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The Orb

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This article is about the British electronic music band. To read about the Marvel Comics supervillain known as "The Orb", please see The Orb (comics).

The Orb is a British electronic music band known for pioneering the genre of ambient house. The Orb is heavily influenced by dub music, and much of its output has consistently been in the electronic dub category, more so than ambient house.

Contents

History

Named after the "intoxication orb" in the Woody Allen film Sleeper, The Orb was formed in 1988 by Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty (one half of The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu and later The KLF). The group's first release was the acid house anthem "Tripping on Sunshine", based on a sample from "Walking on Sunshine" by Rockers Revenge and released only on the Eternity Project One compilation.

In May 1989, The Orb released the Kiss EP, which was heavily influenced by New York's Kiss FM. Paterson began DJing around London, England at this time when he met Paul Oakenfold. At Oakenfold's behest, Paterson began DJing at Land of Oz, the chill-out room at Heaven.

Paterson mixed sound samples, including BBC nature recordings and NASA space broadcasts, into the music of ambient pioneers such as Brian Eno. Around this time, Paterson met Steve Hillage and Hillage later contributed guitar to The Orb's Blue Room single. In return, Paterson worked on Hillage's System 7 project.

In October 1989 The Orb released the twenty-two-minute single "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld", which contained large chunks of Minnie Riperton's "Loving You". The single managed to reach the lower end of the U.K. chart. Although Paterson and Cauty had been working on a debut album, the two split in April 1990. Cauty removed Paterson's contributions to the album and released the remainder as Space.

Killing Joke's Youth, who'd recently found dancefloor success with Blue Pearl, assisted with the single "Little Fluffy Clouds", but existing commitments made it impossible for him to be anything more than a part-time member. In his place, Paterson recruited Kris Weston (also known as Thrash), a young studio engineer who had worked on "Little Fluffy Clouds" and had recently left Fortran 5.

In April 1991 The Orb's debut album The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld was released in the United Kingdom to critical acclaim. The double-album obtained a top-thirty placing in the UK

U.F.Orb was released in July 1992. It featured the 40 minute "Blue Room" which was their third single to reach the UK charts, although the album version was only 17 minutes long. Early pressings of the album were available in three differently coloured sealed plastic packs (black (10,000) and blue (5,000) in the UK, and green (1,000) in the US) containing an additional disc with the soundtrack from Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (Patterns & Textures edition), a mail-order-only long form video released by The Orb.

During 1993 and 1994 the group was dismayed by Big Life's intention to re-issue some of The Orb's earlier material. As a result, Paterson and Thrash opted out of their contract and Paterson signed an international deal with Chris Blackwell's Island Records. The double-album Live '93 soon followed. It was a mix of recordings made in Glastonbury, Copenhagen and Tokyo. The album's credits included, Simon Phillips, Nick Burton, Kris Weston, Fluff, and Paterson.

In June 1994, they released their first studio album for Island, Pomme Fritz (The Orb's Little Album). The album reached number six in the UK, but critics hated it, even comparing Paterson to Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett. [[Citing sources citation needed]]

August 1994 saw the release of a collaboration between Robert Fripp, Paterson, Weston, and Thomas Fehlmann, hence the name FFWD or Fripp, Fehlmann, Weston, and Dr Paterson. Weston's input was already diminishing by this time and following the release of FFWD, he finally parted company with Paterson. He was replaced by Thomas Fehlmann.

Orbus Terrarum was released in March 1995. In February 1997, following an ambitious world tour, they released Orblivion.

The retrospective U.F.Off came in October 1998 and was initially available in a Limited Edition double CD.

Cydonia, although recorded in 1999, was delayed by Island until its release in February 2001. Several different versions of the album were leaked on the Net some time before the official release.

The 2004 album Bicycles & Tricycles strongly departed from their earlier ambient sound, and incorporated strong hip-hop influenced rhythms, including rap on one of the tracks.

In 2005 The Orb released a new studio album, Okie Dokie It's the Orb on Kompakt, which returned to the older, more traditional ambient sound of The Orb. Paterson also reunited with his former partner Jimmy Cauty in The Transit Kings.

Orbital mixes

In the early days of their career The Orb's remixes of other artists' songs were often called "Orbital Mixes", sometimes leading to confusion with the techno band Orbital. The Orb stopped this practice after Orbital became popular, hoping not to cause any more confusion.

Contributors

Discography

Singles

Albums

External links

 

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