William Orbit: Strange Cargo 5

William Orbit
Strange Cargo 5
(self-released)

A pulsating synth backing and single-note pluck open “On Wings,” the first tune on William Orbit’s new album, Strange Cargo 5. Of course, as you can expect with Orbit, we’re pretty quickly into a good, chucking drum machine beat, as he plays horn-like echoey single notes atop the groove.

On just the second tune, Orbit changes the aural landscape. “Big Country” features a big, open acoustic guitar, almost talking vocals, a quick synth lead, strings and piano; it’s a perfect, little gem. Then we are back to low gurgling and metallic drum drive in “Just a Night or Two.” There are hand claps here, that acoustic guitar and piano too, rounding out a full groovin’ dance tune.

There’s a lot of vastly different cargo (if I might be so bold to say) in the 16-song stronghold of this album … and that’s what makes this Orbit release so interesting I feel. There’s “NE1” with its blurbs and electric guitar warbles, then groove. There’s the heavy, full, synth production dances of “Large Hadron Love Collider” and “Lode Star,” the full pretty float of a soft beat and equally soft synth of “The Diver,” the Steve Winwood super slick synth bass groove, and high female “mmms” of “Poppies” (not to mention more floaty keys), and the wavery “Recall.” There’s also the big flight of space synth on “Milky Way Station” and twinkling breathing beat, then the beautiful lilting strings and voices and synth toy piano of a melody sure to break your heart on “Willow.”

This is pretty great stuff here from William Orbit on the fifth of his Strange Cargo offerings.

You can check out the album here.