Orbital – Belfast / Wasted
1995
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Best comments
1.“These sound so much better when not blasted through early-'90s VW Golf speakers at motorway speeds... no wonder I have tinnitus now.”
More comments
- 2.“The female voice's melody was composed in the 10th century by Hildegard von Bingen. It has something heavenly.”
- 3.“First time I played this to my mum, it was about 4:30 in the morning. I'd just got home from a rave and the sun was coming up. It was a brilliant day.”
The story
Orbital's Belfast started life in the winter of 1989 as a drumless ambient piece by Paul Hartnoll. Then the 909 drum machine went on. In May 1990 David Holmes booked Phil and Paul Hartnoll for a club night at Belfast's Art College, and the duo left a demo tape behind. Holmes fell for the second track on it, and they named it after the city that treated them so well. It came out in January 1991 on the III EP, floating on a borrowed soprano: Emily Van Evera singing O Euchari, a piece by Hildegard von Bingen.
Wasted is the same track with a new vocal on top, sung by Grant Fulton. It first showed up in 1992 on Volume Three, part of a British series that was half music magazine, half CD compilation. In 1995 it became a single, with this video, to push Volume's best-of collection of electronic and dance tracks, also called Wasted. A Therapy? remix rode along on the CD.
London Records put the video up in 2017, and the Wasted vocal mix now sits on the expanded reissue of Orbital's 1991 debut, the Green Album. One good night in Belfast, one forgotten demo tape, and the track is still getting reissued more than thirty years later. Always leave your tapes behind.
