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Orbital Interview

Author: Phil Watkins
Friday, August 27, 2004
It's Monday night in Melbourne and I'm preparing to interview one half of probably the biggest electronic artists in the world to date, Paul Hartnoll of Orbital. With their final album "The Blue Album" coming out it seems this is it for Orbital, here's what he had to say:

15 years is a long time, how do you feel about where you are and where you have come from-

"Very happy actually, it's been a great 15 years, doing some nutty raves and all of it. There was a great uncertainty about where it was all going at the time, how it is was going to happen and that. The tangibility of what we were doing was exciting but I think now that may be disappearing.

Although it may be a snap shot of a longer story now, the London Acid house scene of the late eighties changed a lot of people's lives both at the time and indirectly as far as the span of dance music over the last fifteen years is concerned, do you feel that there is a part of that same emotion and dogma in your music to this day-

"I think it has changed a lot since then. Back in those days it rebellious and new, but now that things have come forward there has been somewhat of an establishment set up as we set out to do. I guess now being older and more mature, for use of a better phrase; we decided that it was time to split, as we weren't really into it. In the past it was young people speaking to young people and now Orbital have said all they wanted to say. I am moving into film scoring and concentrating more on the musicality which is more what I have learned over the fifteen years.

People in any type of creative art form, foremost in music push to express their own unique style something which Orbital have definitely been more successful at than a lot of artists. But it seems in our current climate there are only a few who can be consistent with this expression and allow it to evolve, it is obviously a lot more than having a gift for music, what do you think has been Orbital's secret-

"I think first of all it is important to do your own thing and not to worry about things going on outside of what you are doing, what is right for you is the most important!



Artists such as Aphex Twin have been pushing the boundaries of electronic music for awhile now in both style and production techniques does it excite you that Orbital has been part of this evolution in such a big way-

"Absolutely, when Chime came out and we were just starting up, we basically took our studio on stage with us and we did this for the our final live show. We don't use laptops and this has helped create a different sound. Doing a live show was great because you would pick your tracks and it through getting down to he simplicity of each one you realise what you are made of."

Music has obviously been a large part of your life but has there been or is there to come anything different outside of music that you wanted to or wish to pursue-

I've actually always wanted to be a novelist. I always liked writing stories at school and have been coming up with some plots. I want to do something on a similar line to Harry Potter stories, something which allows people to open their eyes to some different concepts, something for older teens to young adults."

Your contributions to the music industry are very diverse, with the soundtrack for Octane being an example; it is human nature to explore your creativity often to places that you didn't think it could go, now as an individual has this exploration now taken on a new and exciting light-

"Definitely, as I mentioned I am moving into movie scoring, I realised there are a lot of movies scores that could have been a lot better and I looking to explore this a lot further. When we finished our live gigs I went on holiday for a few weeks and now that I am back am pretty much looking for a job!"

The ending of an era between the brothers Hartnoll has been widely publicised already, culminating in the seventh and final album, "The Blue A
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