Orchestra of Bubbles

Ellen Allien | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 24, 2006)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Bpitch Control
• ASIN: B000EPFDCQ
• Also Available in: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,814 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Two of the brightest stars in the dance universe collide on Orchestra Of Bubbles. Allien, the head of the BPitch Control aesthetic steamroller, teams with Apparat, partner in the Shitkatapult brand empire to develop a remarkable sonic salvo. 11 tracks of the most delightful, uplifting electronic music you have ever heard. 'Turbo Dreams' introduces you to the partnership with guitar licks and metronomic precision. In 'Way Out', Allien's vocals coast atop muted acid breakdowns. On 'Retina', contrabasso parries with string pulses. Circuitry splits open, beautifully as a time-lapse tulip on 'Jet'. 'Floating Points' levitates the ears towards the second movement in the orchestra where 'Under' begins the dubstep-style transformation. 'Edison' is a kind of Asian filament-funk. 'Leave Me Alone' finds Apparat on vocals, crooning in a shoegaze style. 'Do Not Break' will give you the chills - a manifesto of new beat-scratching technique and syncopated splendor, while 'Metric' is grime with a string section. And Ellen's final vocal contribution, 'Bubbles' is a perfectly lovely epilogue. 2006.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A jaw dropping selection of IDM from this German duo!, May 12, 2006

By 

Doctor Trance (MA, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Orchestra of Bubbles (Audio CD)

Ellen Allien, DJ, techno artist, producer, and founder of the BPitch Control record label out of Berlin, teams up with another German producer and artist, Apparat. Prior to Ochestra of Bubbles, Allien's last release Thrills produced some excellent tech house and minimal tracks, but also had too many stale spots for a 10 track album. It wasn't quite as good as her stunning album before that, Berlinette. Now this teaming with Apparat has brought together one of the best electronic artist albums I've ever heard.

Right from the first two standout singles off the album, Turbo Dreams with it's pulsating beats and flowing horn, to Ellen's pop-like vocals on possibly the best track on here, Way Out, you know this is going to be something special. Track 3 was a little downgrade, with it's building strings sounding like a horror or war movie score, but tracks 4-10 were just incredible, eye-popping slices of techno that kept me spellbound through the start of each new track.

The one track voiced by Apparat, Leave Me Alone, is the low point of the album, with some awkward sounding vocals meshed with a very cheesy pop like melody. Right after that is the one boring instrumental on the CD, Edison, a crackily minimal track which literally goes nowhere. The CD closes with an incredible breathy downtempo vocal track sung by breathy, German accented Ellen, which I could have taken a 10 minute dose of instead of the 4:58 time.

I had sampled each track online because after Thrills, I thought it might be a case where I only wanted to download some of the tracks, but when I heard each of the tracks, they all sounded so good I just had to get the whole thing and I am glad I did, as I got 11 out of 13 solid electronic tracks.

FYI: There's already two good remixes out there of Turbo Dreams, plus and elongated track of the album version, and an upcoming remix of Way Out by Robag Wruhme that I just heard of sample of and I'm dying to get my hands on!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Two great sounds that sound great together, May 11, 2006

By 

somethingexcellent (Lincoln, NE United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Orchestra of Bubbles (Audio CD)

Last year, Apparat (aka Sascha Ring) released the excellent Silizium EP, which contained the song "It's Gonna Be A Long Walk," one of my favorite songs of 2005. Although I wasn't completely excited about Ellen Allien's last album Thrills, she's been a consistently exciting artist, and I was curious to see what the two would cook up together when it was announced they'd be releasing an album together.

Orchestra Of Bubbles is the result of their efforts, and other than a couple small lags, it's one of the more exciting electronic releases that I've heard in some time. The work of the two artists seems to fit together and overlap just about perfectly as razor sharp beats and cracking production mixes with some nice textures and vocal-driven tracks for a consistently fun album.

"Turbo Dreams" opens the release strong as a gurgling synth bass flows underneath some scorching guitar-esque riffs and crisp beats that snap and pop in all the right places. "Way Out" follows, and it finds Allien adding vocals over a blistering, electro-tinged track that's downright poppy as it progresses through a couple brisk verses and a soaring guitar closing section.

A large part of the album is instrumental, and while the duo manages to keep things together most of the time, they seem to lose focus in a couple places, as on the old-school pitch-bending weirdness of "Do Not Break" and the five-minute "Under," where almost three-fourths of the track passes before much of anything happens. Apparat takes lead vocals on only a single track on the disc, and from the sounds of "Leave Me Alone," he should have maybe done it a bit more often, as the string-laced, lurching track is one of the most outstanding on the album. The short "Metric" is just as solid, tying string stabs with brisk, percolating electro production. An excellent album, Orchestra Of Bubbles should appeal to fans of either artist, or those looking for a slab of brisk electronic pop to blast this summer.

(from almost cool music reviews)

5.0 out of 5 stars Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra Of Bubbles, March 10, 2011

By 

scoundrel - See all my reviews

This review is from: Orchestra of Bubbles (Audio CD)

Usually with collaborations, one voice dominates the other. However, with Ellen Allien and Apparat's ORCHESTRA OF BUBBLES, each partner is given equal time. So while Allien's industro-techno leanings are immediately apparant on "Turbo Dreams" and "Way Out," Apparat's classical touch can be felt on the strings in "Retina" and "Metric." The driving "Jet" has Allien's guitar work balanced by Apparat's chilly and deft synths. "Do Not Break" has a smart rhythm topped with a heavily chopped and processed voca sample--funky indeed. The sweet vocals of "Leave Me Alone" feel adroitly balanced atop the stop-start strings and the driving beat, while "Edison" has an aharmonic zither playing over a throbbing IDM backdrop. "Bubbles" closes the album on a mysterious note, Allien's whispered vocals, blending into the melodic tones. Let's hope we hear more from these two soon.