Orbits (Norway) – Broken Glass (single)

We rarely feature R&B because it’s a genre that I find hard to classify; to identify what makes any song better or worse than the others.

But then I recalled that on the previous occasion I was sent a press release about Orbits and followed it up, that particular piece, ‘Synthetic Sweetness,’ what I heard was (quote) “this is getting to be more like The Giants of Jazz meets Cream meets Emerson, Lake and Palmer every minute.”

And so with ‘Broken Glass’, Orbits’ first single of 2025 ahead of their debut album dropping later in the year.

It’s like a guided tour of contemporary stylisations, starting off with a funky R&B riff, complete with a bass guitar that sounds like an industrial piling machine, some silky tight percussion and the soothing syrupy vocals of Natalie Sandtorv (aka Neon Ion).

Then about a third of the way in it morphs into a jazz-rock piece after which, with the addition of ever more instrumentation including a strings section from Macedonia’s Frames Project (it it were visual it would be a kaleidoscope), it progresses into an outro of jazz-prog. (I don’t know if such a sub genre existed previously but it does now).

Quite a few analogies are offered including Sade but if that’s the case I’d like to know what she was on.

In the 1970s ‘total football’ was played by the Dutch national team. This is as close to ‘total music’ as I’ve heard.

Orbits is Lars Horntveth (Jaga Jazzist), the producer Erlend Mokkelbost and vocalist Natalie Sandtorv (Neon Ion).

Find them on:

Orbits –

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/orbits_band/