(03.17.07) Sending Orbs may not be the most prolific label in the world, but its frugality is a guarantee of two things: firstly, that every release by the label is a genuine and eagerly anticipated event (enhanced by their habit of re-skinning their entire website for each release) and secondly, every release is of super-premium quality. Lennard Van der Last has already proven that he has the ability to take up the mantle of The Orb, producing lyrical yet complex, often chaotic and hugely varied storyscapes on Bye Bye Gridlock Traffic or Tryshasla. Vega Libre takes this one step further.
Listeners, be warned: if you subscribe to the club whose members only listen to bleeding-edge electronic music or those punchably pretentious folk-tronica outfits who loftily deny having anything to do with folk, you’ll hate this record. Vega Libre is virtually drowning in nineties excess with special fx flying in every direction for the duration, along with lush female vocal snippets, dubbed-out ambient house beats and bizarre samples. This is the sort of music that the aforementioned snobs might sneeringly try to dub “new age.” It isn’t of course. Vega Libre is essentially Secede doing The Orb’s Blue Room (though Secede’s vision here is a more vivacious and energetic one than The Orb’s cool, drifting epic): it is basically one huge, extended track.
Vega Libre is available in two versions: a seven track CD EP that features three exclusive tracks, one being a remix by Tetsuo Inoue, and a much more limited four track, translucent orange vinyl 12″ in a die-cut, printed sleeve. This review is essentially of the CD version, including its extra tracks and running order.
Like Secede’s Tryshasla album, Vega Libre also seems to tell a loose story. As Jeroen Advocaat’s evocative artwork illustrates, there is some wild, almost apocalyptic party playing out on some distant world, the planet descending into some natural or man-made chaos.
Though not always as rich in sampled detail as the work of The Orb, Vega Libre wouldn’t entirely sound out of place on U.F.Orb or Orbus Terrarum, its juddering dub basslines holding their own against the ambient house legend’s own “Towers of Dub,” “Blue Room” or “Slug Dub.” The title track is awash with fx flares, jingling, bell like melodies, female vocalised “oohs” and percussive zapping, creating an epic opening piece that sets the tone for the rest of the EP.
“Vega Libre: The Citadel” though relatively short at just over three minutes, features some of Secede’s finest timing and build up to date. Opening with muted rhythms and dusty percussion combined with pin-sharp fx, a thumping bass beat appears, restricted to every other bar that is gradually joined by additional hi-hat percussion and drum loops creating a thumping, heavily syncopated piece with a gorgeous, squelching synth hook.
This leads straight into “Vege Libre: The Marvel,” one of the strongest pieces on the EP and sadly exclusive to the CD version. “The Marvel” simply gets everything right, creating rich jungle textures in a similar vein to Secede’s own “New Arizona” track that appear on the On Records Tured in Been compilation. Resurrecting the melodic themes from the title track, “The Marvel” continues to add layer upon layer of luminous and rolling synthesisers atop trademark, tribal Secede rhythms and rain-forest like atmospherics. There’s even a touch of distorted and echoingGregorian chanting that emerges briefly at its conclusion, for no particularly obvious reason.
“Vega Libre: Entering Next” (also exclusive to the CD version) pretty much wraps up the hedonistic party atmosphere of the EP. It is also where Secede’s EP takes its first wrong step – the vocals that appear at its conclusion are jarring and arguably do edge toward the “new age,” detracting slightly from the track’s credibility. No matter, the moment is fleeting and could have been much worse. “Vega Libre: Last Hours” essentially tells most of the EP’s story as raid sirens are heard screaming in the distance, along with the sounds of objects smashing, gun-fire and scrambled and frantic radio transmissions.
By the time you reach “Vega Libre: Sleeping World” it’s arguable that the concept is being stretched a little too far. It’s certainly the most subdued segment of Secede’s vision – the Tetsuo Inoue remix notwithstanding – and the re-use of “Vega Libre”‘s melodic themes on this third occasion are less successful, probably because at over eleven minutes, the piece is too long. This variation is a muted affair; it’s like being able to hear the goings on of the chaotic party through the walls or floor of another room somewhere. Amusingly, it also includes what sounds like a sample from The Orb’s A Huge, Evergrowing, Pulsating Brain that Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld amidst the other nebulous, drifting ephemera, Secede’s most obvious homage to date.
Tetsuo Inoue’s remix is identifiably different to the preceding tracks, all resonating, crystalline synths, aqueous field recordings, burbling and hissing sound effects and soft drones, but still fits into the overall flow of the EP very nicely and provides a warm, peaceful conclusion to the chaos that preceded it.
Secede doesn’t make bad records and though, overall, this may not be his greatest work to date it is nevertheless a highly memorable one, and its tribute to the heady days of ambient house is a resounding success. Recommended.
Vega Libre is out now on Sending Orbs. Buy it at Sending Orbs.
