Orbital; Chemical Brothers; Underworld

By KINSEY LOWE

Orbital; Chemical Brothers; Underworld (Snow Valley, Running Springs; $ 30)
 
Bands: (Orbital) Phil and Paul Hartnoll; (Chemical Brothers) Tom Rowlands, Ed Simons; (Underworld) Karl Hyde, Rick Smith, Darren Emerson.
 

TX:Promoted by Chaotica, Philip Blaine, Insomniac. Reviewed June 22 and 23, 1996. Lovers of electronic dance music found themselves in heaven on a hillside at the Snow Valley Resort in the San Bernardino Mountains. "This is the coolest music I've ever heard," declared KROQ-FM's Jed the Fish, just before Orbital hit the stage. His plug for the radio station's live broadcast of portions of the dusk-to-dawn event promoted as Organic was a rare vocal intrusion into a nightlong stream of vibrant music from the bands and deejays -- and it was roundly booed.

Folks at this gathering were much more likely to listen to the likes of Jason Bentley on public station KCRW-FM than anything on "alternative"-oriented KROQ, where Bentley recently launched a regular Saturday night gig to help expand the audience for this kind of music.

Orbital, the U.K. brothers who work musical miracles using computers as their instruments, rewarded their enthusiastic fans with a diverse, energetically fluid mix of tunes from their just-released "In Sides" disc on FFRR and earlier albums "Snivelization" and "Diversions."

No one there would have minded if Orbital had gone on forever, but the enthusiastically received Chemical Brothers, while no less lively throughout their preceding set, wore a little thin before their finale.

Earlier, Underworld delivered a wondrously kinetic set from its new Wax Trax release "Second Toughest in the Infants" and 1994 debut "dubnobasswithmyheadman."

The Orb (Daily Variety, June 19, 1995) supplied the final performance. Other bands were Meat Beat Manifesto, Loop Guru and Electric Skychurch. Deejays Trance , Daniel, Michael Dog and Bentley provided propulsive, seamless segues between the bands.