Bicycles & Tricycles

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Bicycles & Tricycles
Bicycles & Tricycles cover
Studio album by The Orb
Released UK: May 2004
US: July 13, 2004
Genre Ambient house, Dub
Length UK: 63:55
US: 58:26
Label UK: Cooking Vinyl
US: Sanctuary Records
Producer Alex Paterson, Thomas Fehlmann, John Roome
Professional reviews
The Orb chronology
Cydonia
(2002)
Bicycles & Tricycles
(2004)
Okie Dokie It's The Orb on Kompakt
(2004)

Bicycles & Tricycles is a 2004 album from The Orb. It brought together The Orb's style of the early 1990s with current electronic music to mixed reactions.[1] The Daily Telegraph praised Bicycles & Tricycles as being "inclusive, exploratory, and an enjoyable journey";[2] however, many other publications dismissed it as "stoner dub" and largely irrelevant to current electronic music culture.[3][4] In addition to Paterson, Roome, Phillips, and Fehlmann, The Corpral contributed with vocoder affected singing and MC Soom-T provided lyrics and rapped. Though most critics found the rapping to be out of place, Jive Magazine described it as "the best track on [the album]" and "an amazing hip hop trip".[5] Orb co-founder Jimmy Cauty, too, made a guest appearance as co-writer on Bicycles & Tricycles' "From a Distance". After departing from Island Records, The Orb released Bicycles & Tricycles in 2004 on Cooking Vinyl in the United Kingdom and Sanctuary Records in the United States. To promote the album, The Orb began a UK tour with dub reggae artist Mad Professor, who had remixed The Orb in the past. Though The Orb still pulled in large crowds, The Guardian described one London performance as "joyless" and that stated that "few of the new tracks... really go anywhere".[6] She also noted that Paterson seemed to be far more comfortable and happier to play material from Bicycles & Tricycles rather than older tracks. Paterson's biggest influences for the album were drum and bass and trip hop music.[7]

[edit] Track listing

UK version
  1. "Orb Is (Shopping Version)" – 4:49
  2. "Aftermath" – 4:40
  3. "The Land of Green Ginger" – 4:01
  4. "Hell's Kitchen" – 5:23
  5. "Gee Strings" – 6:41
  6. "Prime Evil" – 5:14
  7. "Abstractions (Trance Pennine Express)" – 6:49
  8. "L.U.C.A." – 5:23
  9. "From a Distance (Blast Master v The Corpral)" – 3:55
  10. "Tower Twenty Three (Spud v Kreature Mix)" – 6:33
  11. "Kompania (Grooved Ware Mix)" – 6:19
  12. "Dilmun" – 4:02
US version
Identical to UK version, minus track 8 "L.U.C.A."
Japan version
Pre-released in June 2003, had a different track listing order with different versions (some radical) of "From a Distance" - 5:32, "Orb Is" - 3:28, "Abstractions" - 6:56, "Compania - 1:54" & "Tower Twenty Three" - 7:50, plus "Now Here" exclusive track - 5:20, minus "Aftermath".

[edit] References

  1. ^ Theakston, Rob. Bicycles & Tricycles Review. All Music Guide. Retrieved on 2006-10-10.
  2. ^ Perry, Andrew. "Staying in CDs", The Daily Telegraph, 2004-05-01, p. 12. 
  3. ^ Verrico, Lisa. "The Orb", The Times, 2004-05-14, p. 19. 
  4. ^ Miller, Phil. "CDs", The Herald, 2004-05-08, p. 2. 
  5. ^ Bradley, Ryan. "The Orb: Bicycles and Tricycles", Jive Magazine, 2004-07-23. 
  6. ^ O'Grady, Carrie (2004-05-18). The Orb Concert Review: Coronet, London. The Guardian.
  7. ^ Cowen, Andrew. "Ambient gurus refuse to lie down", Birmingham Post, 1998-10-21, p. 15. 

[edit] External links