Orbital – Optical Delusion

Optical Delusion is the tenth studio album from the Hartnoll brothers and finds them as raw and iconoclastic as ever. This is a collaborative effort: only two out of the ten songs do not credit a guest artist.

Album opener Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song) features choral group The Mediaeval Baebes singing the Middle Age nursery rhyme Ring o’ Roses (“Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down”), a cheerily-tuned children’s reminder about the plague. It’s an eerie and insistent number.

Day One featuring Dina Ipavic and Are You Alive? featuring Penelope Isles sound like ethereal early 2000s house music. The former is especially charming. Things get wonkier on You Are the Frequency featuring The Little Pest with a mashed-up vocal and clanging, steampunk machine-like sonics.

Dirty Rat features the inimitable vocal stylings of Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods. For those not familiar with Sleaford Mods’ oeuvre, they create music that is the antithesis of what most people might recognise as music: it’s more performance art to a Casio keyboard beat (meant as a compliment). The look on the glowing faces of the young hippies encountering their live set at Glastonbury was something to behold. Jason Williamson is filled with the righteous anger of a thousand men and he’s not shy about declaring it, in his distinctive, abrupt Lincolnshire accent and incisive lyrics. In this track, he turns his attention to those who voted for the current government and are now surprised that Tories have Toried (ie dismantled public services and cued up chaos for the working person) “Shut up you don’t know what you’re on about/ You voted for ‘em, look at you… This is espionage and you’re the self-saboteur” he notes, not unreasonably to many people of the same political leanings. This is over a surly bass line and a dirty little nihilistic beat.

Requiem for the Pre-Apocalypse amps up to a drum and bass BPM, with melancholy drifts when the beat drops out. There is more angularity in the buzzsaw sound of What a Surprise, featuring a second appearance from The Little Pest. The album ends with Moon Princess featuring the vocals of the Godmother of Japanese electronica, Coppé, in a finale of building weirdness.

This is not an easy or comforting listen – it’s downright unsettling at times. There is little of the synapse-stroking Belfast here, it beats to anger up the blood. Orbital’s sound is as fresh as ever, but maybe as they are so seasoned, you might expect it just to be pushed that little bit more.

Jessica Wall
Image: Kenny McCracken

Optical Delusion is released on 17^th February 2023. For further information or to order the album visit Orbital’s website here.

Watch the video for the single Dirty Rat here: