Dr Alex Paterson’s waxwork stands dusty in the dance music hall of fame, neglected by janitors since the death of the rave dream in the mid-‘90s. The plaque once bearing the accolade of “Ambient House King” has been sprayed over with graffiti reading “boring hippie crap” and “noodly soundscape bollocks”.
Hopefully this new offering will brush away a few cobwebs from our tarnished collective memories, ‘Baghdad Batteries’ going to some lengths to remind us why we fell in love with The Orb in the first place. What we forget is that Paterson (joined here by minimal house titan in his own right, Thomas Fehlmann), though a keen purveyor of sedentary chill-out music, never sought to compose lullabies for slumbering ravers, preferring to entertain and uplift their addled minds with humorous samples, twisted melodic vamps and deep cerebral rhythms, all of which can be found here of course.
7/10
Words by Charlie Frame
