thing off. I hadn’t planned any of it but reading Bill Drummond lately has made me question why I should be here in the first place. I mean doesn’t Ambient House really belong back in the late eighties/ early nineties? I’m sick of this ambient house with its nods and appropriation of ‘world music’ and its offers of meditation and enlightenment. I’m sick of its dreamy dirge like nothingness that just drifts through me and over me without demanding that I listen. I’m sick of Eno and his crew lauding it over us all with his nods to minimal space and open thinking and no drums. I’m sick of all the colours and symbolism associated with a genre that has risen up out of experimental music and become a byword for really being the sounds in-between things.

I want ambient house to die.

I had travelled down by train early to get to the Southbank – no real reason to leave earlier than usual. I hadn't anyone to meet. Concerts are normally solidarity affairs for me. Even though I’m bursting with trivia and facts and want to discuss possible setlists and always hope to meet the artist in some sort of acknowledgement that I care and they care too.

I used to do this when I wrote a fanzine – made the untouchable possible and talked to people. Now crippled by age and a lack of energy I simply imagine all the things that could happen.

And it happened at The Orb tonight at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Not interviews with artists nor hook ups just the simplicity of crowds letting go and finally feeling alive. It was clear that we weren’t out of it and certainly weren’t discussing what we were on. But there was a sense of abandon – well in the space between Row A and the stage. It all went off there.

But back to killing off ambient house – ambient music altogether. The KLF (that’s Bill Drummond and Jim Cauty) deleted their back catalogue at the end of their period of fame. They stopped. Literally pulled the plug and refused to make their sounds available. In essence they died. (Which is ironic considering they came back after 23 years as an undertakers) 

The Orb haven’t done this.

They have continued to evolve in modern times.

Releasing long player after long player. Which means they are creating something beyond the tags, the genre, the label they are often given.  They are creating sounds beyond the (little fluffy) clouds and at the edge of space. 

I will not call them an ambient house group.

A long time ago Jim Cauty was part of The Orb. In fact I watched Alex and Jim trying to create sounds with a DAT and decks in a corridor whilst Primal Scream played. Ketamine had zoned the whole place – no one could move  - there are flashes of them sat under a table and in all honesty at that point we could have called the whole thing off. There’s only so much extended reverb we can take – especially in that state. Ambience was a state of mind – not a soundtrack

But Alex carried on regardless. 

And I am glad that he has.

There’s a lot of Punk Rock in the good Doctor – in The Orb. I think they mean it maaaaan.

So my fantasies about killing ‘ambient house’ subsided over the course of the evening.  I entered the brutalist modernism of the Queen Elizabeth Hall (the building that boat tours on the Thames call a ‘carbuncle’ alongside the Royal Festival Hall and the National Theatre – mainly because they paraphrase would be King Charley – but also because they have no soul and don’t live in London) I was early and there was a fella done up in a ‘universe and planets print suit’ – I never spoke to him. But he was the real deal. He was Ambient in textiles.

And then The Orb tonight were a revelation.

Thomas Felhman wasn’t there as far as I could make out. This was just Dr LX and a young fella and a bassist. But that was actually enough. I’ve seen The Orb countless times and like The Rolling Stones (so I’m led to believe) they can be a hit or a miss – even with a ‘burger’ or two.  Which makes them unpredictable. Which is how it should be really – otherwise they might as well be a covers band. Which is odd because as I made my way home and ventured across the road in Blackheath there was a band playing in the Railway Tavern – they were playing Blur’s Song 2 – the singer was enunciating the Whoo Hoo – but as Whoo Yeah – it was flat as fuck. Perhaps I should turn my energy to killing that off? 

But I was happy though because what happened tonight was The Orb simply nailed it.

They made sounds that pulled at every element of being. Alex is simply the master of ceremonies. Curating (yes I said it) and dropping samples that lift people and places to higher states. Alex is able to conjure up an atmosphere with his wizardry at the decks – because that’s what it is. He plays samples – manipulates them and takes the crowd with him. He makes us follow in his dubbed out glory and uses machines to layer bliss amongst us all. And the audience weren’t tired all ravers who would be better off sitting down than moving a few limbs – the QEH crowd were a mixture of old and new – not so loved up as before but ready and willing to get on the orb bus that would carry them to orblivion. Obviously, I was part of the older set and as ‘Perpetual Dawn’ kicked in and we all gave way to getting down with it – it was heartening to see some people staying put – dodgy hips I presume. But they were smiling.

