Orb interview from Trance Europe Express
Interview: Jack Barron
Transcription: Jon Drukman

Early '89 and outside a house in north London stands a white fire
engine.  Inside the gaff there are black walls decorated with dayglo
fish.  Smoke 'n' strobes throb electric.  People with laser beam
stares and UV ultrabrite smiles dance like sea anemones caught in a
tidal wave as the music instructs us to "work it to the bone."  In the
back garden a tequila slammer bar is taking on all-comers not far from
the grave of Muscles the cat while the children upstairs pour buckets
of water over any adult that irritates their fancy.

Airfix kits of jets and rockets explode out of the Tron-like DJ booth
in which stands the man I have been looking for.  Stocky, slightly
thinning, he bends over his Technics, cues another record, syncs BPMs
and cross fades.  What appears to be a meltdown between PiL's "This is
Not A Love Song" and Lil' Louis "French Kiss" shudders out of the
sound system.  The DJ stands back and grins at the way he has
propelled the energy of the party into a higher orbit.  I tap him on
the shoulder.  "Erm, are you Alex?" I ask.  He nods agreement over the
music.  "Nice one, I was told you might have some E's."

This is how I get to meet "Dr" Alex Paterson, I'm later reminded -
well it was one of those sorts of nights - by my partner of the time,
Helen Mead, now of this parish.

"Yeah, sounds right," says Alex, exhaling.  "Only yesterday I bumped
into somebody and they asked me if I knew anybody who had any E's.
And of course I still don't.  Some things never change, thank God.
Heh-heh-heh.  That was a great party though.  It was my brother's.  I
was living in that house looking after the kids and their cat died.
It was one of those weird moments.  We buried the cat in the garden
and every cat in the neighbourhood turned up.  Fifty cats in the
garden all looking at us as we buried Muscles.  The kids were crying,
there was a lot of sorrow and it was like - wheeeh! - this cold
feeling going on."

SUMMER 1993.  The band Alex is one half of, The Orb, have by now
released two very /proper/ albums: "The Orb's Adventures Beyond The
Ultraworld" and their commercially successful crown, "UFOrb", plus a
remix set called "The Orb Aubrey Mixes: The Ultraworld Excursions".
[sic] Seven singles also came down the tube before Orb recording
activities were abruptly curtailed earlier this year (of which more
later).

In the process they have reignited the media's interest in ambient
music, played chess on /Top Of The Pops/, and have helped catalyse a
whole scene of new bands while continuing to sell out whatever venues
they play.  They are, ironically, a big bastard noise in the pop
world.  Alex, however, is still living, as the /Daily Mirror/ recently
pointed out, in a council flat in Battersea.  "There are, as you might
notice, no gold discs on the walls downstairs," he continues while
playing with his rather large terrapins, Mick and Vick.

Fishy?  Well, as much as the manta ray on the cover of this issue of
/Trance Europe Express/.  From being a DJ during '89's Summer Of Love
(mmm sounds familiar), through working with Jimmy Cauty and KLF, to
breaking ground as opposed to wind with The Orb, who are currently
stranded on the reefer of their record company, Big Life, Alex, in
what the style magazines dub '93's Summer Of Love (mmm, sounds
familiar), appears to be working for Billingsgate Market.  So is the
gold disc upstairs then, children?

Oh yes it is!

Oh... no it isn't.  The walls are purple in the upper lounge of the
flat that Alex once shared with Youth, which is in the same block that
Andy Weatherall and Cymon Eckel used to live in when kicking Boys Own
into existence - what is it about Battersea?  It can't be the
architecture - and there is a rocking wooden elephant he picked up in
Thailand as well as a video of an MTV interview with Alex, his
partner Kris Weston and the author Timothy Good whose books /Alien
Liason/ and /Above Top Secret/, party inspired the conceptual theme
underlying "UFOrb", a record which incidentally went straight to
number one in the charts, but... there is, alas, no gold disc.

So what's going on Alex old chap?  You've just finished doing remixes
of Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Hi-Tech Hippie" and U2's "Numb"...

"The reason that The Orb do so many remixes is because that is how we
have been making our money," explains Alex while Kris, who looks like
the Gerry Sadowitz of MIDI minus the shoulder-chips, nods silent
assent.  Kris does a lot of this - in fact, he does it in inverse
proportion to how much he says in interviews.

As with all great double acts - Guevara and Castro, brandy and coke,
fish and chips - Alex is the opposite to Kris.  He is garrulous yet
mellow.  It's difficult to imagine him being narky - narcotic yes,
but narky no.  He has the sort of physique and countenance that women
often term "cuddly".  But today, he's, um, perhaps frustrated.  The
Orb have been trying to disentangle themselves from their record
label, Big Life, for quite a while.

