Orbiting the Altogether

With the release of their sixth full-length LP, the brothers Hartnoll have solidified their status as Britain's most successful dance music export.

By Sean Flinn | November 5, 2001 Altogether now: Paul and Phil Hartnoll make no bones about their success. Buy Orbital's music Visit Orbital's Web site Despite its multi-national impact, electronic dance music has proffered only a few widely recognizable faces from out of the great bumping masses of DJs, producers and performers - and a pair of those faces belong to the brothers Hartnoll -- Paul and Phil. Actually, "faces" is probably a poor word choice there; with the exception of Moby and the model-gorgeous Sandra Collins, you could line up the world's top deck rockers in a police station, and even the hardest of hardcore ravers would have a tough time picking out the DJ that saved their life last night. The Hartnolls are really no exception -- but the name "Orbital" has just about become shorthand for a certain brand of British dance music. Of course, that's just about what the Hartnoll's had in mind when they appropriated the name from the London-encircling M25 highway, along whose paved expanses the first British massives took place. This was back in the heyday of acid house, the late '80s -- early '90s -- when raves first began moving out of the warehouses and into the countryside, their promotion supported by a burgeoning pirate radio network and their future always uncertain. The Hartnolls, weaned on second wave hardcore punk and tweaked-out electronic pop music, gently lobbed their first contributions to the scene (a pair of anonymously produced electro tracks) through Full Frequency range recordings (FFrr), the British dance label that they still call home. In late 1989, they dubbed themselves Orbital and released their first proper single, the now-classic "Chime," a home-recorded effort that sold out its initial -- and all subsequent -- pressings. In the twelve years since "Chime's" unveiling, the Hartnolls' career has yielded 5 chart-cracking albums, countless top 20 singles, several headlining slots at the Glastonbury Festival, a main stage appearance at Tribal Gathering and the headlining gig at Woodstock 2 -- making Paul and Phil, arguably, Britain's most successful dance music export. And they're still going strong. They released their sixth full-length album, The Altogether, in October, 2001, and have embarked on an extensive tour of the US and Europe (forging ahead with international travel despite an ongoing climate of trepidation in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington DC and the growing war in Afghanistan). Additionally, they've produced a full-length DVD to accompany the Altogether that features a full 5.1 digital surround sound audio mix of the album and several specially commissioned visual works set to the album's standout tracks. Choler caught up with one half of the dynamic duo - Phil Hartnoll -- via phone to England shortly before the release of The Altogether to chat about the new album, the impending tour, and the sort of music that keeps the Hartnolls in the air despite the persistent efforts of gravity and other forces to keep the whole world hugging the dirt. Sean Flinn: A lot of the media surrounding your new album, The Altogether, has been focused on its "lighthearted" and "playful" vibe, relative to your previous albums. What's your take on all of that? Have people got that right? Read Choler's review of Orbital's The Altogether. Phil Hartnoll: Yeah, I would say so. The only criteria we set out, really, was to try and do shorter tracks - to see if we could say what we wanted to say within about five minutes. But we said that for the last album [1999's The Middle of Nowhere] and it just didn't work. But this album, the first set of tracks ended up coming in at that time. The albums we've produced do sort of reflect the vibe that we're feeling at the time, and I would say that things were in quite a carefree sort of mood [for The Altogether's recording]. But I think, because of the shorter tracks, we stopped going into these longer pieces, which can end up having their moody bits and going up and down. So, as we did a couple of those, it did set up the vibe of the album. And I would agree that it is quite fun. It's not "deep," rather than it's "lighthearted." I think that, because of the nature of some of the tracks - you know, we ended up putting the cover version of the Dr. Who theme song that we do on there, and things like that - all those things contributed to it being that type of album. What motivated you guys to start doing shorter tracks? Just as a little exercise, really. We just said, "Oh God. This time, let's try and do something different." And it's not criteria that we would stick to if we found ourselves going down a path where we'd end up with a twenty-minute track or something like that -- or fifteen, or even ten. A track to us just has to feel right. But we ended up doing what we set out to do, and keeping them short. And how did you guys go about assembling the album? Where and when did this all begin? How far back do the sessions go? Cor, blimey. Yes, he actually said that. [Thinks hard for a few seconds before confessing the truth.] You've got me there. Let me think. I can't remember. It was probably about two year ago when we started it, and we spent a year making it. It's been a long time coming out really. And I know you guys did a DVD to be released in conjunction with the album. Did you guys conceive of doing that at the same time you started doing the album, or did that come later on? It came along sort of in between. I've always wanted to do a DVD, just because of the surround sound aspect of it. It was the audio, really, and the DVD format allows that. Nowadays, people are much more tuned into it - it's much more accessible than it ever was. Certainly it's becoming more of a video format, and the people selling the machines - since you can't record your favorite TV show on a DVD - they're really pushing the surround sound home theater vibe. Which is perfect for us, because we've always loved that; we've always been trying to get into surround sound. So it wasn't really at the beginning [of The Altogether's recording] when we decided to do it. It went along more with the idea that we wanted to try this, if we could. When we recorded it, we went into a studio that enabled us to do the surround sound mix, just in case our record company allowed us to do the DVD release. And when we brought down the managers and directors and all that to listen to it, they were blown away by it. So they said, "Oh yeah, OK, let's do it!" Then it escalated from there. I thought, "Oh God. I've got to come up with some visuals now." Which wasn't a problem - it was actually really, really good. It turned out about a thousand times better than I ever thought it would, because of the audio and because we've got a lot of directors that we know and visual people that really, really wanted to get involved with it. Also, on the visual side, you can be a lot more experimental with it, really. You can have many different angles, different cuts, you know. You can also put some dialogue in, and have audio on / audio off. It doesn't have to be MTV-friendly. So they just jumped at the chance. And because we were on quite a conservative budget for the video side of things, it worked out really well. | Next