POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Innovative Techno From Orbital

The paradox of techno these days is that the dance-oriented genre’s most interesting and innovative music is not necessarily the most danceable. That was clear on Saturday the instant the English duo Orbital--whose “Snivilisation” album is perhaps the year’s most impressive techno creation--took over from a series of beat-happy deejays at the Shrine Exhibition Hall.

With lasers flickering through the smoky, rococo aura of the room to give just enough of that “Max Headroom” ambience, Orbital’s brother team of Philip and Paul Hartnoll crafted complex ebbs and flows of music--real music, not just pulsating thumps and blips.

And much of the crowd, a multicultural mix of about 3,000--stayed with it, dancing when the music called for it, just standing and soaking in the colorful textures when the beat slowed or disappeared.

The Hartnolls, manipulating various computers and sound generators on a platform erected in the middle of the cavernous hall, still stuck largely to the standard rave methods, sculpting recorded compositions rather than actually performing music in the conventional sense. But they did it with enough craft and originality to escape the borders that often restrict less imaginative technoids.