I seem to give glowing reviews of everything I cover here, so I thought I'd reach into my CD collection and pull out something I can't say I'm a huge fan of. William Orbit is his name, and the first in the Strange Cargo series is the unfortunate CD.
Strange Cargo is just so... dated. Sure, it was made in 1987, but that is not an excuse, when Ambient 1 sounds like it could be made today. The album does get off to a bright start, with Via Caliente's catchy spanish guitaring, but it's followed by the abomination of Fire and Mercy, with it's hideously awful drumming, keyboarding and electric guitaring. The start of Silent Signals regains some credibility and reveals Orbit is able to make passable ambient, but it too disintegrates into cliches. The rest of the songs just parade the same ideas out, except Out of the Ice, which amusingly steals the bassline from Blondie's Rapture, before doing absolutely nothing with it.
Strange Cargo is not a good album, in any way shape or form. The second in the series is barely any better either. Mr Orbit seems to be alright at making ambient, and good at producing, he should probably stick with those.
Here's a link to Via Caliente:
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