The Orb arrived with no fanfare. Following a spaced out, dubbed out and clubbed out set from who knows – it wasn’t clear – but it was enjoyable – The Orb arrived.  Suddenly they were on and making sounds and ‘No Sounds Were Out of Bounds’ this evening – yet vocals were. No guests  - no additions. Just Alex and that fella and a bassist when required (if that fella is Felhmann then he is the new Dorian Gray) The audience were sat – respectful and appreciative. To be fair I wasn’t out of my seat from the beginning. But LX was casting his magick he was casting a spell in reverb and dub that we could not resist. There were snatches of this and that. Early sounds mixed with the new. And then out of the ambience came Towers of Dub – this incredible powerful repetitive calling. Heavy bass and dogs barking – the ultimate in dance friendly sounds. Yet we stayed put – to be fair I had lost it at that moment – I may have even closed my eyes in the sway (hey hey hey) I hadn’t heard 'Towers of Dub' that powerful in years. It was incredible and you could feel the will of the audience. Waiting for the right time to get up and get down with it. 

The Orb journeyed further following 'Towers' with  'Star 6,7,8 and 9' I was well and truly enthralled. I had decided that killing ambient house would not be possible this evening. There was clearly a place for it – well a place for this – as I said I think The Orb are creating something fresh and different and I didn’t want to ruin the evening for everybody else. Besides the magick had worked – I was swaying – putting my arms in the air and generally getting wide-eyed loon like. It was a mild mannered rave up for the middle class masses all washed and suitably booted and home by half ten but within those hours we were enthralled by The Orb soundsystem. Tune after tune declared their sonic prominence at the top of the pile – crafting huge pulsating monsters from decks and FX. And the crowd got more heady and decided that dancing the evening away was required. From the 'Back Side of the Moon' Alex and Co. created a sonic mix of bleeps and yelps and dubbed out dissonance to rock the masses, with new new grooves from the latest long player mixed in with the perennial crowd pleasers. I thought it was going to go off when that Millie Ripperton refrain drifted from the speakers as Alex mixed and chopped 'A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Centre of the Ultraworld' to wild abandon. And then finally as the curfew reigned in and with twenty minutes before ‘game over’ Joni was asked what were the skies like when she was young.

And she told us.

The skies had little fluffy clouds in them and ran on forever.

You knew it was coming but a song that is over 30 years old was still presented in a new form. It still had an impact. The Orb had won. The Queen Elizabeth Hall was awash with grins and arms aloft – ok so we were older and weren’t going to last much longer than 10pm but it was joyous and fun. Fifteen minutes of fluffiness.  The Orb are an electronic group who offer up a sound that is both comforting and challenging. A sound that is relevant and nostalgic. It’s a sound that is thirty years in the making – The Orb make sounds were no sounds are out of bounds – they do not make ambient house.

They are music makers of the finest quality. Just don’t call it Ambient House.

 
The Orb Sounds can be found here:  https://www.theorb.com/

Here's the full rendition of Little Fluffy Clouds from QEH 30th March, 2019 - thanks to Willy Billiams for filming it. 

Music and myth: A night with Gruff

I saw Gruff Rhys the other week. I really should have written it up sooner – but it’s been fairly hectic and frantic and non stop stop stop recently. 

If  there’s one furry animal who keeps up the appearances then it’s Gruff – whilst the band remain in some limbo state of stasis – well their name anyway – as all the other members are busy doing this and that (more to come about later on) in a furry or not so furry vein.  Gruff seems to churn out Mercury nominated collaborative albums by the bucketload – and there seems to be no dip in quality whatever he turns his exquisite eye and hand to.

I had originally planned to go with a long time friend who’s recently set up shop in the southbank concrete jungle – all education plans and talk – but he couldn’t make it – he had however managed to get me the tickets though – that unexpected joy of being on a guest list made me feel twenty years old again. Except I’m 43 now – grey and much fatter – but with the easy grin of child when it’s all coming for free.

 Not that it would have made it any better.

You see Gruff is wonderful company in the intimacy of the Queen Elizabeth Hall.  All set up ready for a recital that looks part concert, part lesson what with the power point in tow (ok it wasn’t a power point – it was a slide show – all labelled and organised - but you get my drift).

There’s a wonderful laconic relaxed nature to Gruff – it comes from that assured knowledge that what he’s doing is genuine I think – this is not postmodern trickery of the masses – it is a wonderful piece of exploratory pop wedded to an ancient ‘man-made’ (possibly) myth of a Welsh tribe conquering the America Interior and the efforts of one man to find out the truth some way back in the 1800s. It’s the outward monologue of an offbeat mindset that is Gruff Rhys.

So our gig begins with a film. Beautiful shot in high contrast, all long pans and shaky cuts as a professor in safari wear gives us the background on the Welsh’s role in the making the land of the free. Narrated by Gwyn A. Williams the short film covers the origins of the notion that Welsh tribes first settled in North America in the 12th century. It propels you back to your own childhood of BBC documentaries and early morning Open Universities output. It is flawless in its attention to detail – long shots of a walking man on Welsh hills and American landscapes. It is also funny.

Gruff is that genial host – effortlessly cool and funny in equally measure – he’s performing in wolf headdress with cue cards – record player and acoustic guitar – he’s explaining the journey and creating our journey and what a journey it turns out to be. Songs interspaced with image and explanation of the horrors that John Evans or Jean Evans or even Don Juan Evans went through in his quest to find out where the Welsh went.  From the opening  C&W tinged Tiger’s Tale, that soon segues into the ensuing Year Of The Dog, the audience are held pretty much spellbound for the best part of two hours. It’s good company to be in.

