Track Listing

1. Girl With The Sun In Her Hair
2. Petrol
3. Box
4. Dwr Budr
5. Adnans
6. Out There Somewhere
7. The Saint

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8529 in Music
• Released on: 2006-04-12
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
By the time Orbital released its fourth album, the Hartnoll brothers were strongly tipped as techno heavyweights alongside more commercially palatable prospects like Underworld and Prodigy. Yet, instead of catering to the curious, they presented their most self-indulgent album to date with In Sides. Packaging the 24-minute symphonic track "Out There Somewhere?" with the loopy psychedelic flight of "P.E.T.R.O.L.", they created a most unusual and intriguing collection. Despite their best efforts, though, "The Box" still packed the same insistent rhythm that made "Belfast" such an indelible club staple. --Aidin Vaziri

CD Description
Since 1989, when they released their first single, Orbital's Hartnoll brothers have represented a less beat-heavy side of techno. Rather than rhythmic brawn and hyperkinetic RPMs,Orbital's music was driven by modern compositional style owing to Glass and Reich, with Eno's spacing thrown in for good measure, and electro-pulses providing the only things seeming beat-worthy. Theirs are sound sculptures consistently apart from their contemporaries--more melodic, more contemplative and soundtrack-like.
1996's IN SIDES, their fourth full-length release, is a fine representation of Orbital's sonic environment, and a great place to jump into the ways of the Hartnolls, if only because it's their cheeriest album. Bright melodies carried by shinny, happy keyboard textures enlighten a good deal of IN SIDES, most fruitfully on the expansive second part of the closer "Out There Somewhere?" where they keep streaming in like sun beams through sonic windows.As counterpoint, there's the needling mystery of tracks like "The Box", which marries an edge-of-your-seat piano score to some fuzzed-out guitars and lo-fi breakbeats.

Customer Reviews

if you've never heard this album, buy it right now
my first experience with Orbital came in late 1995 when the Sony Playstation was first hitting the scene. Back then I hadn't really got much interest in music of any kind, but a certain game called Wipeout was being used as a marketing tool to make videogames cool. Sony had signed up a load of dance artists to do the game's soundtrack, and one of these artists was Orbital. As a games player I played the game and was entranced by the soundtrack. I began my journey exploring music on that day. The Chemical Brothers, Leftfield and, of course, Orbital were suddenly in my world.

In Sides was the first Orbital album I heard, and remains, to me, my favourite. It's pure genius. To quote a review I once read: "Play this to your grandmother enough times and she'll eventually start whistling along to it". The combination of haunting and chirpy tunes creates a fantastic odyssey through intelligent dance.

The Girl With The Sun In Her Head gently eases you into the album with layer upon layer of complementative sounds building up to an orchestra of pleasure. Tracks like The Box and Adnans are sublime yet offer a taste of something darker.

I would personally wager that you could get anyone to like this album. So subtle and unoffensive, yet powerful and inspiring.

My only possible gripe with this album would be that the initial release didn't include the Orbital cover of The Saint theme tune (created for the film) but it was added at the end for later releases. Like "Style" at the end of Middle of Nowhere, it sticks out like a sore thumb (to me) and whilst a great track in it's own right, it ends the album in a different light to how it would have prior to it's inclusion. Try listening to the album with your track listing ordered so it comes after P.E.T.R.O.L. and the feel of the album changes completely.

But I digress. This album is genius distilled and pressed. Own it.

Absolute Class
I have listened to different types of music and heard hundreds of albums in the last 15 years, but no cd has ever moved me like In Sides.
I was already familiar with acts like the Prodigy, Underworld and The Future Sound of London before I heard this offering by Orbital. Instantly I realised I was listening to a true masterpiece. To me, this is the only album I've ever listened to which I would give every track 10 out of 10. At times the music is dark, sinister and angry sounding. At other times it is meloncholic and tearful, whilst having uplifting and euphoric moments which can make the listener's spine tingle.
Personally this album strikes a chord with me that I can barely explain. In Sides is possibly the best electronic album of all time.

Out there, somewhere (in a class of it's own)
The best album I own, bar none. Electronica at it's finest; 'In-Sides' seems a natural progression from Orbital's previous works. I don't easily offer gushing superlatives, but language is too limiting to adequately describe this work of wonder. The Hartnoll brothers appear to have classical pretensions, and this album was a grandiose statement of intent. Yet, as ever, Orbital are impossible to categorise and marginalise. This was undoubtedly their finest hour (or so). Although, many seem to prefer some of Orbital's earlier works, these souls are sadly misguided. 'In-Sides' just gets better with age, as seminal and sublime as ever. Mature, majestic, and moving. This album is an essential addition to anyone's record collection.