On June 28^th, Orbital made a triumphant return to Glastonbury, the site of their famous 1994 headlining concert. Back then the helmet-lighted brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll, were among the earliest acts to bring electronic music to the festival. This year, Glasto celebrated its 40th anniversary and the Orbital brothers their 20th.

Never completely off the radar since breaking into the rave scene with the cassette-made “Chime” and “Satan” from their self-title debut in 1991, they broke up in 2004, after several albums of varying success (that included several collaborations with Alison Goldfrapp) to pursue individual projects; they reunited in 2009 for the Big Chill Festival.

Over the past few months they have been thrilling fans with a bombastic couple of new tracks, premiering them at some of the world’s bigger festivals including Winter Music Conference and Coachella. In addition to a spectacular live performance that is blowing up the internet, they have also been working on a new album, one track at a time. The complete product is loosely slated for release in early 2011. In the meantime, we caught up with Phil at home in Brighton, England, which apparently has “always been something of a party town, going back to the Victorian days.” At the time due to licensing sensitivities, we couldn’t discuss Matt Smith closing their set by joining them onstage for a “Doctor Who” inspired DJ set. But considering “Doctor?” from 2001’s The Altogether album, was a big part of their live performance, one could’ve guessed. We did manage to talk about the resurgence of electronica in pop music and how a volcano in Iceland led to nuptials far above Las Vegas.

URB: Welcome back and thanks for the two tracks, but how many years do we have to wait for the rest?

PHIL HARTNOLL: That’s all that we’ve done. We took a bit of a break, had to stop. We got in a bit of a rut, creatively. It wasn’t a personal thing. We just lost our way a bit. Paul wanted to work on a personal project that was more orchestral and we just left it at that. I went and worked on my own thing for a while. We reformed year before last for the Big Chill festival and it just seemed right to keep going.

URB: Considering you’re brothers, was there any sibling acrimony?

PH: We had so much fun getting back together again, we thought “Shall we go back in the studio again?” We enjoyed making these two tracks. And in between the festivals this year, we’re working to get the album ready.

URB: Why the hold-out on new material?

PH: We’ve only been playing these two tracks because that’s all we have! We’re not holding out! I think it’s better to work toward an album, especially these days since the whole album concept is dying out anyway. But we didn’t want to go on tour without new material, just doing old favorites. We wanted to bring fresh sounds to the audience, so we worked on these two tracks.

URB: So for the record, there are no “leaked” new Orbital tracks floating around the internet….

PH: They don’t even exist! Have you found any? I’d love to hear it! It’s incredible how fast music breaks online now, it’s ridiculous. I’m lucky to have had a career going back 20 years now.

URB: You have been such a big part of the electronic revival. A lot of people are reuniting; what’s going on?

PH: Well, if you live long enough, you come back in to fashion, as they say.

URB: I heard there’s a surprise planned for Glastonbury’s 40th Anniversary?

PH: That’s a top secret. Rules are so cautious, it might blow it. The penalties are kind of stiff, so we have to be really careful.

URB: What’s planned for Glasto that you can talk about?

PH: Well, there’s going to be a few lasers….

URB: Wouldn’t be a party without a few lasers. I heard your Coachella set was pretty awesome.

PH: One of my favorite moments was when a group of people crushed a pile of glo-sticks and used a blanket to create a volcano of glo-sticks.

URB: How was WMC?

PH: The first time we went we didn’t know what the fuck was going on, it was all guest list this and that. It wasn’t much of a conference, at all, really. A bit chaotic. But we’ve got the hang of it now.

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