Orb* – Oxbow Lakes

I was hesitant to get this at first, but I'm really glad I took the chance. It plays like a mini album, and has a lot to offer. All of the remixes are strong, and very different from each other.

When it comes to the original track, an oxbow lake is part of a curving river that gets separated from the main body of water when sediment causes it to chance course. The shape of the resulting lake looks like an oxbow.

In the song, the melody - especially in the string arrangement - meanders up and down in pitch like a winding river, leaving trills and chords behind like little oxbow lakes.

Who knows if the structure of the melody was intentionally designed to mimic the shape of a winding river (or the oxbow lake left when it changes course), but either way the correspondence is very cool. It's not the greatest sounding melody ever written, but it's certainly creative and interesting in its own right.

In 2019, some copies of this on CD are selling for under $1.00 USD, coming to maybe a few dollars after shipping. IMHO, for that price, this is a no brainer, even if you're only after collecting the essentials of the Orb's catalog.

Oxbow Lakes blew me away when I first heard it back in the day and it hasn't lost any of its power, for me this is the Orb at their absolute best. I love the classical Evensong version on this too. Essential!

The "Everglades mix" by A Guy Called Gerald is the best version on here (works well when spun at a slower speed too)

A collection of weak remixes of a relatively average track from the "Orbus Terrarum" album, made slightly interesting by the inclusion of a version arranged for strings.