The Orb @ La Belle Angele, Edinburgh, 26 Jan

The Orb is currently helmed by co-founders Alex Paterson and Michael Rendall and there's a clear love and understanding of the source material between the pair. Paterson is obviously the main composer, but the constant conferring and Rendall's busyness behind the boards suggest that much of the live programming is down to him. Paterson vacillates between ecstatically keen to “man looking for his reading glasses”, depending on the moment.

Their most recent material is definitely on the ambient side of ambient-house, but live they still know how to deliver the goods. A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld is refined down to its most essential elements (i.e. the meandering ambience is gone), and it, along with hits like Blue Room, mean that there's a recognisable thud to the menacing basslines and electronica heft that the duo employ.

The visuals are appropriately psychedelic, including growing and declining empires and landscapes, as well as distorted faces and shapes, all of which burst exuberantly from the admittedly inadequate screen. The pair have been touring this show for a while and it occasionally falls into the overly comfortable zone that any polished DJ performance inevitably does. There isn't a lot of improv, but there's a joyous sense of fun when they drop The Beach Boys' God Only Knows in the middle of the Little Fluffy Clouds medley.

One of the finest aspects of the performance is the dub experiments that Paterson has been dabbling in ever since The Orb got going. There's a wonderful interlude just before Fluffy Clouds and it's followed by a full-on dub-reggae banger that Lee “Scratch” Perry would be proud of. The crowd have been animated enough (as far as middle-aged/lapsed rave hippies are), but they get their best skanking boots on for this reverb-filled finale.

The Orb have mutated and morphed continuously over the past 30+ years, but they've always kept one asset firmly intact: the ability to get the people going.