The Orb – Buddhist Hipsters

Few acts in electronic music have built up as much credibility as The Orb. When Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty began playing ambient sets in the chill-out room of Heaven in 1988, they unwittingly laid the foundation for an entirely new genre. Ambient house was born from a simple thought: what if the ravers who stumbled out of the clubs at six o’clock in the morning, exhausted and chemically disturbed, could go somewhere where the beat softened but the journey continued?

Nearly four decades later, Paterson, now with his permanent partner Michael Rendall by his side, continues to answer that question. “Buddhist Hipsters”, The Orb’s eighteenth studio album, is an album that knows its roots but isn’t trapped in nostalgia. It begins with a dream: an escalator descending from the clouds, Buddhists and hipsters side by side, Roger Eno beckoning from above. That surreal vision becomes reality in ten tracks that take the listener on a 77-minute journey through dub valleys, drum and bass cyclones and house music that floats like smoke through an illuminated club interior.

“Spontaneously Combust” opens with Steve Hillage’s unmistakable guitar, a veteran who already featured on “U.F.Orb”, and Miquette Giraudy’s vintage EMS synths. It’s a statement: this is The Orb as you know them, but with new tricks. The backwards vocals and that ‘secret sample’ from the cellars of West Norwood’s Book and Record Bar give the track a playful mystique that has always been Paterson’s trademark. Where others use samples for instant gratification, Paterson knows how to transform them into new narratives.

The album moves with a natural rhythm between different moods. “P~1” explodes into cosmic drum and bass, a genre mashup that would be disastrous in less capable hands, but here feels like a logical evolution. “Baraka”, an ode to a blind Kenyan rhinoceros, pulses with late-seventies synth nostalgia, whilst “A Sacred Choice” fully enters reggae territory with Youth on bass and Paul Ferguson on drums. It’s here that Paterson’s youth in Brixton, steeped in roots and dub, comes to the surface.

“Arabebonics”, the word invented by rapper Rrome Alone, is perhaps the most ambitious moment. Eastern-influenced hip-hop with strings by Violetta Vicci; on paper, it sounds like a recipe for pretentious chaos, but the execution is surprisingly grounded. Paterson and Rendall understand the game of tension and release, of complexity and simplicity.

The real magic happens, however, in the final quarter. “The Oort Cloud (Too Night)” takes Trevor Walters’ lovers rock classic and transforms it. Rendall isolated the vocals with Logic into an NYC deep house journey that transports you straight to the dancefloor of Paradise Garage. “Doll’s House” is, as Mojo rightly noted, perhaps the purest house track The Orb has ever made: swooshing, intricate, hypnotic.

The album closes with two monumental ambient pieces. “Under The Bed”, featuring Andy Falconer, goes so deep you almost become claustrophobic, but in a good way, as if you’re travelling through a wormhole. And then “Khàron”, named after Pluto’s moon, where Roger Eno’s sparse piano paints the universe as a living, breathing organism. It’s ambient music in its purest form: space as instrument, silence as compositional element.

But let’s be honest: not everything works equally well. With a running time of over an hour and ten diverse tracks, there are moments when the album loses its focus. “It’s Coming Soon” feels like a forced concession to accessibility; the arpeggios and Caine’s vocals are fine, but lack the boldness of the surrounding tracks. And whilst the parade of guest musicians is impressive on paper, the album sometimes feels like a friendly gathering rather than a driven vision. Where “Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld” felt like a coherent statement, “Buddhist Hipsters” is more a collection of beautiful moments.

Paterson’s tendency towards the ethereal, Buddhists on escalators, planets as muses, can also sometimes distract from the music itself. The conceptual wrapping is charming, but not always necessary. The Orb is at its strongest when the music speaks without mystical footnotes. Nevertheless, this is an album that proves experience and youthful enthusiasm need not be opposites. Paterson and Rendall have created something therapeutic and timeless, a ‘holiday for the head’ as they call it themselves. In a world that seems increasingly chaotic, “Buddhist Hipsters” offers what The Orb has always offered: an escape, a moment of peace, a cosmic smile.

It’s not a return to the glory of “U.F.Orb”, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a new chapter from a band that still knows how to blur the line between dance and contemplation. (8/10) (Cooking Vinyl)