Various

Sure, we all knew that Dr. Alex Paterson (the whacked-out mad scientist behind electronic composers the Orb) was weird. After all, he did dub his first composition "A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Centre of the Ultraworld." Lately, he's turned his attention to Badorb, an internet-only label so deeply underground that they pressed only the amount of twelve-inch singles that were pre-ordered. But now Badorb is releasing a compilation of their monthly offerings (originally timed to the Native American lunar calendar, naturally) with Bless You: The Chronicles of Badorbs's Adventures in Gardenia - Chapter One. The liner notes are gobbledegook, but the double-disc set contains ten tracks co-written by Patterson, two new, "official" Orb singles and a bunch of Dr. A approved ambient house. Kyle Zeto's acoustic off-key ode to milk aside, the set follows the Orb's basic blueprint - offering electronic effects, out-there samples and an epic outer space-iness. While the Orb tracks are fine, they don't climb up to their proven creative peaks, and too often the lesser-known artists, like S.E. Berlin, Autolump and Loophead, lose their way, falling into a texture trap where their music becomes palatable only to numb-brained come-downs. But for the most part, Bless You... is ideal companion music for puffing a fatty and staring up at the starry multi-verse.