A Year of Blind Spots: The Brown Album

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

The Brown Album

Orbital

1993

What 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die has to say about The Brown Album by Orbital:

Orbital sprang to life in 1989, when acid house and rave dominated music and culture in the UK. Comprising brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll, Orbital set out to soundtrack the rave scene. While their 1991 untitled debut was very much a techno record, Orbital II [The Brown Album¹] showed real progression both musically and creatively.

The Brown Album starts with a looped sample from Star Trek, and even has a fake hiss of worn vinyl, added by the Hartnoll brothers as a joke. Based on a long, repetitive, but always diverting samples and loops, the album is a constant flow of energy and pure dance frenzy. Sandwiched between two short samplings of artificial speech, the eight tracks build into a coherent unit, and yet remain individually distinct. The slow build-up of "Lush 3-1" is the perfect preparation for follow-up "Lush 3-2" (featuring Kirsty Hawkshaw), which, after five minutes of pure greatness, glides into "Impact," the longest track and still a live favorite. Just before the end of the record, the Hartnolls reach another height with the sublime beauty of "Halcyon + On + On," which features Kirsty Hawkshaw's vocal talents alongside a sample of Opus 3's cover of "It's a Fine Day."

Phil and Paul Hartnoll went on to captivate techno and rave audiences with their perfectly choreographed live performances around the globe (their twilight gigs at Glastonbury in 1994 and 1995 are hailed as classics). "Lush 3-1" and "Lush 3-2" are remembered fondly today as anthems for the rave movement—and, indeed, for the whole British electronic dance scene.

What Joe has to say about The Brown Album by Orbital:

If you go back and read some of my old blog posts about music (don't do it), then you'll see that probably the biggest flip-flop I've ever pulled, in terms of broad opinions, is the switch regarding repetition. When something is repeated over and over, I once upon a time believed it to be boring, possibly using the repetition as proof of its creative bankruptcy. Now, I hear repetition, and I believe (or at the very least want to believe) that is it art.

I had a graduate class in the spring of 2023 in which one small group presented on the idea of repetition in therapy. I forget the exact scenario, but it was something along the lines of exploring the idea that if you said something to a client over and over for a full minute, then they were not only more prone to believe what you're saying, but also that the repetition itself had a calming effect. The question I asked of the small group (which elicited laughs, I guess because people assumed I was joking) was what would happen if you stretched the repetition out. Would it still work if you repeated something for, say, an hour? PoYB contributor Galia looked at me across the desks and said that that definitely sounds like something I would try, but she said that not realizing that I had already tried it, when I said the phrase "Bailiff Ron" over and over for 22 minutes straight the previous summer.

The Brown Album, by Orbital, a band I had certainly never heard of before 1001 Albums recommended it, is an hour of repetitive techno. I don't know if I liked it, but I found that it had a therapeutic effect on me all the same. How many new ideas are there throughout this hour of music? Probably as many as there are songs (so: ten). But those ideas are hammered into our souls through constant repetition. I can say truthfully that there were moments of enlightenment with this album throughout the last week or two. I can also say truthfully that I wish some of the musical motifs had made more of an impact on me on an individual basis, instead of in repetition only.

Because if you break it down, the techno bullshit becomes just as meaningful as Stephen Tobolowsky off-handedly yelling a fictional character's name and occupation, ya know? It's only through repetition that we give it meaning, but that's by our design, not the artists, which again lessens the impact here. It's not my type of music so maybe I'm just not prone to tight and basic techno music like this, and need some sort of creative framework like "repetition" to survive it. I suppose others more inclined to like techno might find more joy in the cogs and wheels. That's just how it goes.

I found a website recently that gives you a daily random recommendation from the 1001 Albums book. The site also features a comment section for each album where people can share their thoughts after listening. The comments for this album were not kind. But to me, that feels like swinging too far in the other direction. It's not worthless just because you're not into techno. There's more to it if you zoom out a little. Try to think of it like a tool that you need to complete a project. Techno is the nails, but nails are useless without a hammer. Repetition is the hammer. Bang the nails over and over. Feel the rhythm. Appreciate the patience required to hit so many nails. Witness the home when it is built, and marvel at the fact that a hammer did this.

¹ There is no official name for this album. The book calls it Orbital II. I'm calling it The Brown Album in honor of The Pink Album, which I stubbornly called Sunny Day Real Estate a few weeks ago.