Big Life, following many disagreements with The Orb, responded to the
band's dissatisfaction by issuing two injunctions, one of which
prevented The Orb from releasing more records and the other - legally
untenable and dropped in June before it was due to go to court -
stopping WAU! Mr Modo, The Orb's parent label, from releasing records
by anyone, in case they featured The Orb working under a different
name.

Alex, for his part, is not so much fazed as keen to get on to the next
phase of The Orb.

"It's like when Mozart was told to do a concerto in Italian even
though he wanted to do a German one and so he ends up being stuck in a
mad village in Austria away from all the hobnobs who control the
music business.  The same thing is going on except it's 200 years
later.

"Thing is, once we became successful Big Life wanted to take over the
ideas, the whole thing," he continues.  "But The Orb and the ideas of
The Orb came out of this flat when me and Youth were sharing it.
`Ultraworld' etc came out of our heads.  [Yet] it was being turned
around two years later so that it seemed as if the ideas came out of
Big Life's heads."

NOVEMBER 9, 1989.  Serendipity.  Sitting in a bar with Alex next to
Hansa Studios by the Berlin Wall the night the Germans started to tear
it down.  A finely warped time.  Alex was in the city in his capacity
as A&R man for EG Records talking to Teutonic Beats' Thomas Fehlmann
and his collaborators in Marathon and Fischerman's Friend (who
developed into Sun Electric).  Remember being cocooned by the complete
CD collection of Eno, a bottle of JD, a bong and satellite TV supplied
by a Fischerman's Friend in order to learn that walls, whatever they
are or mean, exist only in your heart/will/fears.  Thanks.  A mental
snapshot of Mr Paterson standing on top of the wall by the Brandenburg
Tor waving his arms like... well, he just /did/ care.  A lot of seeds
for the future were being sown that year.

Born and brought up in Clapham Common, Alex had ended up at EG after a
period spent as a roadie for Killing Joke whose bassist, Youth, was a
mate from school and who were signed to the label.  If by day Alex was
desperately trying to push through dance music on EG, by night he was
pioneering ambient sounds in the chill-out room at The Land Of Oz.
Sunday mornings were spent hazily coming down around at the JAMMs/KLF
Trancentral squat in Stockwell in the company of Jimmy Cauty, who had
been in Brilliant with Youth.  Marshmallow machine madness ruled as
Alex and Jimmy improvised hour-long chilled sequences of music for DJs
and mates who would drop in to repair their heads after a long
weekend's clubbing.  Some classic tunes would drop out as a result.

"It was out of those sessions that `Tripping On Sunshine', which was a
joke really, and `Loving You' (aka `A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating
Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld'), some of the
first Orb releases happened," recalls Alex (early versions of The
KLF's `3 AM Eternal' and `What Time Is Love?', which were ambient in
outlook, were also constructed at the time).  "As far as `Loving You'
is concerned it cost #20 to make yet now original copies are going for
#40!  That's bizarre.  The `Kiss EP' cost about the same and they now
go for #80.  The `Kiss EP' was essentially a tribute to New York's
KISS radio station - as opposed to KISS FM, who stole everything from
them right down to their logos.

"Myself, Youth, Kris Needs and Muff Fitzgerald (journalist/publicist)
all used to listen to these tapes from KISS in New York and think,
What the fuck!?! - this is the future of music.  And it has turned out
to be that so far.  Maybe it'll go back to a rock and roll thing for
the year 2000, you never know.  And that's another story as well - how
businessmen control the music business and they aren't going to allow
experimentation with music.  Sad but true.

"A sex image like, say, Brett from Suede has, will attract the
attention of little girls.  The press crave that, in the same way that
the press craved the drug scene of the acid house barons - no pun
intended.  It's the same old media shock tactics which help to sell
papers, which is all part of the very sick world in which we live."

Be that as it may, there's no doubt that in 1989 an important cultural
explosion was taking place...

The influences of house and techno from Chicago and Detroit - Alex
once flew to America to try and secure a deal for Larry Heard of
Fingers Inc who, ironically enough, ended up on Big Life in the form
of The It - were being filtered through the ambient experiments of
Eno, Harold Budd and others, while the space spectaculars of Pink
Floyd and Tangerine Dream were not entirely forgotten.  Hence Orb
tracks like "Backside Of The Moon" which have an equal blend of satire
and reverence.

