Chocolate Hills

Alex Paterson's Orb side project Chocolate Hills announced a new song and album recently, the song called Cracking Kraken and the album Yarns From The Chocolate Triangle (out in June). Sometimes I think Orb world is being spread a bit a thin, release after release by multiple incarnations and offshoots but the quality remains high and Cracking Kraken seems to promise a lot- piano, deep sea submersion, ambient sound, distant drums, synths with a rupture towards the end and sampled voices and noises. No doubt it will all make more complete sense in the context of the full album. 

Chocolate Hills is Paul Conboy with Alex. Paul swears off computers using only analogue kit and pre- digital age gear. The ten track album is a musical expedition, an imaginary voyage by sea to the Bermuda Triangle and back. Back in 2019 Chocolate Hills released an album called A Pail Of Air, a deeply ambient and atmospheric seven track exploration of synths, sounds and samples which is one of the highlights of the recent Orb related releases. 

Reclaim

Reboot

Following on from yesterday's ambient Steve Hillage post comes a recent track from the continuing adventures of Dr Alex Paterson, this time collaborating with Paul Conboy as Chocolate Hills. Released last year but missed by me until recently Chocolate Hills put out an album called A Pail Of Air, a gentle, dreamy, laid back and very early 90s affair. Bubbling synths, warm bass, ambient noise and found sound, and occasional voices dropped in discussing science, technology or strange happenings, often those plummy very English voices that pepper the early Orb records. As pleasant a way to spend some time as sitting on a gently sloping hillside in the sun in the summer with nothing much to do except enjoy the surroundings.

Reboot