Orbital - The Box - REMEMBER EARTH CLEARLY

November 24, 2005 7:33 PM

The Box [low-fi mid-nineties MPEG-1; music here]
posted by ab'd al'Hazred (40 comments total)

It's a video for a song called The Box, by the band Orbital?
posted by jonson at 7:45 PM on November 24, 2005

It's a video for a song called The Box, by the band Orbital.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 7:49 PM on November 24, 2005

Well, it's no photos of monkeys riding other non-monkey animals, I'll say that much.
posted by jonson at 7:53 PM on November 24, 2005

In my country, we do not have alcohol.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 7:54 PM on November 24, 2005

are there beedogs atleast?
posted by blue_beetle at 8:20 PM on November 24, 2005

There is a dog dressed as a hoverfly.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 8:25 PM on November 24, 2005

am i supposed to bee thankful for this?
posted by tsarfan at 8:43 PM on November 24, 2005

It's an old music video, and not typical MeFi material, perhaps. We thrive on fresh memes...

That said, I haven't seen it in about four years. It's a classic video of its era, and it's hard not to love its use of the hammered dulcimer. So, thanks for that.
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:58 PM on November 24, 2005

It's always meme meme meme with you people.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 9:01 PM on November 24, 2005

Apparently, Gertrude Stein lives.

There is also this, about turkeys turning tables.

And finally, should any of you heathens doubt the fact of reincarnation, Buddy Rich returns as Fluffy.
posted by rob511 at 9:07 PM on November 24, 2005

I don't think any of us expected him to say that.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 9:13 PM on November 24, 2005

I love this video.

If you liked this track, definitely seek out the full-length EP of "The Box". It's a mix of the track that extends to nearly a half-hour, with part four featuring vocals by Grant Fulton and Alison Goldfrapp. It's very rare -- only 30,000 copies of it were even released in the U.S. It's also out of print and not available on any music download sites (except P2P, of course).
posted by Down10 at 9:41 PM on November 24, 2005 [1 favorite]

That woman looks like Tilda Swinton. Anyone know?
posted by zardoz at 10:57 PM on November 24, 2005

I was just thinking the same thing. IMDB is no help, tho'.
posted by maryh at 11:06 PM on November 24, 2005

IMDB is no help, tho'.
Oh but it is... I mean, if you believe some random trivia entry in her bio. So, yes, it is Tilda Swinton, good catch, zardoz.
posted by jonson at 11:10 PM on November 24, 2005

Good eye, jonson, I missed that.
I respect her enough to be offended by the IMDB biographer refering to her as "carrot-topped." Is that ever called for?
posted by maryh at 11:18 PM on November 24, 2005

once. and even then, only as a warning.
posted by jonson at 11:28 PM on November 24, 2005

must boil eyes...
posted by maryh at 11:30 PM on November 24, 2005

hey, I warned you.
posted by jonson at 11:31 PM on November 24, 2005

I swear I never entered his website. Really. No, I really mean it. Really.
posted by bat at 11:33 PM on November 24, 2005

If you liked this track, definitely seek out the full-length EP of "The Box". It's a mix of the track that extends to nearly a half-hour, with part four featuring vocals by Grant Fulton and Alison Goldfrapp. It's very rare -- only 30,000 copies of it were even released in the U.S. It's also out of print and not available on any music download sites (except P2P, of course).

ahh - i lost that track - came as a bonus CD with the incredible Insides album, and i left it somewhere at a lan party back in '98 or so...
posted by spacediver at 12:36 AM on November 25, 2005

MetaFilter: It's always meme meme meme with you people.
posted by Pendragon at 12:43 AM on November 25, 2005

top-of-the-range lurkage ab'd al'Hazred. You'd win prizes for that on some sites.

