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The ORB is an English group of electronic music, classifiable under ambient house, with techno and dub influences.
Pomme Fritz is an EP released in June 1994, recorded between London and Berlin, and it is their third studio album following the excellent debut in 1991 with "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" and "U.F. Orb" the following year. After the first two full-length works, we find ourselves listening to an EP album, different. Very different. The first thing the listener perceives is the clear departure from the much more melodic and, in some respects, danceable first two albums.
Here, in Pomme Fritz, there is no precise groove. Instead, there exists a "pleasant ambient chaos." The Orb experiment, manipulate sound. They have fun filtering and sampling.
The cover, interestingly, has strong references to Relics by Pink Floyd. Pomme Fritz could be defined as a bizarre, experimental painting, containing a kaleidoscope not of colors, but of samples and voices. The ease of listening is not immediate, precisely because of the construction of the tracks, which do not always rely on rhythmic tracks. You can hear many sounds, sampled, re-sampled. Listen to it slowly, without haste, to savor it.
Let's move on to the tracks.
1 Pomme Fritz. A deep and hypnotic bass underpins a jazz-like guitar that gets lost among synths with reverb. A cheerful, relaxing track with its own precise identity. Certainly the most melodic.
2 More Gills Less Fishcakes. From this moment, you enter the heart of the album, namely the "pleasant ambient chaos," where samples alternate and repeat, staggered on a rhythmic base that is sparse, minimal.
3 We're Pastie To Be Grill You. Here, a sampled voice dominates, repeating, distorting, slowing, speeding up. Echoes and even some sound and buzzing are heard. The most challenging of the album but quite a trip, especially on headphones.
4 Bang' Er' N Chips. The piece starts with a sample of a phrase: "you've just had a heavy session of electroshock therapy, and you're more relaxed than you've been in weeks. All those childhood traumas, magically wiped away...along with most of your personality." Echoes of track 2 in terms of the rhythmic session arrive.
5 Alles Ist Schoen. Here, too, the echoes of track 2 and the previous one are evident, but then, listen closely, a step back where it seems like listening to The Orb from the first two albums. It could easily be the intro to a 20-minute piece in perfect Orb style. Prolonged, ethereal, ambient pad sounds. In short, for some, it will be a return to reality. Very pleasant.
6 His Immortal Logness. This outro, lasting a couple of minutes, closes the album. A joyful organ-like a vintage music box.
Reaching the end of the record, it's time to sum up. Can Pomme Fritz be defined as an experimental ambient album? I believe so. It is an album that cannot go unnoticed. You need to train your ears to listen to it.
Forget Intelligent Dance Music here. For most of the album, our ears are filled with voices and sounds, even ethereal ones. A duet of voices and sounds. At times pleasant and at others mysterious. At the end of the listening, you realize that the tracks have many common references among them.
I strongly recommend listening to it on headphones.
In conclusion, it was wise to make this EP detached from the first two. The Orb dared.
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