The Orb are an electronic music group founded by Alex Patterson and Jimmy Cauty in 1988. They were best known for being the pioneers of the ambient house movement in the early 90s. Through analysing their 1991 album ‘The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’ and more specifically the track “Little Fluffy Clouds’ I gained a real understanding and insight into the way the group created music and their workflow.
The Orb has always had a sci-fi aesthetic and they would describe their use of the sampler as more like using a time machine, establishing co-existing realities and allowing ‘multiple levels of meaning to be created’. For example, ‘Little Fluffy clouds’ evokes serious nostalgia in the listener through their use of the sampler machine but more so through the actual samples they manipulated. Rickie Lee Jones’ voice is heard throughout the track, taken from an interview of her speaking about her childhood in Arizona, instantly providing the track with the nostalgic feel The Orb was trying to achieve. Another example of their use of sampling to create a spacey, sentimental vibe is the harmonica sampled from Ennio Morricone’s score for the film “Once Upon a Time in The West” a childhood favourite of Patterson’s. Something I found really interesting is that they used a sample that reflected the environment in which the song was played; all-night, outdoor raves that were popular in the late 80s until they were outlawed in 1994.
They also purposely used samples that were obscure, an uncommon practice at a time when the enjoyability of a track was almost dependent on the reference spotting factor of a track, this meant The Orb relied less on the sample and more on how they manipulated it. The tracks were never intended to be danced too, instead being made for the come-down parties after. They used a sampler, a tape machine and decks along with field recordings to create tracks with sampled textures and synth loops but which clearly lacked drums and a defined rhythm, this technique allowed the tracks to evolve at a slower pace that wasn’t suitable for the dance floor. An interesting example of this is in their track “a Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld”, a 20 minute track with no drum track, that slowly evolves using samples from Minnie Riperton’s “Lovin’ You”.
Alex Patterson is quoted as saying ‘the sampler was like the Rosetta Stone for DJs’, and how it opened up his creativity, allowing him to produce all of the things he’d had in his head, the Orb was never about a vocalist, it was about the DJ, and the sampler allowed this.
Williams, P. (2022) 10 must-hear ambient house records – selected by the orb, Red Bull. Red Bull. Available at: https://www.redbull.com/gb-en/best-ambient-house-songs (Accessed: November 22, 2022).
A conversation with Rickie Lee Jones (2014) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erba5If9f30 (Accessed: November 24, 2022).
Buskin, R. (no date) Article Section List – Sound on Sound, The Orb: ‘Little Fluffy Clouds’,” Sound on Sound. Available at: https://www.soundonsound.com/people/orb-little-fluffy-clouds (Accessed: November 23, 2022).
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