Plenty of other Orbital videos on their Loopz site. Good reminder.
posted by NinjaPirate at 2:16 AM on November 25, 2005

ab'd al'Hazred, you've been away for five years. Five years! Just out of curiosity, did this video wring from you a cry of "I've been searching, searching, ever searching for that special something that will draw me back into the kaleidoscopic maelstrom of folly that is MetaFilter... and now, at last, I have found it"? Or have you simply been in suspended animation since 2000?
posted by languagehat at 5:35 AM on November 25, 2005

I was hoping this was a link to the MTV series that ran sometime in the mid 80's, I think it was called "the Box". The show was just a bunch of cool graphic design animated to "Art of Noise"-like music. I thought it was revolutionary at the time.
posted by tfmm at 6:10 AM on November 25, 2005 [1 favorite]

back to the video at hand:
imagine that this were proposed today.
d'you think they'd actually take the time to pose ms swinton for the aching amount of time it must have taken for each shot?
i doubt it. seems to me that they'd just shoot the street footage, and superimpose a cgi character into the scenes.
any thoughts?

ps I have a copy of that bonus EP (regretfully sold the original in a dreary period of unemployment) and it's excellent. The 20-odd minute version of The Box has some great moments (I wouldn't call the vocal movement one of them), but overall, it's an excellent bonus, and a great companion to Orbital's best album - Insides.
posted by Al_Truist at 6:22 AM on November 25, 2005 [1 favorite]

tfmm you are talking about MTV's AMP series. Ahh, memories of watching videos like this one and far out trip fests like Juno Reactor, Josh Wink, and amazing videos such as those from Daft Punk. I was 14 years old and had just heard my first techno music: Aphex Twin's Richard D. James album and the Chemical Brothers.

I used to stay up till 2AM Sunday morning to catch AMP and see some of the craziest videos ever made. And to this day I am an electronica freak.

Thanks for taking me back ab'd al'Hazred.
posted by daHIFI at 9:15 AM on November 25, 2005 [1 favorite]

imagine that this were proposed today.
d'you think they'd actually take the time to pose ms swinton for the aching amount of time it must have taken for each shot?
i doubt it. seems to me that they'd just shoot the street footage, and superimpose a cgi character into the scenes.
any thoughts?

I think the concept only works if actually executed. This video is amazing because it was. If it were created with CG and masking then it would just be a lazy visual effect that may seem stylish but by no means remarkable.
posted by effwerd at 9:19 AM on November 25, 2005 [1 favorite]

I was in ZANZIBAR.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 10:19 AM on November 25, 2005

Cool!
posted by languagehat at 11:02 AM on November 25, 2005

Unless you live just outside Zanzibar, presumably.
posted by NinjaPirate at 4:47 PM on November 25, 2005

Or you think you do.

So is there a dog dressed as a hoverfly?
posted by mendel at 9:07 PM on November 25, 2005

AMP was a great show... i don't think there's anything remotely like that on any tv channel today.
posted by cell divide at 9:29 PM on November 25, 2005

My good friend was kind enough to take some videotapes of AMP a friend of mine had made and put together a decent 'best-of' DVD. I'm not offering it, since that'd be, y'know, copywrong and all that, but ever once in awhile I pull it out, watch it, and remember just how freaking amazing that show was. MTV never promoted it really, and it just faded into obscurity after a few episodes. Tragic.

That being said: ab'd al'Hazred, you seem like an intelligent and nice person, but after your 5+ year hiatus you're now batting 2 for 2 in the 'single link with no description on the front page' department. Apparently in your most recent, you couldn't even be bothered to do more than name the post as the URL. There's a site for that sort of thing, it's called del.icio.us, and I'd recommend you use it for that sort of thing; save Metafilter for the sort of thoughtful exposition you demonstrate in your comments.

In short, you can do better.
posted by wolftrouble at 10:01 PM on November 25, 2005

effwerd: word to that.
posted by Al_Truist at 1:24 AM on November 26, 2005

wolftrouble - the status of single link posts is debatabale, and debated, in meta, not here.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:36 AM on November 26, 2005 [1 favorite]

I will say, though, that a very significant proportion of these posts are single links.
posted by ab'd al'Hazred at 6:02 AM on November 26, 2005

Yes ab'd, why did you refrain from regaling us with tales of your youth spent watching this video, complete with links to different Wikipedia articles and fansites? Oh I feel so unfulfilled!
posted by Edible Energy at 11:41 AM on November 30, 2005 [1 favorite]

Ahh, Orbital ...
posted by carter at 8:02 PM on November 30, 2005 [1 favorite]

I think Wong Kar Wai was doing something similar at about the same time.
posted by carter at 8:05 PM on November 30, 2005