Orbus Terrarum
The Orb's third full-length studio album states its intention with its title: where their first two records had explored the outer cosmos of dance music,Terrarumis an earthier, less spacy ambient record, more devoted to mapping the sounds at hand. It goes to extremes to avoid the hooks of their early work, and there's barely even a hint of dance beats.  When they do appear, they're mutated, bassy, more to pass through the body than to move to. Considered as music to "listen to," it's mostly pretty dull (though the 17-minute "Slug Dub" is worthy of the Augustus Pablo records and stoned realizations that inspired it). But then Orbus isn't meant to reward attention--it's an album to sit down and dream to.--Douglas Wolk