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Monday, Sept. 10, 2012 | 14:22

The Orb Saved My Life

Not very long ago I wrote about re-evaluating a project I am attempting wherein I assemble the 20 albums that have guided my musical development. I wrote about how I needed to re-think the origins of my musical direction, and what songs or albums pushed me to explore different things. I've known I've had this need for a while, but I heard an album that sparked a new wave of re-assessment. While I won't be putting 'Universal Mother' on my wall, the recognition of the importance of the groove in my developing musical tastes is essential to following the thread of my sonic growth. Which is not to say that everything I hear has a groove, or even a consistent rhythm, but that's where it begins.

At present I am hearing 'Live 93' from The Orb. This listening re-enforces it as a crucial bedrock cornerstone of my musical development. My tastes expanded rapidly in college and the years following, and this album is one of the reasons why.

I first heard it at school. A friend played it one night while a group of us hung out in his dorm room. I can't say now what effect the music had on me that night, but as a Pink Floyd fan I appreciated the cover (a stuffed sheep floating through a mock-up of the Battersea power station). I would eventually track down this release, purchasing it through an online store like CDNow or CompactDiscConnection (I hadn't yet discovered, or maybe they hadn't yet been invented, Amazon and half.com). I'd have to check my paperwork to know when I got it, and from there extrapolate when I first heard it, and what I experienced between the two moments.

Regardless of what I heard or acquired in between, though, I put this one on the Wall because of its lasting import in my life. This music, mostly abstract, filled with layers of sampled sounds both musical and vocal, transported me into some other space. It took me places I didn't know existed. With this music I drifted off to sleep, through imaginary lands, into new worlds of sound and vision.

Sometimes I would let my mind wander, others I would attempt to break down what I was hearing. I would meditate on the sound, or the construct of the sound. I wanted to know what I was feeling, how it came to be, and why it had this effect on me. While I've yet to accomplish that, I do know that I have used this music to heal, breathe, and stay alive. The Orb's live trips through inner and outer space saved my life, possibly more so than any other music. I feel a spiritual connection to a few albums, and this is possibly the one that most sets my soul free.

Even now, hearing it at work, waves of my experience with it return to me. It is always solitary and expansive. It heals me in ways few other things have, affecting more than any proper Orb albums do.

There is a book series titled 33 1/3 wherein people write about important albums. Some dissect the music, others write a history, and a few write about their own experiences with an album. I haven't read any of these, but I propose to write one for 'Live 93', if only for myself. I have an idea of the research I will have to do, possibly even contacting people involved in this music, but before I do any of that I will write extensively about what each song means to me. I will break them down by meditiation. I will describe where these songs take me. Then I will investigate the facts and see where that takes me.

An idle dream? Perhaps. But one worth having.

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