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Orbit makes these compositions so much his own that "Pieces" doesn't seem like much of a departure from Orbit's "Strange Cargo" series of solo ambient albums.... beyond the whiff of new-agey preciousness that hangs over the project, the record is beautiful and moving.
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A beautifully seamless ambient work full of lullabies and dreamscapes?
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A deeply contemplative album...
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Orbit tackles the classics with a reverence that occasionally calls to mind the original work of Vangelis with it's sparse and delicate blips that are more refined than you would expect even from the most devout music historian.
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Checkout.comThe translations that work best are the more modern pieces... The chief fault with Pieces is that, at times, it veers dangerously close to Muzak.
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Walking a thin line in a stylistic minefield, Orbit has successfully reached his goal. Classical purists may be appalled by the concept, but even they may have to admit that he's done a better job than anybody could have expected.
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Sometimes it works - notably with Gorecki's and Ravel's work - but it frequently misses the mark, with his reinterpretation of Handel's 'Xerxes' sounding something like incidental muzak from a low-budget US soap.
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From any conceivable angle, it is an indulgence...
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His pieces are mostly drawn from moderns such as Cage, Gorecki, Barber, Satie and Ravel, and work best when mined for their luxuriant melancholy...
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No matter whose music he was reformulating, however, Orbit worked gently, creating an album that, if it technically belonged beside Wendy Carlos' Switched-On Bach, actually was more reminiscent of Brian Eno's Discreet Music.
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the more you listen to Pieces in a Modern Style, the more warmth and affection you hear... They're not meant for classical purists; they're charming little curios for anyone who's interested in the process of reinvention -- or in just chilling out.
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Personal project or not, the pretty Pieces In A Modern Style isn't much more than a Hooked On... collection for a digital age.
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The most memorable tracks on Pieces in a Modern Style feel like high-brow Puff Daddy songs...
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But if attempting to dress ancient monuments in radical, avant-garde clothing was always going to be a hit-and-miss project, he's still succeeded for the most part in making a richly ambient, evocative record from apparently staid and stale old material.
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Intermittently successful...[t]oo often, his faithfulness turns into meticulousness, resulting in an album that's as formally impressive but as snooze-inducingly detailed as a special-effects-addled blockbuster.
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Rather than reinventing these centuries-old compositions, Orbit's snoozy-listening remakes only serve to surgically remove their innate drama.
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The Grammy-garnering producer certainly shows good taste in his selection (favoring 20th-century pieces) and obviously knows his way around a mixing board, but his make-overs are ultimately bloodless, even banal.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 8
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Mixed: 0 out of 8
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Negative: 1 out of 8
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yaroslavmDec 31, 2002Simply the best
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JonM.Sep 10, 2001Pure brilliance.