The Orb Album: “Pomme Fritz”

I've picked up all of the recent Orb reissues, and I have to say that the remastered Pomme Fritz package is impressive. Like many fans at the time, I was annoyed when I first heard Pomme Fritz in 1994. After the glorious ambient-house classic that was U.F. Orb, I was expecting more of the same, but was presented with a very bizarre and brief affair, filled with seemingly aimless tracks without much melody or direction. Mostly, though, it seemed that Alex Patterson and Co. weren't trying very hard and just threw something out there that sounded more like a collection of demos than anything else. It went right over my head, and I simply didn't like it. It took me a few years to get into it, and now, 14 years after the fact, I feel like it sounds better than ever before. The remaster is great, and with a band like the Orb, a clean transfer is essential. You're able to pick up on all of the intricate little details in the mix, and the bass and drums sound immaculate.

The bonus disc is absolutely fantastic. It really makes you understand and appreciate what the Orb were trying to do when they first released Pomme Fritz. Instead of throwing out a bunch of the same noises you had heard in their previous two albums, they mixed it up and challenged the listener with a more aggressive sound. The second disc proves that they still had the same tricks up their sleeve as when they recorded the first two lp's as disc 2 could easily be a different album all by itself. Disc 2 is the album that most Orb fans at the time were expecting, and to hear it after all this time is really cool. That early 90's Orb sound is all here in the second disc, complete with dubtastic grooves and downtempo beats, accompanied with spacey samples and atmospheric noises. The liner notes are written by Kris Needs, of course, and it's always fun to read his enthusiastic ramblings about a band he truly loves.

Out of all the recent reissues, this is presently my favorite of the bunch simply because of the second disc. Disc one continues to grow on me, but the immediate satisfaction of the treasures on the bonus disc cannot be ignored.

The remaster sounds AMAZING!!!!! Wow. It's giving me chills down my spine, even more so than when this CD first did, along with Orbus Terrarum when I did all night wig-out trip-out sessions back in the day, staying up all night, hallucinating by the time the sun came up in the morning, tumbling down the Hollywood Hills in my mate's car with the other 4 troops from the night looking absolutely spaced-out, out-there, blank stares, wanting nothing but a good full English breakfast to get us through that morning. I'm freaking out right now listening to it again. Brilliant.

When I first bought this CD back when it came out, I really didn't like it. It was no where's near as good as "Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld", or "UFOrb". It was too ambient and motionless. For as short as it was, it had nothing that stood out as a positive track to give the album any kind of memory retaining appeal. I traded the CD away almost immediately, and I questioned nearly every new CD from the Orb since then. Many following albums were better than "Pomme Fritz", but nothing ever matched the appeal of the first two albums.

Since "Pomme Fritz" got remastered and re-released like the first two albums did, I decided to give this album another try. No, it's still nothing wonderful, here's what I did to change my perspective to be a little more positive about the album. When I play the CD and skip the track "We're Happy to Grill You", it improved the remaining tracks overall appeal. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I HATE the track, "We're Happy to Grill You". It just sounds childish and ignorant. And I somewhat don't understand the concept of why all these tracks have titles that are food related. Even the bonus tracks of the second CD do this.

Now, about the second CD: It bored me to death because of the girl constantly repeating the same dumb words about "the sun" over and over again on many of the tracks on this extra CD. Maybe listening to just one track, and then moving on to another CD track or artist may reduce the redundancy of this "...it's just the sun" concept.

Well, this remastering effort with bonus tracks is only a mild improvement over the appeal of the original release. But, take it from me, if you liked this album anyway, then definitely buy this new remastered double CD. But, if you're like me and you didn't care for it before, than don't bother wasting your money this time either.

This was the first really polarizing Orb release, as it was the first of their albums to not reach for reassuring dance music cliches. Pomme Fritz is an experimental noise-ambient album (ambient is not the right term, because the music is extremely engaging) which was, I think, condemned at the time by some as pretentious, but it is in fact the opposite of pretentious: the album suffuses humor and the sublime, and seems to me to be strictly an experiment in sensorial indulgence (perhaps the reason for the dada-esque food imagery of the albums titles); the album art to Pink Floyd's Relics is alluded to, but the pseudo-victorian music-making apparatus is rendered instead as a kind of meat-grinder on a pedestal, perhaps another clue to the album's intentions (The Orb was apparently irritated at having attracted so many comparisons between Pink Floyd's music and their own). It's an iconoclastic, transformative suite, meant to realize literally gastronomical music from figurative expectations and established musical idioms, as it were, through a meat-grinder.

Pomme Fritz, FFWD, and Orbus Terrarum are all musically lush, gorgeous, witty, deep works, and the very most exemplary in the electronic genre at least, if not in all latter 20th/early 21st century music (U.F Orb and the first half of Orblivion are also excellent). Orb's creative approach, musical sophistication and growth unfortunately undermined much of its popularity; their output since 1997 or so has mostly (but definitely not always) lacked drama and enormity... it has tended to be cleaner, more tightly produced and deliberate sounding.

Disc 2 is an amazing reworking of some of the leitmotifs of Pomme Fritz that succeeds as a full work in its entirety; although it lacks most of the challenging aspects of the original album, I am finding myself obsessed with passages from it- it is really outstanding music.

simply the Orb's best -> a way-out-there album. on par with Orbus Terrarum and Orblivion. very very very trippy...