Oh did I forget to say – Gruff recreated the voyage – with a puppet. A grey muppet of austere stature and utter melancholia – it’s black and white felt (as imagined by Pete Fowler) serving to reinforce the tragicomic elements of this ‘story’. Gruff brings him on to cheers from the sold out venue – like an even more surreal moment from The Muppets.  And then proceeds to show us where he’d been and which tube line he’d travelled on – via the wonder of technology and beautifully framed pictures beamed from his ipad to the vast screen on stage. It’s fair to say Gruff looks lonely out there – but it’s clear the audience are willing him on.

Gruff has this wonderful flick of his wrist – and images zoom in and break up in pixels and fuzz – or jump back as if alive – it brings the whole story to life. And once again it’s funny. Combined with sounds – such as when John Evans is arrested in Baltimore (“the home of crack cocaine and The Wire”) or is it St.Louis -  and it becomes something else – like a scene from a B film – all zooms and chops as sirens ring out and the intensity of the zoom whilst manic is timed for comic perfection. Gruff's deadpan delivery only adding to the inherent humor in the hall. 

At times I actually shake with laughter – at school I used to spend a lot of time laughing with the friend I’d eventually gone along with the gig with – a one Richard Chester – who’s about to release a wonderful set of tunes with another furyy – Bunf – but that’s for a later post – and this is not about The Pale Blue Dots – yet.  We used to cut pictures out of the paper and bring them in to make each other laugh at inopportune moments in PHSE or History – laughter in the corridors of comprehensives – it was a steel town we didn’t have much else – but our odd pictures of Dave Hill, or Ian Botham’s engagement, Les Dawson’s eye or James Brown’s orange leather jerkin would get us through the day (and night for that matter)

And there was a moment in Gruff’s procedings where he expertly linked the Acid Trip scene from Easy Rider to the same cemetery where John Evans had been buried. His choice of photograph and that causal throwaway comment just had me howling. The juxtaposition of Hopper and Fonda in that cemetery and our journey with John was comedy timing at is finest. Seriously he should have his own sit com – it was spectacle and stand up. Beautiful combined and timed.

But we nearly never got there – as apple’s ipad warnings ominously flashed up on screen – with Gruff at first unaware of the 10% remaining life of his ipad.  Thus we – the audience were not going to follow this tale the way it had been originally intended – indeed. “To add to the suspense [of the story], we don’t even know if we’ll make it to the end” Gruff tells us - it's a tense moment but we're here for the ride. With time definately not on his side - and an aborted attempt at charging that actually reduced the power - it was only the 'back up solutions' of an audience member that saved the images that are so intrinsic to this musical monologue.

In some ways the show falling apart only made it more special – more riveting – with the ipad dying in front of our eyes and calls for the technician to find the right charger – we didn’t know whether Gruff would have to fly solo even further – unaided – without photographic evidence. So the tale was told quickly and effectively – leaving time for the songs to be played in a batch – reflecting the photos we had briefly glimpsed. Saying that Gruff – told the story with the aid of a dubplate with beats – a 7 inch of slow jam – a beat (poet) explanation with added bass.

It would be good to have this narration with the album – but all you get are the songs. And what wonderful songs they are – conjuring up the west – the (lost) tribes he meets and the travels of our character, the last conquistador, in full technicolour. Gruff performs them simply here – guitar upturned in hand – and ipad applications double tracking voices – or replaying moments – it’s what we’ve come to expect from Gruff – multiple things happen at once – out of seeming chaos and random sounds -come tunes of utter wit and beauty. These are not Furry tunes done by one man – this is his art maaaaaaaaan. This is his thing.

And I guess when the narration takes a back seat and the set takes on a more usual format - the songs aren't in anyway diminished by the lack of explanation. Instead - Gruff simply sings and we clap.

Because that's the response you have. And he tells us to with his 'Applause' cue card.

But it's The Swamp that brings me to my knees - as we lay John Evans to rest - Gruff sweetly sings the line, 'I'm not scared of dying, I'm just scared of making you cry' - it's poignant but not mawkish - it's soul singing of the highest order. So two hours later we're still there - wanting another and another - and Gruff doesn't disappoint - with some nods and winks to his own back catalogue - not the Furries - just his own.  Candylion and Honey all over - end the show. 

As harmonies build and soar - Gruff runs from the stage - one final command card in his hand - we applaud.

And he thanks us.

For a brilliant and technically accurate review of the concert you should read this:

http://dotsanddashes.co.uk/live/review-gruff-rhys-queen-elizabeth-hall/

There's also an app and DVD and soundtrack and lots and lots of things - you can find a link to those via Gruff's site 

http://www.gruffrhys.com

And here's a wonderful song from Gruff