Music Releases

Orbital Drops New “Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)” ft. The Mediaeval Baebes

Published

1 year ago

December 8, 2022

Orbital has just released their new single “Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)” featuring The Mediaeval Baebes through London Records, today (December 7, 2022). The track is the second to be unveiled from Orbital’s forthcoming artist album Optical Delusion, which is set for release on February 17, 2023 (pre-order). “Ringa Ringa” is the follow-up to their BBC6 Music playlisted lead single “Dirty Rat,” an incendiary collaboration with Sleaford Mods whose brilliant video has swiftly racked up half a million views.

The opening track from the new album, “Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)” returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. A chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialize to sing “Ring O’Roses,” the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

Orbital’s new 10-track studio album, Optical Delusion, is fittingly the group’s 10th album — and it’s slated for release on February 17, 2023 (see full track listing below). Be sure to pre-order the forthcoming LP from Orbital, ahead of its early-in-the-coming-year release.

“It was a track made in the pandemic and I felt a real pull to use the vocal from Ring O’Roses, the original pandemic song from the Middle Ages. It made me feel a connection with all those who suffered before without the help of our modern technology. The music reflects the modern world while The Mediaeval Baebes vocals take us back to the times it has happened before, an old song becomes relevant again.” – Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll