William Orbit - Odyssey

There’s no denying that William Orbit is a bit of a musical legend. He’s produced for everyone from Blur to Madonna to All Saints (hey, they had some good songs), and helped pioneer the progressive house movement by co-founding the seminal Guerilla Records back in 1989. No qualms with his past form.
 
But this triple CD for Ministry Of Sound seams rather misplaced, in all senses. OK, it’s a coup getting him to do his first ever compilation, no doubt – but is he really so relevant to an electronic music lover any more? He’s currently producing Katie Melua’s new album apparently, and has recently been working as part of an art collective called Luxor alongside a former English National Ballet dancer – so on that evidence, not very relevant.
 
That’s not reason enough to discount a compilation though. A messy, inconsistent tracklisting is though. It’s a mixture of some of his own productions, along with some of his favourite tracks from over the years – and just a handful of recent ones. Some of the best pieces from his production vault are showcased on Disc 1 – the resolute pop stylings of All Saints’ oft-forgotten track, Black Coffee, for instance - alongside inspirations like John Barry’s Wednesday’s Child (revealing where Dr. Dre got a sample from for one of his Xzibit productions). Much of the first disc sounds incredibly dated though, and not in a particularly charming sort of way.
 
Disc 2 gets better after a while, with super-slinky funk on Eddie Harris’ It’s All Right Now, Paul Epworth’s cute remix of Amadou & Mariam’s Sabali, bluesy soul from Bill Cosby (!) & Quincy Jones, P-funk perfection from Chromeo and Henrik Schwarz’s deep, bubbling re-rub of Kraak & Smaak’s No Sun In The Sky. But amidst all this and Sasha’s sublime Wavy Gravy, there are misnomers like the incredibly bad R&B of Bash Bash’s Suga Suga telling us that “you got me shifted, lifted….so high like I’m a star”. Dear god why?
 
The third disc sees him mix up a “club set”, which is a generally decent affair – but it’s full of tracks that have been played and played for ages and featured on countless compilations (Deadmau5’s The Reward Is Cheese, Hook n Sling & Kid Kenboi’s The Bump), and it jumps from electro to breaks to the cheesy house of Freemasons before finishing with Orbit’s classic Water From A Vine Leaf. It’s a sloppy affair really.
 
I just don’t really see the point of this. It doesn’t feel coherent. There are some great tracks, sure, but it’s not enough to keep you nearly entertained over 3 discs – nor does it really prove why he was deemed a legend in the first place.