Kris Needs - Babble on An Ting: Alex Patersons Incredible Journey Beyond the Ultraworld with The Orb

T he Orb have long been acknowledged as prime instigators in 1988s acid house revolution, who took a genre called ambient house to the top of the album charts, at the same time pushing the outer limits of electronic innovation and sonic pioneering beyond earthly realms to a parallel Ultraworld of their own making.

Always steering The Orbs anarchic starship with an ever-changing crew of like-minded stalwarts and newer recruits, Alex Paterson celebrated over thirty years of visionary mischief-making in 2019 on a sell-out UK tour, attracting younger generations along with seasoned fellow travellers.

Yet, as The Orb enter their fifth decade floating on a happy lunar note, with seventeenth album Abolition Of The Royal Familia greeted as a late-period masterpiece, their spaced odyssey has not always been an easy ride, battered by cataclysmic betrayal and with repugnant ripoffs punctuating the triumphs. Alexs pre-Orb life going back to early childhood was harsh and often traumatic; a constant battle, whether forced to deal with an uncaring mother after his father died or facing sadistic bullies at boarding school. Behind the surreal samples, intergalactic sounds, billowing hash-curls and decidedly British humour, lies an astonishing life story thats far from ordinary.

Inevitably, Im doing this book from the perspective of Alex being one of my oldest, closest friends. We first met forty years ago when I was interviewing Killing Joke for Zigzag, the magazine I edited between 1977 and 1982, and he was their roadie (and singing fifth member). That first encounter at the bands Notting Hill squat/HQ was also my first proper meeting with his schoolmate Youth, bonding over Chic and hitting it to off to the extent I moved into his Ladbroke Grove basement flat when Jaz Coleman fled the apocalypse to Iceland in 82. Alex was a frequent visitor then and when we moved to the Coach House in Wandsworth at the end of the year.

The three of us were inspired by the mastermix dance party tapes seeping over from New York, where sonic maestros like Shep Pettibone re-edited dancefloor monsters to make startling new mutants. Between many inspirational or hilarious brain-widening sessions and weekend party quests, we made our own mastermix cassettes, mixing the sublime with the silly. All this music, mashing in dub, disco, hiphop and electro, along with comedy and childrens LPs, went into inspiring the nascent Orb, which Alex started plotting more seriously after I moved out of the Coach House and he later took my old bedroom.

Relocating to New York for five years meant I missed the initial acid house revolution that Alex and Jimmy Cauty helped soundtrack with their groundbreaking chill-out DJ sets at Land Of Oz in 89. Returning in 1990, I discovered Alex had released the first Orb records on the WAU label hed started with Youth, commencing with NY radio homage The Kiss EP and epic A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld.

The first time I visited Alex (who at one point had tracked me down in NYC after reports had filtered back about my supposed demise) he was at EG Records, where he worked as an A&R man by day. Next was at a London studio recording spangled classic Little Fluffy Clouds with Youth.

Alex has always been loyal to his mates, this linear connection leading to meeting and working with Andrew Weatherall, Primal Scream and many others, thus igniting my own DJing and recording career, which later also included studio sessions with The Orb. I loved the vibe and anything-can-happen chaos at Orb gigs, and often DJd with them after Alex thrust me on the main stage of a packed Brixton Academy heaving with nutters. In many ways, it all seemed like a natural continuation of the punk era wed both come up in breaking rules, never no shit from no-one (and, predictably, there were many hurling it, as always happens to something new and successful). Maybe the most memorable triumph was U.F.Orb shooting into the album charts at number one in 92 after a party at the Planetarium to launch it.

There were also several dark episodes, involving ex-Orb members, mercenary managers and corporate record company bollocks holding up albums to a harmful extent. When Alex and I agreed to embark on this book wed long talked about doing, we knew what we were getting ourselves into, that it wasnt all going to be intergalactic floatation tank bliss. I should emphasise that this book is Alexs story; how he felt and dealt with everything thrown at him throughout his whole life. Childhood, boarding school, Killing Joke chaos, acid house epiphanies and starting The Orb against KLF flakiness all happen before the 90s roller coaster many will know The Orb from cranks into action, humping through massive success, monumental records, sabotage in the water supply and everything that followed until 2001s watershed when everything changed in several ways.

At that point, well leave our narrative, rounding up subsequent 21st century activities that could fill another book. One timeless moral of this remarkable story is the age-old adage that what goes around comes around and, in 2020, gives this story its very happy ending after positive history long ago trounced negative forces. Always light years ahead of the times, The Orb were never right on for the darkness; for long, anyway.

Literally, just as we were finishing this book, the shocking news came that our friend Andrew Weatherall had passed away at the age of fifty-six. This totally unexpected tragedy hit us both hard, particularly Alex as hed first met Andrew when he was his upstairs neighbour in Battersea and playing at Shoom. Both DJd on the tour for Primal Screams Screamadelica album theyd both been part of, and Andrew had remixed Orb tracks but, above all, they were trusted friends, only DJing together the previous year.

Like countless others, Im still in some state of dumbfounded shock as I write these words, finding it almost impossible to accept the man they called The Guvnor has gone. The torrent of love, grief and memories recalls losing Bowie, Peel or Strummer, social media bringing together a vast family of old friends, collaborators, DJ colleagues, stricken fans and those that Andrew had touched in some way. Many remember his humble approachability, biting wit and self-deprecating humour; more hail his remarkably idiosyncratic music that pushed all boundaries and, of course, his ever-astonishing DJ sets. I was lucky to spend much of the 90s in Andrews close orbit, whether writing about him in publications, as an artist on his Sabres Of Paradise label, appearing on the same DJ bills, rifling through the bins in record shops or hanging out as a mate.

In many ways, Andrew was very much like Alex, refusing to take the easy route like many of his much richer contemporaries, instead remaining driven by the love of music that got him into this career in the first place. His remixes were startling bombardments of audacious dubbed-out genius that routinely binned song and vocals for a new take on the songs inner essence. Apart from The Orb, few ventured this far into the unknown with two fingers aloft, lawless dub reggae a mutual prime inspiration.

As Alex, who did a moving radio show in Andrews memory on WNBC. London two days after he passed, says, Theres a few people who changed modern music and Andrew was one of them, adding, And he was one person I never fell out with. You can put that!