Customer Reviews

Strange Cargo 3

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked up "III" on recomendation of a friend,having never heard of William Orbit before. One listen, and I was hooked- it was a new experience for me. Orbit combines real foot- tapping beat with creativity, the result being music that seems to just flow right through one's ears. Orbit's songs show his mastery of electronic instruments, but also contain acoustic/electric guitar, real drums, and genuine percussion! He mixes all this together to produce music that has feeling- unlike the souless, synthetic sounds of some techno-pop bands. Some influences are obvious, in my opinion. It seems each one of Orbit's CD's contains sections of pure ambient music much like Brian Eno's (though these seem to have decreased with each new release- and I do have them all); he intertwines sequenced rhythms to begin some songs (Water On A Vine Leaf)like Kraftwerk, but in the end it all sounds very original. The fact that Madonna's "Ray of Light" has injected new life into her career is no coincidence; most of it bears Williams Orbit's stamp- production and songwriting. Listen to "Frozen"- it's Orbit, with her voice. All in all, this a terrific CD, original and hypnotic!

I picked up this CD over ten years ago when I was still in college and I still regularly listen to it today. Moody electronica with some really fine drum work and WO's unique synthesizer palette.

His follow-up "Strange Cargo 4: Hinterland" is also excellent. All this before he got snapped up by Madonna...

For WO fans, remember this line? "You have discovered many things, but the shortcut through the labyrinth is not among them."

I finally figured out what this sampled interlude was (I think it's at the beginning of "Best Friend, Paranoia"?); it's a line spoken by the old monk in the movie "The Name of the Rose".

What James Brown is to soul and Bob Dylan is to folk, William Orbit is to the electronic genre. I have found no one to match his melodic, fluid style of new age, with the energy and beat of a dance mix. No two tracks sound the same, and Strange Cargo III is the best of all his albums. Maybe that's why Madonna insisted that he produce her most successful album ever. And what a difference it made.

Orbit has taken the roots laid down by Tangerine Dream and has refined them to a point where he is both ethereal and melodic, hypnotic and awake, soothing and dance-inducing. What a talent.

Strange Cargo III gets off to a quick start with a mellow electronica/dance/lounge feel, then evolves into ambient grooves. Both strains of music are decently written, well performed, and immaculately engineered.

I prefer the more song-oriented beginning tracks, though. "Water From a Vine Leaf" is a soothing, melodic construction of watery ping-ponging analog sounds. Cool, laid back, and user friendly. It's followed by what's probably the best known track from this album, "Into the Paradise," which also appears (in a slightly different mix, I believe) on the Virtuosity soundtrack. "Into the Paradise," with its cleverly sampled and mangled vocal, is captivating, and is my favorite track.

After a couple more songs the album settles down into quiet ambient electronica that is only partially beat-driven. Good stuff for soundtracks, perhaps, but not necessarily enough to hold your full attention.

This album receives a fair bit of negative criticism from (especially) post-Madonna Orbit fans. I'm not going to jump on that bandwagon. I think Strange Cargo III is a fairly strong effort, but might have been better off if it were larger and divided into two separate albums. It's definitely uneven. I don't buy the "his songwriting is sugary and lame" argument, either. Or is sugary and lame suddenly NOT sugary and lame if it has female vocals and French lyrics? (Hey, I like Stereolab and Air, too.)

Perhaps it's that melody and major keys rub a large number of fans of electronic music the wrong way. Me, I'm okay with "Moroder Minor" and "Vangelis Major" and everything in between, as long as it evinces signs of taste and intelligence. And there's no doubt about that in this case.

As a fan of Brian Eno, Depeche Mode, Thomas Dolby, etc. I've been looking for something like this for years. A sales clerk suggested it, and I've got a new musical love. This CD, along with Delerium's "Karma" and Moodswings' "Moodfood", are all awesome CDs ---- I hardly play anything else anymore. The music is complex and multi-layered, yet there is something there which keeps the toe tapping or sends a shiver through the body. Hypnotic, mesmerizing, thoughtful. Excellent music.

After two previous "Strange Cargo" albums, William Orbit finally gets it right; while the previous two were haphazard and uneven, William Orbit seems to have found the right groove with this one. The songs on this CD never get above a dull roar - they are all rather quiet and mellow, and even the more uptempo tracks inspire more of a thoughtful groove than an all-out dance.

I was first introduced to Orbit by a lover; and because of her closeness and importance to me, I may be somewhat subjective here, but William Orbit is great. Deep, intense, and sensual, he invoked memories of the melancholy and freedom of youth, those moments of dreaming that remind you how cool life is to live. Close your eyes, and share with a friend. He definitely swims the deep parts of your soul. Life is better after an evening with wine, a woman, and William. There, I said it.

Even though Strange Cargo III is five years old, it remains one of my favorite Ambient/House CD's to date. Water form a Vine Leaf is a great song. The other songs are also good. If you liked the recent Madonna CD or are a fan of "electronica" music, then I highly reccommend SC 3.

If you only buy five "electronica" albums, Strange Cargo III should be among them. While some might criticize Orbit for being too unfocused, he really finds an ideal synergy between dancish beats so good they're practically hooks in themselves (Track 1, Water from a Vine Leaf, is a perfect example), and some of the more aethereal material one might expect to hear from The Orb. Highly listenable and strongly likely to cause one to want to order further Orbit albums (Strange Cargo-Hinterland being the logical next choice).

Ethereal scintilation from the first note. This is my all-time favorite CD. I once listened to it 4 days straight, nights included, looping over and over and over. Any time spent NOT listening to it felt like wasted time. That was several years ago, but it still gets lots of play.