Four years later these strands, woven together by bands like The Orb,
have caused the most seismic cultural shift in music, fashion and
associated arts and lifestyles that has happened in Britain for
several decades.

In 1989, The Orb were considered a joke by the music press, most of
which couldn't, or wouldn't understand that tens of thousands of
people off their heads zooming around orbital roads in search of the
best rave or party amounted to something more than the latest guitar
band in your local pub.  Now The Orb make front covers at the drop of
an E.  This isn't a question of we told you so - just it /is/ so.  And
essential in this story is the role played by Alex in the chill-out
room at Heaven's Land Of Oz nights which featured light shows, brain
machines and guarana concoctions long before they became the norm.

"That was totally alternative to what was going on in dance music at
the time," he continues.  "We were playing rhythm-orientated tracks
but with no beats.  Now we've watched it develop and we've seen other
people take over.  It's quite sad, really, in the sense that it has
become exactly what I didn't want ambient house to become - new age
rubbish... As far as we're concerned we'll have a very different sound
for the next album.

"I think that `UFOrb' wasn't as cliched as ambient house or anything
else coming out now, it was more an ambient dub album.  Whereas
`Ultraworld' was a perfect example of what ambient house could be.  So
hopefully our next album is going to take the sound a step further.
We have to move on because the old copycat syndrome is happening.
People come up to us and say, Hey, this sounds just like you.  That
might be a compliment, but we like to be innovative sometimes.  Thank
God for Black Dog and The Aphex Twin and new ways of working outside.~

"Yeah, The Aphex Twin is wicked, a well sound geezer," adds Kris.

Pardon?  Well, thank you for that Mr K Weston.  Kris was brought up in
Rose Hill in South London.  A former member of Fortran 5 and an
engineer for Mark Angelo, Kris started working in full partnership
with Alex after the latter parted with Jimmy Cauty circa the `Space'
album in mid-1990.

When questioned about the first thing that he can remember Kris says:
"Ask me about synthesizers."  I think that Kris has a sense of humour
so dry it would give the Sahara sunburn.

But so far as Alex is concerned, Kris is the musical perfectionist he
needs as a foil.  He still shudders at the way Killing Joke split
after becoming a victim of the egos involved.

"Kris is the person in The Orb who turns the ideas into music to which
I add my meagre contribution.  The majority of the music is done by
him and I don't have any problem at all with that.  People say that in
The Orb our characters are secondary to the live spectacle.  We
wouldn't have it any other way.

"We met through the music we were doing - not necessarily The Orb at
the beginning, but house music.  That music might have been faceless
but it could be sustained for an eight-hour set where all the music
was good.  Up till then going to a club involved listening to some
bloke playing a few records, having a chat at the bar, watching the
band, going back to the bar and so on.  House turned it into a
continuous experience.  House music came along into the mainstream and
took people's balls off.

"That's now all part of history.  But through that bands like The Orb
came about.  So far as I'm concerned then The Orb has to remain as
faceless as possible on stage.  That said, the whole idea some people
have, that we're one-dimensional live, is really getting on my tits.
We should be three- or four-dimensional because of the lights that we
use and the way we use them.  In the past, we've been hampered by lack
of money.  Hopefully people have got the message by now."

What is the prank?  What time is drugs?  What is tahw?  The Orb just
began as a snowflake in Battersea and turned into an avalanche of cool
sounds.  Theirs is the soundtrack to stroboscopically frozen snapshots
of the collective unconscious wherein Jung and Buddha half-inch Albert
Hoffmann's mountain bike and Sid James chortles as he pokes a stick
between the spokes to knock them off.

I ask Alex about Timothy Good whose book, /Alien Liason/, refers to
the facility where the American government supposedly document, store
and, hopefully, occasionally, feed the /things/ or /its/ that come
from outer space.  Alex says Timothy is a top session violinist and
will guest on the new Orb album.  "That gives you an idea of where
we're going with the album."

So have you ever seen a UFO and, if so, when and where?

Alex: "Yeah, I have actually.  Stardate data: just outside Turin after
spending a day fishing in the Alps with a mate.  I was playing a game
of chess, having had a few amarettos, walked out and there was the
Bosch looking at me.  I poked him in the eyes and scared the fucker
off.  No!  But it was similar.

"It was like a red object very, very close to us as we walked.  It was
hovering.  I spoke to somebody who had a very similar experience only
yesterday, which isn't surprising when you do an album called `UFOrb'.
You do meet people like that.

