Orbital’s ‘Chime’ still hits the right notes [2001]…
Orbital’s Chime is rightly considered one of the electronic music masterpieces of all time – and still a show closer, some 28 years after it was first released (as evidenced by their recent spate of summer concerts – I attended the Dublin leg, and can confirm that yes, the brothers Hartnoll have still got it)…
Here, taken from the 2001 Channel 4 documentary, Pump Up The Volume, the Hartnolls explain how Chime was played live(at least at the time), using a bank of Alesis MMT8 sequencers and some warpy sound effects. Simple, but unbelievably effective.
Also notable in this clip is Paul Hartnoll recalling where the tune was first played out, in Jazzy M’s [the founder of Oh’Zone Records, which first released it as a single] record store in London, back in the heady days of 1989.
“Jazzy M was in the middle of selling all his records on a Friday, and he said I can’t play it out now, I have to sell these records. He listened to it, said ‘hang on a minute’, whipped his record off, played it, and stood there laughing, with all these people saying ‘I’ll have one of them’, ‘oh, I’ll have one of them…’ You can’t have it, it’s a tape..!”
[Video © Channel 4; Picture sourced at orbitalofficial.com]
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