[from Rolling Stone]

The Orb
Chicago
The Metro, Oct. 28, 1993.

Lurking inside each of the stocking hats at a rave, there's a Pink Floyd 
fan yearning to break free.  At least that's what the ambient house music 
of the Orb seems to imply.

As part if their first North American tour, the British duo took over the 
Metro, in Chicago, with an armada of special effects and a minimum of 
personality.  Orb DJ Dr. Alex Patterson and engineer Kris Weston (a k a 
Thrash) didn't really perform so much as orchestrate.

Like their two backing musicians - bassist Simon Phillips and 
percussionist Nick Burton - Patterson and Weston operated turntables and 
a mixing board in virtual darkness while lasers flashed and images 
flickered off two huge balloons and a screen framing the stage.

This was a rave for the "comfortably numb," to borrow a bit of Floydian 
imagery, dance music that's best appreciated while sitting down.  
Although there were grooves to be caught, from the whimsy of "Little 
Fluffy Clouds" to the synthetic symphonies of "Blue Room," most of them 
detoured into deep-space bliss.

What separates the Orb from ambient precursors such as Eno and Harold 
Budd is their sense of humor.  A dog's bark, a revving motorcycle engine, 
campy movie dialogue and the clattering of kitchenware disrupt any 
notions that this is music for a New Age tanning salon.

The Orb's compositions are more like collages in which cavernous 
reggae-dub bass lines and rim shots, brittle keyboard effects and 
ululating human voices are constantly reshuffled and discarded, only to 
drift back every few minutes like orbiting poltergeists.  When the late 
Minnie Riperton's voice rode in on a galloping beat and then dissolved 
during "Loving You," the effect was both eerie and sublime.

Moments like that kept the packed house swaying in a collective trance.  
The Orb even inserted a bit of taped conversation in the mix to tout the 
effectiveness of their musical anesthetic:

"Any pain?"
"No."
"Any pain?"
"No."
"Hallelujah!"