Moonbuilding 2703 AD
| Moonbuilding 2703 AD | ||||
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| Studio album by The Orb | ||||
| Released | 22 June 2015 | |||
| Genre | Electronica, dub, IDM, chill-out, trip hop | |||
| Length | 51:49 (CD, Vinyl & Download Versions) 64:55 (Download Deluxe Version) 75:34 (Limited Deluxe Vinyl LP Version) | |||
| Label | Kompakt | |||
| Producer | The Orb | |||
| The Orb chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 77/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Pitchfork Media | 6.7/10 |
| Mojo | |
| The Guardian | |
| NME | 7/10 |
| Exclaim | 7/10 |
| Uncut |  |
| Slant Magazine | |
| PopMatters | 8/10 |
| Drowned in Sound | 8/10 |
| Release Magazine | 8/10 |
| The Arts Deck | |
| Record Collector | |
Moonbuilding 2703 AD is the thirteenth studio album from ambient house duo The Orb. It is the first album that features new original material from the group since Baghdad Batteries (Orbsessions Volume III) in 2009. It is also the first album they released through the Kompakt label since the 2005 release of Okie Dokie It's The Orb on Kompakt. It was released on 22 June 2015.
Moonbuilding 2703 AD has received positive reviews from music critics, with some saying it is the band's best album in over 20 years. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 77, based on 16 reviews, which indicates "Generally favorable reviews", making it The Orb's highest rated album on the site.
In his 4 star review for Record Collector, Phil Smith says that the album has "Walloping techno rhythms simply step in and out of pretty melodies, pleasing textures and grainy sample loops" and concluding the review by saying that "While the album is relatively low-key and meandering, that’s arguably what we want from The Orb – and hence it might just be the one you’ve been waiting on from them for 20 years." Barney Harsent of The Arts Deck said that Moonbuilding 2703 AD is "without doubt, the most coherent offering from the Orb (currently composed of Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann) since Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" and also said that their "latest offering is similarly hurtling through space once more, and reminding us of their conceptual debut that slapped us around our collective face back in 1991. It feels like a similar event."
Gavin Miller of Drowned in Sound in his 8/10 review said that Moonbuilding 2703 AD is "an album heaving with ideas, but just coherent enough to stick together as one piece of work" and went on to say that the album is a "great little re-introduction to all things Orb." Benjamin Aspray of Slant Magazine starts off his 3.5 stars out of 5 review by saying "With Moonbuilding 2703 AD, the Orb makes a full circle back to the long-form conceptual terrain of 1991's game-changing Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld and its follow-up, U.F.Orb. The album sustains a progressive composition over four distinct parts, forgoing instant gratification for slow builds and subtle variations, culminating in the Orb's most cohesive work in ages." He ends the review for the album saying "It's never quite a tour de force, but as a union of the Orb's heady roots with their spiritual ascendants' minimalist ethos, the album is a consistently satisfying groove machine, and a worthy entry to the upper ranks of the Orb canon."
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