TS: The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld and Space

it looks totally weak when you write it down but it sadly was one of the sounds of my youth.

been trying to find it for 10+ years.

Danny.

it's the one that goes: "It's a Reefer do you want some officer" etc.

Revisiting this TS eight years later. Agree that the "Huge...Brain" on Peel Sessions is the best version -- but Space seems to have dated well.

Ultraworld vs. Chill Out would be interesting. I'm always surprised to find that there are Orb fans out there who don't have that album.

Perhaps we should do a poll!

Just listened to Chill Out this am. The thing that strikes me now about all three records is how much I used to think they were about bringing pure sound to pop. Listening to them with 21st century ears, it's pretty clear the genre never totally left the Chill Out room at the Land of Oz. All the way up thru Orbus Terrarum, these records are more about exploiting the hyper-contrast between texture and rhythm. They obviously all do it a little differently -- where Chill Out does it with Midwestern pedal steel guitars, Terrarum does it w 70s prog. But they all taking the listener to curious zero-gravity places before bringing you back to earth with beats, rhythms and arpeggios. In retrospect, that makes it all a little less ambitious than I thought it was -- but it's still kinda interesting.

there wasn't really that much steel guitar in Chill Out, was there?

i can see what you're saying, but that's kind of how I always looked at the albums. for all the talk about how 'different' they were it always struck me as new ways of doing old things (which is what I liked about it). right now Orbus Terrarum is the one that holds up for me the best because there's so much complexity to everything and it gets better as it goes on (unlike U.F. Orb, which I've always felt got boring after "Towers of Dub")

Alex Patterson and Youth did a good interview with Spin about Little Fluffy Clouds 20ys later.

Link here: http://www.spin.com/articles/orb-look-back-20-years-little-fluffy-clouds. I had no idea Prince stole the groove on the Symbol record!

There's a lot of steel guitar on Chill Out -- both BJ Cole (I believe) as well as the stuff on the Elvis song that's sampled.

I agree -- Terrarum really holds up. I'm even starting to dig thru the FFWD record, which never floated by boat back in the 90s, but sounds a bit better to my ears today.

There's a lot of steel guitar on Chill Out -- both BJ Cole (I believe)

Don't know about there being any BJ Cole, most of it is from unused stuff Evil Graham Lee played when the Triffids were the backing band on Bill's solo record.