Cydonia is the fifth studio album by the Orb

The Orb

Throughout 1989, the Orb, along with Martin Glover, developed the musical genre of ambient house through the use of a diverse array of samples and recordings. The culmination of its musical work came toward the end of the year when the group recorded a session for John Peel on BBC Radio 1...

, released on Island Records

Island Records

Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...

 in the UK and MCA Records

MCA Records

MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...

 in the US. Alex Paterson

Alex Paterson

Alex Paterson is an English musician and co-founder of the ambient group The Orb, in which he has worked since its inception....

 and Thomas Fehlmann

Thomas Fehlmann

Thomas Fehlmann , is a Swiss-born composer/producer who currently lives in Berlin, and has been active in electronic music as far back as the 1980s. He is currently active on the Kompakt record label based in Germany...

, along with usual collaborators Andy Hughes

Andy Hughes

Andy Hughes was an English electronic music producer from Harrow, Middlesex . He is most known for his work with The Orb, where he helped mix and produce Orbus Terrarum, Orblivion, and Cydonia, as well as The Orb's singles from this period. Hughes left The Orb during the production of Cydonia,...

, Nick Burton, and Simon Phillips

Simon Phillips (producer)

Simon Phillips is an artist. He was a music producer as a member of The Orb and founding member of Prayerbox. He was threatened with legal action by artist Damien Hirst over his ownership and the content of http://www.damien-hirst.co.uk/.-References:...

, wrote and produced Cydonia for a planned 1999 release. Featured on the album are Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...

, John Roome, and Fil Le Gonidec, who had previously only worked with the Orb in live performances.

Production

Unlike previous Orb albums, Cydonia featured several proper songs with vocals, which critics felt did not sound similar to Orb songs. Singers Nina Walsh and Aki Omori appeared on two tracks each on Cydonia, providing vocals and co-writing lyrics with Paterson, who felt that this new direction for the Orb was more similar to the experimental work of Orbus Terrarum, rather than the poppish techno of Orblivion. The Orb produced two CDs worth of material for the album and eventually cut it down for the final release. However, to the displeasure of Paterson, large portions of both CDs were leaked through Napster

Napster

Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...

. As Island Records was trapped in major-label-restructuring limbo because of its recent merger between the MCA and PolyGram families that created Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...

, Cydonia was not released until 2001.

Critical reception

Upon release, critics noted that Cydonia merged together pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

, trance

Trance music

Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...

, and ambient-dub, which they felt to be a conglomeration of bland vocals and uninventive ambience. NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

harshly described it as "a stillborn relic, flawed throughout by chronically stunted ambitions" and describing its only appropriate audience to be "old ravers" seeking nostalgia. With the album came the single "Once More" featuring remixes from Bedrock

Bedrock (producers)

Bedrock is a British trance and house production duo, featuring John Digweed and Nick Muir. They produced the singles "For What You Dream Of" , "Set In Stone" / "Forbidden Zone" , "Heaven Scent" and "Voices" , all of which reached the UK Singles Chart...

 and Mark Pritchard

Mark Pritchard

Mark Andrew Pritchard is a Conservative Party politician in England. He has been the Member of Parliament for The Wrekin in Shropshire since the 2005 general election.-Early and Porfessional life:...

. Paterson believed that "Centuries", another vocal piece from Cydonia, was also worth releasing as a single, but Island chose to wait and see how successful the album was before making a final decision. Not only did the album receive poor reviews, but The Orb was frequently regarded by the UK press as past the peak years of the creative years, being an "ambient dinosaur" out of place in the current dance music environment. After the release of Cydonia, Hughes left the group, becoming "another acrimonious departure from The Orb".

Track listing

1. "Once More" – 4:17
2. "Promis" – 5:27
3. "Ghostdancing" – 7:29
4. "Turn It Down" – 8:38
5. "Egnable" – 1:59
6. "Firestar" – 0:46
7. "A Mile Long Lump of Lard" – 6:21
8. "Centuries" – 4:22
9. "Plum Island" – 5:22
10. "Hamlet of Kings" – 7:56
11. "1.1.1" – 0:36
12. "Thursday's Keeper" – 4:09
13. "Terminus" – 11:16 (w/ Robert Fripp
    Robert Fripp
    Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...
    
    )

UK edition

1. "Once More" – 4:17
2. "Promis" – 5:27
3. "Ghostdancing" – 7:29
4. "Turn It Down" – 8:38
5. "Egnable" – 1:59
6. "Firestar" – 0:46
7. "A Mile Long Lump of Lard" – 6:21
8. "Centuries" – 4:22
9. "Plum Island" – 5:22
10. "Hamlet of Kings" – 7:56
11. "1.1.1" – 0:36
12. "EDM" - 4:12
13. "Thursday's Keeper" – 4:09
14. "Terminus" – 11:16 (w/ Robert Fripp)

Remastered and Expanded edition - 2008

CD1

1. "Once More" – 4:17
2. "Promis" – 5:27
3. "Ghostdancing" – 7:29
4. "Turn It Down" – 8:38
5. "Egnable" – 1:59
6. "Firestar" – 0:46
7. "A Mile Long Lump of Lard" – 6:21
8. "Centuries" – 4:22
9. "Plum Island" – 5:22
10. "Hamlet of Kings" – 7:56
11. "1.1.1" – 0:36
12. "EDM" - 4:12
13. "Thursday's Keeper" – 4:09
14. "Terminus" – 11:16 (w/ Robert Fripp)

CD2

1. "Centuries (Eurofen Mix)" - 4:42
2. "Ghostdancing (Version)" - 6:45
3. "Hamlet Of Kings (Version)" - 7:58
4. "Firestar (Version)" - 1:14
5. "Centuries (Wine, Woman & King Mix)" - 4:01
6. "Once More (Scourge Of The Earth Mix)" - 4:53
7. "Plum Island (Flat Mix)" - 5:21
8. "Promis (Version)" - 5:46
9. "Once More (Bedrock Edit 2)" - 8:04
10. "Turn It Down (Long Version)" - 9:03
11. "Terminus (Andy's Mix)" - 11:07