"But getting back to the point: it (the UFO) just came along with a
little red engine at the back, it stopped, turned around and was off.
Just like the sort of stuff you see in /Close Encounters/.  The thing
is, I wasn't alone.  I was walking with somebody.  There was a
witness.  We weren't under the influence or anything like that."

The fickle fingers of fate belong to /ET/.  Between some of them he
holds a spliff.  The others he drums, very quietly, waiting for the
next Orb album.  We start up the fire engine and drive away.

-------
Alex Paterson's Top Ten

1. Sabres Of Paradise - Smokebelch (Sabres Of Paradise)
2. Sun Electric - Pitcheou (R&S)
3. Sandoz - Chocolate Machine (Intone)
4. Innerzone Orchestra - Bug In The Bass Bin (Planet-E Connection)
5. Neuropolitique - Prawn Sandwich TV (Buzz)
6. Subconscious Awareness - Origins EP (Planetary)
7. YMO Audreymix - A23 Diversion Mix (EMI)
8. The Cause - Through The Floor (Sabres Of Paradise)
9. Juno Reactor - Juno Reactor II (WAU! Mr Modo)
10.Def & Numb I Orb Mix - Numb/U2 (Island)


Alex Paterson's Top Twelve ambient albums

Cluster - Grosses Wasser (Sky CD 3207)

"There's a Cluster/Eno album but I choose this because it's very basic
minimalist ambient music.  It's got some mad ambient rhythms and is
very linear.  Once an idea is up and running it just continues till it
stops.  It's like a bowl of Weetabix, it binds things together very
well."

War - The World Is A Ghetto (Avenue Records R2 71042)

"I bought this album in 1973 when I was 13 - it gave me credibility in
my local youth club.  `Where Was You At' is amazing and `Four Cornered
Room' is brilliantly moodily atmospheric.  It's just a great album and
for 1972 when it came out it's unreal.  On a par with early Marvin
Gaye in a lot of respects."

Brian Eno - Apollo (EG CD 53)

"A lot of this music (done with Daniel Lanois and Roger Eno) is taken
from a film, /For All Of Mankind/, which is about astronauts, dreams,
being in space and on the moon.  It came out before the film but I was
so into it the music [sic] it intensified my enjoyment of the film
when I saw it.  The music has an angelic beauty."

Ry Cooder & VM Bhatt - A Meeting By The River (Water Lily Acoustics
WLA CD 29 CD)

"I only wish we could have produced some of this record.  It would be
a match made in heaven."

Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia - Ov Biospheres And Sacred Grooves (KK 065 CD)

Lewis, our DJ, introduced us to PWOG during gigs in 1991-92.  This is
one of the bands of the future.  There is such an amount of `faceless'
music that the media can't get their heads around because they don't
know how to market it.  This is a classic case."

Roger Eno - Voices (Editions EG CD 42)

"Roger plays live in the manner of someone who is going to rattle out
a few pub songs.  He puts his pint by the side of the piano and starts
playing this!  One of my all-time favourites.  Great music to wake up
to, as indeed I used to when working at EG."

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (Virgin CDV 2276)

"/The/ Soundtrack.  It's very haunting.  I met him in Tokyo recently
when DJing for Yellow Magic Orchestra.  I told him it was one of my
favorite records.  He told me I could do anything I wanted with it.
He bowed, kissed me on the cheek and asked me if I liked Bob Hope."

The Orb - Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld (Big Life BLRDCD 5)

"It started the ball rolling for ambient music in that it made the
media aware of ambient again.  It's also here because like the other
records on this list (and many others) it was created /not/ in terms
of sampling but in terms of atmospheres."

Various Artists - Bagdad Cafe Soundtrack (Island CIDST 18)

"Specifically for Jevetta Steele's `Calling You'.  We sampled her
vocal for `Sunburst' by System 7.  It was spontaneous sampling on the
same grounds as `Loving You' and we got clearance.  A favourite in the
chill-out room in The Land Of Oz."

Sven Vath - Accident In Paradise (Eye Q 4509)

"I first listened to this album not knowing that he was a DJ.  It
still hasn't changed my opinion about this album which I consider to
be a work of genius.  This and `Bytes' by Black Dog are my two
favourite albums this year."

Steve Hillage - Rainbow Dome Musick (Virgin CD VR 1)

"Mix Manuel Gotting's `E2 = E4' with `Rainbow Dome Musick' and you'll
be very surprised at the end result.  Music to rebuild your head after
a heavy night."

Jansen/Barbieri - Worlds In A Small Room (Pan East NEW CD 105)

"Another distant mid-80's ambient album recorded by two members of
Japan.  I wonder what they're doing now?  Maybe we should hook up with
them one day."