Pop Music Reviews : Orb’s Live Techno Groove Tough to Beat

Old-fashioned types tend to view with suspicion any music that’s generated by chips and circuits rather than human hands--as if emotional substance is directly proportional to physical proximity between player and sound.

Fans of the electronic dance music called techno have no philosophical problems with the issue. They embrace the music’s surface attractions at face value and use its expressive void as a sort of big psychic playground.

But there is the question: What’s the point of a live performance if every blip is already programmed? At best it would be like listening to the record, but on a better sound system than you have at home. The concert on Thursday at the American Legion Hall by the Orb, the leading force in ambient techno, made a case for the form as more than an insular, studio operation.

There is something to be said for the communal experience--and in this case, with pulsating light show and strobes to enhance the music, the link with the original ‘60s San Francisco communal experience was evident.

There was also a sense of spirit and spontaneity in the music, thanks largely to the presence of live drums and bass kicking around inside the mechanical frameworks. Orb chief Alex Paterson and partner Andy Hughes tapped out a shifting sonic panorama on their keyboards, from symphonic grandeur to percussive clattering that verged on industrial rock.

There was no effort to fuse it to more traditional forms of expression, as the Pet Shop Boys do with their plaintive take on post-disco computer music, but as a functional soundtrack--remember, it is dance music--it would be hard to beat these beats.