Orbital 2 (Brown Album)

Orbital's Brown Album makes techno carry grief without surrendering euphoria. 'Halcyon + On + On' is the obvious emotional center, but the long pieces around it keep resolving, returning and changing direction like movements rather than tools. Very little feels disposable. On a list full of albums built around two good tracks, that is the whole difference.

Two brothers from Sevenoaks with a sequencer and no interest in anyone's idea of what a dance record was for. Halcyon is the famous one and Lush 3 is the better one, and both work by taking eight minutes to say something a twelve-inch would have said in three.