|
The Orb are an English electronic music group known for popularising chill out music in the 1990s and spawning the genre of ambient house. Founded in 1988 by Alex Paterson and KLF member Jimmy Cauty, The Orb began as ambient and dub DJs in London. Their early performances were inspired by ambient and electronic artists of the 1970s and 1980s, most notably Brian Eno and Kraftwerk. Because of their "trippy" sound, The Orb developed a cult following among clubbers "coming down" from drug-induced highs. The Orb has maintained their drug-related and science fiction themes despite personnel changes including the departure of Cauty and other Orb members Kris Weston, Simon Phillips, and Andy Hughes. Paterson has been the only permanent member, continuing to work as The Orb with the Swiss-German producer Thomas Fehlmann.
Alex Paterson prides The Orb on manipulating obscure samples beyond recognition in their albums and concerts; however, his unauthorised use of other artist's work has led to disputes with musicians such as Rickie Lee Jones. During their live shows of the 1990s, The Orb performed using digital audio tape machines optimised for live mixing and sampling before switching to laptops and digital media. Despite changes in their performance method, The Orb have maintained their colourful light shows and psychedelic imagery in concert. These visually intensive performances prompted many critics to compare The Orb to Pink Floyd.
The Orb's critical and commercial success in the UK peaked in the early 1990s with their albums The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld and U.F.Orb, which reached #1 on the UK Albums Chart. This success led to their infamous appearance on Top of the Pops, where they showcased their quirky style by playing chess while the group's single "Blue Room" ran in the background. The Orb's mid-1990s albums were met with mixed reactions from UK critics; however, their work received praise from American publications such as Rolling Stone. They experimented with vocalists on their next two albums, which critics generally described as bland and uninspired. The Orb shifted to the minimalist techno style spearheaded by member Thomas Fehlmann, releasing their new material on the record label Kompakt.
The Orb's members have drawn from an assortment of influences in their music. The Orb's central figure, Alex Paterson, had early musical tastes and influences which included King Tubby, Alice Cooper, Prince, Kraftwerk, and T.Rex. Among these, Paterson cites Kraftwerk as one of the most important, claiming they created the foundation from which all modern dance music has been built. While in Brixton with Martin Glover as a teenager, Paterson was also exposed to a large amount of reggae music, such as The Mighty Diamonds, The Abyssinians, and Bob Marley. The reggae influence on Paterson and The Orb can readily be heard in tracks such as the single "Perpetual Dawn" and U.F.Orb's "Towers of Dub". The earliest ambient influences of The Orb came in 1979 during Paterson's roadie days with Killing Joke. While with the band in Neuss, Paterson listened to Brian Eno's Music for Films while on LSD and watched "the Ruhr steel works explode in the distance", noting that "The scene seemed to be taking place in the music as well". That same night, Paterson was also inspired while listening to Cluster's Grosses Wasser and found that the steel works' "huge metal arms were crushing molten rocks in time to the music", which was something he'd "never seen, or heard, anything like it before". Along with Cluster and Kraftwerk, Paterson was also influenced by other German experimental music from Can and composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Modulations calls Paterson's music a "maximal" version of Brian Eno's "minimal" ambience, though according to Paterson, Eno resents Paterson's use of his music as an influence.
The Orb has often been described as "The Pink Floyd of the Nineties", however, Paterson has stated that The Orb's music is more influenced by experimental electronic music more so than progressive rock of the 1970s. He has noted though that the Pink Floyd album Meddle was influential to him as a child in the 1960s. The psychedelic prog-rock similarities have led critics to describe The Orb as hippie revivalists; however, Paterson has strongly rejected the tag, claiming that even as a youth, he was "one of those punks who hated hippies".
During production of Cydonia and Bicycles & Tricycles, Paterson's biggest influences were drum and bass and trip hop music, as seen on the tracks "Ghostdancing", "Thursday's Keeper", and "Aftermath". The Orb's more recent influences consist largely of German techno producers, such as Triola, who themselves were inspired by The Orb's earlier work. Paterson cites the music of Kompakt as one of his primary modern influences and claims it to be among the best modern ambient music.
|
