THE ORB ‘Bicycles & Tricycles’
July 13, 2004
Sanctuary Records

The Orb will release their album Bicycles & Tricycles on Sanctuary Records in July 2004. Long considered the originators of ambient house music and catalysts to the rise of electronic music in the charts, The Orb are now celebrated for a career of deftly free-spirited, good-humored musical creativity.

“I believe in 12 year cycles,” says The Orb’s main protagonist, Alex Paterson. “It’s a Chinese thing, like the months of the year, the beginning of a new chapter.” And so this is how the Orb have gone full cycle, from a burst onto the dance scene with their masterpiece single “Loving You/A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld”, (often credited as the first chill out club track) to today, with their new album Bicycles & Tricycles.

The Orb’s early releases on Big Life Records charted new territory in dance music in the UK and America. The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (1991), U.F. Orb (1992) and Live 93 (1993) mapped the band’s stratospheric creative development as legend grew around the intensity and brilliance of their live shows. From this era came the classic “Little Fluffy Clouds”, which has since become synonymous with the band and the era.

Once on Island Records, The Orb continued to expand creatively, with Pomme Fritz (The Orb’s Little Album) (1994) and commercially, with Orbus Terrarum (1995). Orblivion (1997) was their best-selling album to date, due in no small part to the radio success of the track “Toxygene”. They followed up with a ‘Best Of’, entitled U.F. Off (1998), and Cydonia (2001).

“My motivation comes from having the same desire I did when we first started,” explains Paterson. Bicycles & Tricycles is an entirely modern effort with a pulse on 21st century dance and leftfield music, and a return to the caliber of innovative recording that brought the band critical and commercial acclaim. It features Alex’s long-term collaborators Thomas Fehlmann, Simon Phillips, John Roome and Jimmy Cauty alongside UK MC’s The Corpral and Soom-T.

The free-spirited Bicycles & Tricycles is full of traditional ORB humor and darkness, love and loathing, intensity and simplicity, embracing all the elements and contradictions that make Orb albums unique. It allows for exploration into atmospherics and multilayered sounds to get lost in. "The Land Of Green Ginger" is classic Orb (with a guest appearance from the rooster of classic “Little Fluffy Clouds”) with quirky storytelling samples effectively transporting you to another land. MC Soom-T provides the lyrical rhyming on "Aftermath". “Prime Evil” layers sinister lyrics with twisted EFX and bleeps. Meanwhile, the upbeat "Gee Strings" brings pop tempos to life, while the dub-influenced downbeat of "Tower Twenty Three" slows things down. With their latest release, Bicycles & Tricycles, The Orb maintain the right alchemy and continue on their uncharted trajectory into the galaxy, opening up ears to a spectrum of undiscovered sounds. The album will be supported by a live tour of the UK in May, and accompanying DJ dates in the United States. Dr. Alex Paterson will be available for select interviews.

Tracklisting

Orb Is (Shopping Remix)
Aftermath (Featuring MC Soom T)
The Land Of Green Ginger
Hell's Kitchen
Gee Strings
Prime Evil
Abstractions (Trance Pennine Express)
From A Distance (Blast Master V The Corpral)
Tower Twenty Three (Spud V Kreature Mix)
Kompania (Grooved Ware Mix)
Dilmun

For further adventures and a comprehensive discography visit: www.theorb.com

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