On three separate occasions on Orb's new 42-minute mini-album, Pomme Fritz, a calm voice intones, "You've just had a heavy session of electroshock therapy, and you're more relaxed than you've been in weeks." The comment seems out of place given the fragmented rhythms and seemingly random electronics that surround it, but it accurately reflects the record's often soothing chaos and ambient disorganization.

While Orb's past offerings were expansive galaxies of sound held together by liquid beats and drifting melodies, Pomme Fritz is a jumbled, disorienting miasma of misfiring neurons and overloaded synapses. Unlike ambient groups that engender hypnosis through minimalism and repetition, Orb inspire awe by splashing a profusion of unfocused noises and samples across a grid of billowing, textured synth lines.

From song to song, scrambled voices, short-circuiting machines, clattering metals and an array of cosmic debris coalesce in a sedate, nearly beat-free environment that ranges in tone from fanciful to frightening. "Pomme Fritz (Meat 'n Veg)" and "Bang'er 'n Chips" bubble, whoosh and undulate like urgent but indiscriminate satellite transmissions, while "We're Pastie to Be Grill You" and "His Immortal Logness" are far quirkier; the former is a multispeed voice collage laid over a whirring sample that sounds like a pinwheel in a heavy breeze, the latter a sinister carnival romp of calliope keyboards and surreal sound bytes that exhibit a uniquely British sense of humor – possibly acquired from too much Monty Python.

Pomme Fritz is surely an aural feast, but for those who value substance over style, it's not entirely filling. None of the songs contains easily discernible melodies, and the record's lack of cohesion leaves it feeling incomplete, despite its many dense layers. But for ambienttechno aficionados who prize atmosphere and otherworldliness above all else and for those who rely on Nintendo and MTV for survival, the album should provide enough sensory stimulation at least until the next round of electroshock therapy. (RS 693)

JON WIEDERHORN