Forget the Spice Girls, the most exciting reunion right now sees Dr Lx Paterson and Youth getting together as The Orb for the first time since U.F. Orb over 15 years ago. The Dream was created without pressure, echoing the exhilarating immediacy and evocative moods of Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld but still charting an on-the-button future-path and bonkers as ever. Along with studio mainstay Tim Bran, singers and players include System 7’s Steve Hillage, Battersea toaster The Corpral and vocalists Aki Omori and soulstress Juliet Roberts. The sprightly Vuja De will be first single, its warm chord cushions and Omori’s soaring vocals evoking that early 90s feel-good mood. Lx and Youth’s long-time dub obsession rises on the crashing Lost And Found while DDD reactivates their long-term fixation with 80s New York radio mastermixes unleashing horns and disco chants alongside Corpral’s toasting. The jawdropping home stretch presents instrumental explorations which can be likened to modern European classical or avant garde forms while nodding at spaghetti westerns, Martian goats in their y-fronts or even Hendrix over the bottomless Earth’s-core heartbeat funk. The Dream is a much-needed injection of aural frivolity and monster-groove whoopee in music’s too-safe posterior, once again going where few have dared go before.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: Kris Needs
