DEEP space ambient techno overlord Alex Paterson, the good doctor of The Orb himself, has just announced a whole cluster of projects to take us into 2021. Fellow astral travellers: be delighted.
Firstly, come May 28th, Alex will be publishing his autobiography, Babble On An’ Ting: Alex Paterson’s Incredible Journey Beyond The Ultraworld With The Orb via Omnibus Press.
A first full account of his life story, written by close friend and music journalist Kris Needs, it will reveal Alex’s traumatic Battersea childhood, boarding school abuse, and punk’s liberating impact; his move into music as a roadie for Killing Joke, DJing, his first recordings with The KLF’s Jimmy Cauty, The Orb and his label – more of which below.
“I decided to do a book now as I have reached one full human cycle 60. Also, to tell my side of stories and to set the record straight on planet Orb,” he says.
“Working with Kris was seriously brilliant fun. We have been friends and allies for decades now. He’s a beautiful man with a deep knowledge of all things secret and actually lived through some of the stories together.”
The biography will include interviews with Youth, Andrew Weatherall, Primal Scream, Jah Wobble, Jimmy Cauty and others. It’s a few weeks away, but why wouldn’t you want to get your hands on it? You can pre-order Babble On An’ Ting: Alex Paterson’s Incredible Journey Beyond The Ultraworld With The Orb here.
Next up, a development so obvious you wonder why no one had thought of it before: Alex is, as hinted at above, launching his own Orbscure Recordings, and pride of place as numero 001 in the catalogue goes to Sedibus, aka Alex Paterson and Andy Falconer.
Orbscure Recordings is intended as an outlet for Alex’s other musical guises that run side-by-side with the Orb mothership and is running under the aegis of Cooking Vinyl; it’ll also serve as an outlet for new music from other artists from around the world.
“The name is a play on the Obscure label Eno set up on Editions EG in the 1970s. Orbs Cure. Clever parrot-Orbscure! Orbscure! Orbs Cure for all ills. Orbs Cure made 2 chill,” free-associates Alex.
There’s already a raft of new releases in the pipeline with three albums set for release this year. The label will feature artists from Uganda, Kenya, Argentina, Japan and America with further collaborative projects to follow.
And that first release, “TOI 1338b”, by Sedibus, which you can hear herein?
It sees Alex reunite with Andy Falconer, who both co-wrote and engineered the ambient sides of that seminal, career-launching The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld.
Their paths crossed after so much time between in 2019 at Youth’s Space Mountain festival in southern Spain, where both were playing separately. They decided to work together again and sound files began to crackle back and forth across the fibre optics.
An original deep space mission, “TOI 1338b” is taken from forthcoming album, The Heavens. “Organic in feel and clearly referencing our shared roots, The Heavens is an immersive journey of ambient electronica which not only references a source, but the distance travelled from that point of origin to something new,” says Andy. It is spacily, blissfully cracking in the way that particular wave of British ambience so is. Lush.
Sedibus’ The Heavens will be released digitally, on CD and on at least three different coloured vinyl pressings on May 28th; you can pre-order yours here.
All that, and we’ve still got Abolition of The Royal Familia – Guillotine Mixes to look forward to on April 9th.
Taking that versioning concept that worked to such sexily lysergic effect with 1991’s Aubrey Mixes: The Ultraworld Excursions, Abolition of The Royal Familia – Guillotine Mixes will feature reinterpretations from familiar faces, most of whom also have credits on the last studio album, Abolition …, including Youth, Moody Boys, David Harrow, Andy Falconer, Paul Metamono and Gaudi, Kris Needs and Lost Stoned Pandas, taking the originals for a trip out deeper into acid house, Balearic and techno.
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Great news, but The Heavens is an EP, not an album.
Noted and tweaked, Jay accordingly, Jay!