Track Listing

1. Way Out
2. Spare Parts Express
3. Know Where To Run
4. I Don't Know You People
5. Otono
6. Nothing Left
7. Nothing Left (2)
8. Style

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #92445 in Music
• Released on: 1999-04-05

Amazon.co.uk Review
Having outgrown the happy house of the green and brown albums and exploited narrative far too complex for ambient techno, the Hartnoll brothers--Phil and Paul really do find themselves in some Eastern adventure in The Middle of Nowhere. Thus they prove again that they are the most reliable innovators in danceable electronic composition. The inchoate political rage of 1994's "Snivilisation" is here, but it has found purely instrumental claws that are unafraid to dig for new melodies. "Know Where to Run" gathers itself from some beastly buzzing weather to become a dance-floor creature lurching through the village at night like some urban nightmare and "I Don't Know You People" turns the dance floor into an escapist fantasyland once more with its grousing refrain, "nothing changes--goddamn you!" The highly evolved vocal softness of "Autumn" and the weirdly Tangerine Dream-gone-hip-hop "Style" keep a trip-hop story line seamlessly borne out on jungle and electro beats. Nowhere comprises a portrait of boom-boom techno that carjacks beats once lost in space to whole new worlds where breakthrough songwriting is an aesthetic ideal. The UK act who forced the sales charts fully into the postrock 90s is now realising the participatory promise of rock & roll liberation in the dance clubs, where music lives now. --Dean Kuipers

CD Description
THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE is an instant electro classic, courtesy of Orbital's Paul and Phil Hartnoll. This is techno for the armchair and the out-there raver, music that combines thesublime vocals of Alison Goldfrapp with thumping breakbeatsand old-school techno bleeps and keyboard sounds. Ever since the success of "Chime" in 1990, Orbital have remained the undisputed kings of "intelligent dance" and, five albums later, MIDDLE OF NOWHERE proves that they haven't lost their touch.
The album retains the repetitiveness inherent to much dance music, but around this Orbital deftly weave strong melodic lines that constantly develop and evolve, thus givingeven the album's longest tracks a sense of shape and structure. MIDDLE OF NOWHERE also has a great sense of unity--the expansive "Way Out", featuring glorious vocal and trumpet solos, rolls seamlessly into the bleepy-bloopy sounds of "Spare Parts Express". "Know Where to Run" and "I Don't Know You People" are darker, more harshly techno-driven tracks, although the latter is also Orbital's first to feature live drumsand guitars. Whether or not you are an electro-connoisseur,MIDDLE OF NOWHERE is accessible and endlessly enjoyable.

Customer Reviews

Orbital on top form
1999's "The Middle Of Nowhere" in many ways encapsulated everything that Orbital were about up until then. While 2002's "The Altogether" and, to a lesser extent, "The Blue Album" can be seen as compilations of individual tracks, Middle Of Nowhere is a seamless, cohesive one-listen album. After two albums of more ambient, introspective work, Middle of Nowhere harks back in many ways to 1993's "Brown Album" (Orbital II) in that the dancefloor once again is king. The beats come constantly and the rhythms flow and alter seamlessly over the course of the record.

While Brown channelled the rhythms and structures of the UK rave scene with more epic techno flavouring that was distinctly the Hartnolls, Middle Of Nowhere is a much more unique sounding album that shows just how far Orbital had left behind any simple genre tags. The beats are arguably more chunky than at any other point in Orbital's discography, but their snap and crackle is more electro than the big-beat you might expect from the era. Meanwhile the melodies are intoxicating and truly unique- critics have struggled to liken them to any number of fellow electronic acts but the truth is they're pure Orbital: bizarre and strange yet simultaneously infectious and memorable.

What this album manages better than any other Orbital record is the density and complexity of the composition. While the Brown Album will forever be my favourite Orbital record, Middle of Nowhere surpasses it and the overrated and over-indulgent In Sides for musical depth. Never is this more apparent than those moments where you hear a melody re-emerge after seven minutes and realise that you're still in the same track as back then, despite all that has happened since. Because the tracks flow into each other without any pause, the boundaries of tracks are obscured and really irrelevant- every sample, hook and synth on the album seems placed with regard to what preceded it and what will follow.

As said before- for me this is not the best Orbital record. That would be The Brown Album. Middle Of Nowhere, for all its intricacy, never quite manages to be as perfect or varied as that masterpiece. The melodic side is also more demanding than The Blue Album- arguably the most satisfying and approachable Orbital record in terms of catchy and memorable melodies. Middle of Nowhere demands a degree of acclimatisation either to Orbital or to more experimental electronic music, and the dazzlingly unconventional array of sounds employed further that. However, Middle Of Nowhere certainly sits up there with those two as my favourite Orbital records, and aside from the weak ending of Style (hardly Halcyon & On & On, is it?) it's absolutely stunning from start to finish.

Finding Style in the Middle of Nowhere
The Hartnoll brothers released The Middle of Nowehere over the summer of 1999, amplifying the sheer variety and style of music around at the time. Most of Britain was still in pseudo-trance shock, so this, the fifth Orbital album going, was not only a welcome change, but also a sublime musical experience in its own right.

The opening and eclectic Way Out -> sets the tone for the remainder of the album, which has an almost Jazz-like feel to it. True orchestral brilliance is followed by a more easily recognisable Orbital-stylee number, in the shape of Spare Parts Express.

And so it continues in a slightly muddled though always familiar gait, past oddities like I don't know you people (an Orbital song with vocals??), through chilled Ontono and then into Nothing Left. Part Two is absolutely fantastic, with a slight trance twinge to it; classic builds and a simple melody keep you hooked.

So P and P Hartnoll decide to mess with your head, in eight long tracks, and end with the messed up track 'Style'. Only Orbital could shove a drowning puppy in the middle of freaky electronica and expect to get away with it. Oh, and they do. Flip back and listen to it again.

If you buy one Orbital album this year, make sure it's The Middle of Nowhere. If you buy two albums this year, well, then you're more well off than I am.

Great.
Two of my favourite Orbital albums are In Sides and this album, Middle of Nowhere. I think that the former is a higher quality album on the whole, but Middle of Nowhere has a distinctive atmosphere and is amazing music in its own right.