The Orb actually invented the genre known as ambient house.
Frontman Alex Paterson's formula was pretty simple - he slowed down the rhythms of classic Chicago house and added synth effects.
To make the sound more interesting to the listener, unlike dance music, the band added "blurred" vocal samples. They usually set the rhythm for songs that don't have singing.
The band popularized their genre by appearing on the UK Top of the Pops chart and reaching #1 in the UK with 1992's UFOrb.
The Orb managed to keep their contract with Island Records through the 1990s. Their collaboration did not stop even during the recording of the most complex and experimental works (Pomme Fritz and Orbus Terranum).
During the 2000s, the band began working with the German techno label Kompakt, where they also recorded solo work by one of the band members, Thomas Fellmann.
Okie Dookie It's The Orb On Kompakt is one of the band's simplest and lightest releases, released in 2005.
2010 brought the musicians a successful collaboration with two influential people in music: David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Lee Perry, Scratch.
The Orb returned to the Kompakt label in 2015 with Moonbuilding 2703 Ad, inspired by hip hop. And in 2016, the ambient album COW / ChillOut, World! was released.
Previous albums were followed by electronic vocal work No Sounds Are Out of Bounds.
The beginning of creativity Ze Orb
Paterson worked as an assistant and technician for the band Killing Joke in the 1980s. And he was influenced by the explosion of Chicago house music in England in the mid-1980s. He joined one of the departments of the record company EG Records. It was the label of Brian Eno himself.
Peterson first recorded under the name Orb with Jimmy Cauti (who played on the side project Killing Joke Brilliant and later became known as KLF).
The duo's first release under the name Orb is the acid house song Tripping on Sunshine. The song appeared on the 1988 compilation Eternity Project One.
In May 1989, the band released the Kiss EP, a four-track album with samples.
It was around this time that Paterson began to DJ in London and Paul Oakenfold recruited him into the band Land of Oz.
Album Rainbow Dome Musick
Paterson's ambient music portfolio included a wide range of samples and sound effects, ranging from BBC nature recordings to NASA space broadcasts and various special effects.
With these samples mixed with the music of the industry's leading musicians such as Eno and Steve Hillage, his performances have become a popular alternative for dance floor lovers.
One day Steve Hillage was in the room when Paterson was sampling his Rainbow Dome Musick album.
They became friends and later recorded together: Hillage contributed guitar sound to the band's single The Orb Blue Room. Paterson worked on the debut album of the System 7 Hillage project (or as it is also called in the States, 777, due to copyright problems with Apple).
The Orb style change
The Orb made their first actual jump into ambient house in October 1989 with the release of Paterson's WAU! / Mr. Modolabel".
The 22-minute single A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Center of the Ultraworld quickly hit the UK charts that same year.
The single was sampled with ocean noise and Minnie Riperton's Loving you. The single became popular with indie fans as well as club DJs, and allowed Paterson and Cowty to re-record the song in December 1989 for the John Peel session. (This version was released two years later, along with the second session of Orb's Peel Sessions).
Lilly Was Here
In the early 1990s, Paterson and Kauti were asked by Dave Stewart to remix their single Lilly Was Here. The track hit the UK Top 20 and the remixes soon became as popular as their original material.
Erasure, Depeche Mode, Yello, Primal Scream, and over 20 other bands eventually received remix tributes before Paterson began cutting back on his remix work in 1992.
Chill Out
Paterson and Cauti recorded the album at the turn of 1989-1990, but in April 1990 they decided to end the collaboration. The breakup was the result of Paterson's concerns that the duo would become more known as a KLF side project than as an original band.
Cauti appreciated Paterson's contributions to the recordings and released a self-titled album, Space, that same year.
A short time later Cauti released another ambient album Chill Out, this time with his KLF partner Bill Drummond.
Meanwhile, Paterson was working with Youth (of Killing Joke) on a new track, Little Fluffy Clouds. The melody includes elements of works by composer Steve Reich.
The single appeared in November 1990, drawing the ire of Ricky Lee Jones, whose dialogue with Le Var Burton (of the PBS children's program Reading Rainbow) was sampled for the track's chorus. The issue was later settled out of court for a certain amount.
