The many members of the Orb’s loose collective have been fluid over the years, with Alex Paterson remaining the only constant throughout. A West Norwood resident, punk and acid house veteran, Paterson’s career in music started in the early 1980s as a roadie for Killing Joke, for whom his childhood friend Martin ‘Youth’ Glover played bass. After leaving the Killing Joke crew in ‘86, Paterson met future KLF member Jimmy Cauty and the duo began DJing together as The Orb.
The pair started a residency in the chill out room of legendary London club night The Land of Oz, at London’s Heaven, where they forged a sonic-tapestry style of DJing, which encompassed a wide and esoteric range of sounds, mixed into a cerebral melange aimed as an alternative to main-room dancefloor energy.
In 1988 Patterson and Youth put together the seminal acid house/Balearic label WAU! Mr. Modo Records, and by 1990 the friends had released the bona-fide classic ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’, which borrowed a sample from Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, and transported it to another dimension.
In 1991, Paterson invited Andy Falconer to join the Orb, alongside Kris “Thrash” Weston. Steve Hillage, whom Paterson had met while DJ-ing in London, came on-board as a guitarist. Also bolstered by the addition of Thomas Fehlmann, the Orb completed several tracks for their first album, ‘The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’.
1992 saw the single ‘Blue Room’ reach # 8 in the British charts (despite its playing time of almost 40 minutes). The Orb promoted the track by performing on Top of the Pops playing a game of chess wearing space suits, while footage of dolphins ran in the background.
Later the same year, ‘U.F.Orb’ was released featuring ‘Blue Room’. Weston integrated his technical and creative expertise with Paterson’s Eno-influenced ambience on the longplayer, which reached #1 on the British album charts.
Both ‘The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’ and ‘U.F.Orb’, are often cited as seminal classics, as is ‘Higher Than The Sun’ by Primal Scream, which Patterson produced/co wrote (and was also reworked by Andrew Weatherall), both of which versions feature on seminal LP ‘Screamadelica’.