Orbital

Since the 1990s, UK duo Orbital have served up intricate yet accessible electronic music, oscillating between terse techno and buoyant disco for songs tailor-made for the dance floor. Brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll named their project in tribute to the M25, the motorway that circles Greater London, and created their first single, “Chime,” on their father’s four-track recorder. They broke out with 1993’s Orbital 2, a techno album that combined dystopian sounds with intricate rhythms. On subsequent LPs like The Middle of Nowhere (1999) and Blue Album (2004), the duo continued experimenting with house and ambient techno before breaking up in 2004. In 2012, they reunited for Wonky, a vibrant LP that yielded some of their most dynamic work, a trend that continued with 2018’s Monsters Exist. Technically proficient yet endlessly curious, Orbital stand as pillars of UK electronic music.