Orbital are an English electronic music duo from Dunton Green, Kent, England, consisting of brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll.

The catalogues of Tamla Motown, ZTT and Trojan Records, and the classic rock of bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Genesis, were also influential.

The track became a rave anthem, reaching number 17 in the UK charts and earning them an appearance on Top of the Pops, during which they wore anti-Poll Tax T-shirts.

The track received its first live airing at a club night hosted by the promoter Que Pasa (Mark, Andrew and Nick Maddox) in a local Sevenoaks venue called the Grasshopper on Boxing Day.

The track featured a sample of Kirsty Hawkshaw from "It's a Fine Day" (a chart hit for Opus III earlier that year).

The B-side "The Naked and the Dead" was similarly based on a line from Scott Walker's rendition of Jacques Brel's song "Next".

The track consisted of two slightly delayed, looped samples of a line from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Time Squared spoken by actor Michael Dorn as the character Lieutenant Worf: "... where time becomes a loop" being played simultaneously through the left and right channels, respectively (until one cycle of phase difference has happened).

[1] Orbital won an NME award for Vibes Best Dance Act early in 1994, but it was their headline appearance at the Glastonbury Festival on 25 June 1994 that brought them most attention.

[4] Crucially, the expanded TV coverage of the 1994 Glastonbury Festival by Channel 4 meant that Orbital's set reached a huge audience, in what is regarded as a pivotal moment.

"[3] Orbital gave an improvisational element to live electronic music as the brothers mixed and sequenced their tracks on the fly, wearing their trademark head-mounted torches behind banks of equipment.

– four minutes of silence, a reference to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, which was in part intended to clamp down on the rave scene which had given birth to Orbital.

The Altogether, released in 2001, included guest vocals by the Hartnolls' brother-in-law David Gray, a sampled Ian Dury, and a version of the Doctor Who theme, and was mixed for 5.1 surround sound.

On 21 November 2008, Orbital announced they would be reforming to play a gig together called "20 years after Chime" at The Big Chill Festival 2009.

In October 2011, Orbital announced a six gig UK tour (including a date at the Royal Albert Hall) and new album in April 2012.

The album titled Wonky was released on 2 April 2012, and included collaborations with singer Zola Jesus and MC Lady Leshurr.

On 21 October 2014, Orbital announced on their official website that they were "hanging up their iconic torch-glasses and parting ways for the final time"[20] but would continue to work on projects separately.

Phil Hartnoll focused on a DJ career, including a performance at Fuji Rock Festival,[21] while Paul Hartnoll worked on a variety of music projects, including a solo album under the name 8:58 in 2015, a collaboration with Vince Clarke of Erasure called 2Square, and soundtrack work for Peaky Blinders and American Ultra.

In 2019, Orbital revealed plans for a 30th anniversary album, which would feature a compilation of updated versions of their songs created by themselves and their contemporaries.

The track "Forever" on Snivilisation samples a speech by Graham Crowden from the 1982 Lindsay Anderson film Britannia Hospital, in which he lambasts humankind;[32] and "You Lot" on the Blue Album included a confrontational, partially vocoded sample of Christopher Eccleston playing the second coming of Jesus Christ in the TV two-part series The Second Coming written by Russell T Davies.

Although only the phrase "New Age Travellers" from John Major's 1992 Conservative Party conference speech is retained in the 1995 single release of Sad But New,[33] Orbital first unveiled the track including a fuller version of the speech in March 1995 as part of a live broadcast on BBC Radio 1 "Interactive Radio Night", and as a response to the newly passed Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

On the same album, "Dŵr Budr", Welsh for "dirty water", was inspired by the Sea Empress oil spill which took place just off the southern coast of Wales in February 1996.

The video for 2018 single "P.H.U.K" (off Monsters Exist) features photography taken from British news services, with loose references to Brexit, the London fatberg, the Grenfell Tower fire, moped crime, and the 2010s migrant crisis, among other current events, and the title "Please Help United Kingdom" reappearing.

Although not strictly political, the track "There Will Come a Time" (also featured on Monsters Exist) includes a spoken passage by the physicist Brian Cox, where he addresses the future of an expanding universe and the inevitable demise of the Earth, and urges mankind to care for the planet and maintain a peaceful existence while the Earth is still our home.

Starting in 2019, live performances of the track "Impact (The Earth Is Burning)" have included a sampled speech from Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, declaring "Our house is on fire.