Electronic Sound May 2015 (Regular Edition) | Page 28

ALBUM REVIEWS

the moments where you catch yourself
holding your breath as the quietness
sucks the air out of the room, then a
switch flicks and the track explodes.
So in Hartnoll’s take on The Cure’s ‘A
Forest’, which features The Unthanks,
when they get to the line, “Suddenly I
stop…”, guess what? They stop, pause,
crikey. You can take the man off the
dancefloor...

8:58
8:58
ACP
If it looks like Orbital and sounds like
Orbital, is it actually Orbital?

The Cure crop up again later on, with
Robert Smith offering a second tilt at
‘Please’, a track that first appeared on
Hartnoll’s 2007 solo album, ‘The Ideal
Condition’. With the addition of Brighton
belle Lianne Hall, it’s a thumpingly
enjoyable romp. Other tracks, including
the title cut, ‘The Clock’, ‘Broken Up’
and ‘Nearly There’, the first two of
these featuring actor Cillian Murphy’s
monologue, are Orbital in all but name.
‘Nearly There’ is trademark stuff. There’s

a passage, about a minute in, that comes
on a bit Euro, like ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ meets
Yello, which only serves to remind us
why we love Orbital so much.
It’s the ghosts in the machine, the
cheeky references, the nods (a personal
favourite being the John Baker/‘John
Craven’s Newsround’ lift on 1999’s ‘Spare
Parts Express’), and there are a few here
that would have us asking loudly for fish
if we were seals. The OMD ‘Telegraph’isms in ‘The Past Now’, in particular.
When the Hartnoll brothers stood side
by side, headlights flickering, something
special happened. That trick, whatever
twisted wizard shizz was at work, rarely
let you down. So if it’s just one of them,
does the magic diminish? Nope, but it is
a different kind of magic.
NEIL MASON

It strikes me that making music isn’t so
much a choice as a pre-shaped blueprint
that’s as unique as your handwriting. If
you didn’t know that 8:58 was Orbital’s
Paul Hartnoll, one listen and you’ll be in
little doubt.
Paul Hartnoll has often talked about
techno’s hidden pagan undertow and
recently he’s been using the word
“witchy” a lot. Unchecked by his brother
Phil, it seems 8:58 is an esoteric version
of the Orbital master plan.
The twist is a raft of guest vocalists. As a
result, the record feels much more earthy
than anything Orbital ever produced.
Lisa Knapp’s contribution to the haunting
‘The Past Now’, Ed Harcourt’s bellowingly
good turn on ‘Villain’, and newcomer
Fable (an Electronic Sound tip for 2015)
on ‘Cemetery’ do take a little adjusting
to, but Hartnoll skillfully handles
proceedings, ramping things up until the
tracks teeter on the brink of bursting
before, well, bursting.
At times, it’s more about the silence
than the sound. Those little pauses,

Pic: Steve Double