The Orbital Glastonbury 1994 live album is out now via London Records. For the first time, the full set is officially available, remastered and mixed on vinyl and CD. We covered the pre-order earlier this month, and now fans can finally hear the whole show as it happened.
For years, the Orbital Glastonbury 1994 performance lived on through BBC broadcasts, bootlegs and clips passed around online. Now the brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll have released it in its entirety. The result captures the whole arc of the night, from a gentle opening to a crowd being whipped into a frenzy by some of the most energetic electronic music of its era.
It matters because of what the show represented. After the acid house explosion of the late eighties, Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis had been slow to anticipate how long the rave movement would last, and the lineups stayed heavy on rock and indie. The Orb played a minor stage in 1993. A year later, Orbital got the chance to create a ground zero moment for dance music culture at the festival, and they took it.
The set arrived in a pivotal year for the duo, with ‘Snivilisation’ marking their breakthrough. Opener ‘Forever’ hides strains of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ deep in the mix. ‘Walk Now’ starts with the sound of a pedestrian crossing before exploding into high-energy electro. The brothers also played ‘Are We Here?’ and ‘Sad But True’, two ‘Snivilisation’ tracks featuring Alison Goldfrapp’s vocals. Then, fittingly, ‘Chime’ closes the night.
More than 30 years later, dance music is part of Glastonbury’s fabric. The Orbital Glastonbury 1994 release is a reminder of the night that helped put it there. Stream or order the album here.
TOMORA: A World Beyond Their Own
12 Summer Dance Anthems That Still Sound Incredible Today
