Orbital: The Green Album (2LP, repress edition) [LONDON]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set is remastered and comes with printed inner sleeves, and it keeps "Macro Head," the track that has always been exclusive to the vinyl edition. The album includes live takes of "Chime," the 1989 single that reached No. 17 in the UK and launched the Hartnoll brothers.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Remastered
• Printed inner sleeves
• Pressed in the Czech Republic
• Lyrics included

About the album

Brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll made one of the founding albums of British techno mostly at home, which explains a lot about its warmth. Inspired by Kraftwerk and Cabaret Voltaire, they set out to make a proper album rather than a stack of club tracks, and FFRR, who had won a bidding war for their debut single, let them get on with it.

"Desert Storm" was recorded in a single day, 17 January 1991, and named for the operation that launched the same day. "Fahrenheit 303" takes its name from the Roland TB-303 bass synth bubbling all through it, "The Moebius" and "Speed Freak" hum with restless energy, and "Belfast," cut at Marcus Studios, is a slow, aching beauty that later turned up in the film Human Traffic. FFRR boss Pete Tong suggested adding the live "Chime" and "Midnight" to side four, and he was right.

The cover's heart-in-a-star diagram, with the format printed in a red circle, became an instant icon of the rave years. The duo named themselves after the M25, London's orbital motorway, and this record has had more people dancing than the M25 has ever had moving.

Also at Kops: more Orbital on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On London Records (cat# LMS1725227), a reissue of the 1991 album.