Although the single did not chart, its laid-back vibe made it a hit on the dance floor.
Successful concerts
Since Kauti left the band for personal reasons, Paterson decided to hire Chris Weston (nicknamed Thrash for his punk and metal origins of the music). He was a young studio engineer who worked on Little Fluffy Clouds and had recently left his previous band Fortran 5.
The Orb performed live for the first time immediately after joining, in early 1991 at London's Town & Country 2.
The band's live success soon became their forte, breaking down the boundaries that had previously separated electronic music from rock. The Orb's show included the best elements of "classic" concerts and club performances, with flashy lighting shows and visuals, and a laid-back positive vibe rarely seen in electronic circles.
The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
All was well, but the band hadn't released an album yet, a vehicle that virtually all modern musicians use to make a statement about their "I".
In April 1991, The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld was released in England to widespread critical acclaim.
By mid-1991, the band signed an agreement to release Ultraworld in the States, but were forced to edit the album to be a single disc. A complete XNUMX-disc version was later released in the US by Island.
Paterson and Trash toured Europe in 1991 and collected some material for the Peel Sessions.
A month later, the duo released The Aubrey Mixes as a Christmas special for fans. The album, a collection of remixes with tweaks from Hillage, Youth and Cowthy, was taken down on the day of its release, but still managed to reach the top 50 in the UK.
Best Single
In June 1992, the new single Blue Room hit the UK Top XNUMX.
The longest single in the chart's history (at approximately 40 minutes) earned the group a spot on Top of the Pops, where they reflected on a game of chess and waved their hands at the camera as the single played in the background for three minutes.
Released in July, UFOrb focused not on space, but on the creatures that inhabit it. In fact, the Blue Room is an installation in which the US government allegedly stores evidence of a mysterious 1947 accident near Roswell, New Mexico.
Leading positions in the charts
The unofficial single Assassin - originally intended to be performed by Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie - followed in October and peaked at number 12 in the UK charts.
The American release of UFOrb followed two months later. UFOrb's limited release in England included a live recording of the band's performance at London's Brixton Academy in 1991. This performance was later released on the Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld: Patterns and Textures CD.
Record company conflict
Although The Orb released several full-length records and many remixes in their first three years of existence, the beginning of 1993 brought about a period of uncertainty that lasted over a year and a half. The problem was not the lack of material; Paterson and Trash continued to record, but Big Life Records began a controversial campaign to re-release several of the early singles.
The band threatened not to release new material until the label promised them they would stop re-releasing and negotiations stalled. At the same time, the duo decided to opt out of their contract.
After that, Big Life spent 1993-1994. to reissue five singles on CD and several other releases, including Little Fluffy Clouds (which hit the UK Top XNUMX), Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain and Perpetual Dawn.
Paterson signed an international contract with Island in 1993 and released Live 93 a little later. The two-disc set, which charted at number 23, included major shows in Europe and Japan.
Pomme Fritz
The Orb's first studio release for Island appeared in June 1994. The album Pomme Fritz was quite far from ambient house. Pomme Fritz reached number 6 in the UK charts, but critics actually hated the work.
Pomme Fritz was also a watershed when Chris Weston's role was greatly reduced. By early 1995, Weston left the band to devote time to his projects.
However, before the duo disbanded, they teamed up for the band's most famous live performance: at the rave bill at Woodstock 2 with Orbital, Aphex Twin and Deee-Lite.
Subsequent work
The new musician after Weston's departure was Thomas Fellmann. Nearly three years after UFOrb, the new and improved band released their third studio album, Orbus Terrarum.
The Dream, released in 2007 in England, featured another line-up change; Youth and Tim Bran from Dreadzone joined the band. The album appeared in 2008 on the American label Six Degrees.
A year later, another work from the Orbsessions series appeared - a soundtrack recorded by Paterson and Thomas Felman. Although the title of the film was Plastic Planet, the LP itself was called Baghdad Batteries.
In 2016, The Orb celebrated the 25th anniversary of their full-length debut, Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, by performing the album in its entirety at London's Electric Brixton. In the same year, she released a series of short works, including the Alpine EP and the Sinin Space series.
