April 19–26, 2001

music| q and a

Alex Paterson

by Sean O’Neal

Disc-spinner: The Orb’s Alex Paterson.

Alex Paterson and the Orb have ascended to cult figure status among lovers of ambient and electronic music. Previous albums [consider U.F.Orb, Orbus Terrarum, Pomme Fritz and Orblivian] might have you convinced that the U.K.-based Paterson is some sort of abstract genius, yielding the trippiest sounds of the electronic music revolution. Pink Floyd and Grateful Dead may have helped introduce a new realm of sonic psychedelia, but the Orb takes it to its ultimate measures. Orb’s latest album, Cydonia [MCA/Universal-Island], continues the cerebrally refreshing dubbiness, the undulating reggae-meets-techno percussion, the sampladelic mind-games, the soothing ambient bliss and a deep sense of humor. But this time the Orb gets a little poppier, using breathy, worldly female vocals on a few tracks — all ready for commercial radio — yet holding tight to their trademark colorful psychedelia. Conversation with Paterson is fast-paced and mellow at the same time — and all along, he is playfully sarcastic (much like his music).

 

A friend of mine downloaded a lot of Cydonia from Napster well before it was released.

The old versions. To be honest, I knew that there was someone in our camp dropping all that stuff onto Napster directly. Just the fact that it’s not coming out on a record label doesn’t mean that he has to release it that way.

How do you feel about Napster?

There’s often too little too late. In essence, they could have come up with a much more amicable agreement for the powers that be — because the copyright laws of music entitle the artist [to royalties]. It comes down to the artists being the pirates of the 21st century… Now, if you’re really pretty, with the perfect figure, [and] in fact you can’t sing very well — we’ll at least get someone to do the vocals for you — and you’ll go out and mime it all. We’ll just get the exceptionally beautiful one and market it and market it. That’s really sad — that’s the state of music today.

Of the two versions of your album that were recorded, did you choose which would be the final version?

Yeah. [Originally] there was CD1 and CD2. [We had] so much stuff that there was 60 minutes on each one. We got rid of a fair majority in the end. We ended up with six tracks from the original session.

How do you feel about Cydonia compared to your previous releases?

Well, the thing with this album is that it is so much like [The Orb’s 1991 debut full length] Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld because it was written by so many people. I’ve had three or four different engineers, and [Cydonia ] has the same sort of depth.

This album is definitely more musical, and you use a lot more vocals.

The vocals are like a totally different direction [for us]… I have a couple of books of poetry that I’ve been writing since I was little. I just mish meshed a lot of vocals with a lot of those lyrics — came up with "Once More." I wrote all the lyrics, but not all the versus. Nina [Walsh] came up with the versus on "Ghostdancing" and "Plum Island."

What about the album cover with a seal bouncing a pyramid on its nose? How did that come about?

The great seal and the pyramid? [laughs.] Ah, hello? Dollar bill, dollar bill, dollar bill. We were gonna put a "rah-rah" skirt around it — U.S.A., stars and stripes, "rah-rah" — around the seal. It’s a Masonic Disney — the seal and the pyramid.

Tell me about your own new record label, Bad Orb.

It’s about releasing stuff I like, and releasing stuff I’ve done with other people as well… It’s a load of different sorts of things… The artwork becomes like a collector’s item because there’s no writing on it. All the information you can just download onto your computer. Hail, the 21st Century… Every new moon after the Spring Equinox, we release a new track — up until the Winter Solstice.

When I used to do a lot of partying during the early ’90s, the Orb, especially Pomme Fritz…

Ah, that’s a special one for me.

Yeah, it blew my mind. It’s the way you make it move as a producer. You’re holding the listener’s hand, you take them on a journey. There’s a ceiling fan over head, there’s a faucet dripping, someone’s tip-toeing, then all of a sudden, someone jumps out and scares the shit out of you. It’s amazing… And at the same time, your production quality can’t be compared to anybody else’s. It’s extraordinarily ahead of its time. What do you use? Is it all done digitally on A-DAT?

Yeah, A-DATs. And I think it’s the first time in ProTools as well.

Mac or PC?

It’s a Mac. But the album itself, Pomme Fritz, is about five years too early.

Your songs are sample-heavy. I’ve heard that some artists have gotten agitated with you sampling their [not cleared] material.

They don’t know the half of it. This is the beauty of the Orb again. [laughs.]

You’re often said to be a big Pink Floyd fan. Is that accurate?

No, the thing with Pink Floyd is that Guy Pratt, who works with us… [on tracks like] "Spanish Castles in Space" and "Hamlet of Kings" on the new album, he also doubled up as Pink Floyd’s bass player when they do live gigs — and has been doing that for about ten years now.

You get a lot of comparisons to Floyd?

All the time. I grew up on a stable diet — if it was weird stuff and I was tripping myself, it would be Yellow or Kraftwerk. I also grew up… on punk rock. I was the roadie for Killing Joke for a number of years. And I wasn’t really into Pink Floyd then, either.

Are you actually a doctor, Dr. Alex Paterson?

Uh, no. What do you think?

Where do you think music is going in the future?

In the ’90s they were patting themselves on the back, this time they’re sticking themselves up the ass. That’s the state of affairs I have with my record label, Universal/Island.

How did you end up on Island Records?

We were on Big Life, then Big Life put us onto Polygram. Then they realized we were having bad times with Big Life, so they put us onto another Polygram label, Eternal Island. Then Island got bought up by Seagram. Then they sold Island, and various other record labels, to Universal — and here we are. Next move can be anywhere. It’s certainly not a universe — it’s a monkey-verse.

Ah, the corporate world.

Fuck that, you do music, you’re DJing, you get away from everything — and you always have this thing — it’s like a dark cloud… It’s quite lubricous, really. At least I’d try to kill off everything, and drop 500 bands off their roster beforehand. We’re just slimming down our labels — meaning no one’s buying records anymore. Hello? Why not? Because it’s the computer world… I’m not talking anymore about that. Ask me another question.

Are you bound to a certain number more albums for Island?

Apparently so — depends if they want to drop us or not — depends if they get pissed off at me in my interviews talking about how shit they are. [laughs.] Help.

So you’ve had problems in the past with Island?

It’s just not knowing who to talk to… It’s more about units. They’re more interested in if the video’s good enough for it to push units, and that’s really scary.

Does the label ever pressure you to make a poppy, radio-friendly song?

My counteraction was "Once More" — which I think is quite a viable pop single — and "Centuries" as well. But they don’t see "Centuries" as a single. I don’t understand that. The only thing I understand is that they want to see how well "Once More" does, and they want to see how the album does, and then maybe release ["Centuries" as a single]. And that’s not very good for morale — doesn’t help morale in a band… The reason why the album came out late was up until November, we didn’t have a deal in America… It was going to get released in America, [but] you were just gonna get it on import from the U.K. And then luckily, like a new person, MCA came in, found out there was a big Orb plan, and said, I gotta have this record. But we needed to have an extra month before the Americans were ready to release the album — which I hope they have [by now]. Have they? I’d be very interested to know.

I have a promo copy… How do you feel about your music being played on commercial radio?

Well, it’s got to be played somewhere. It [comes from] college radio — and you got 6,000 of them. Hello?

It always blew my mind that Island, a major label, released Pomme Fritz. How did they feel about it?

That was the first album [for them]. That was so funny. They hated it. They didn’t understand it at all. And we were stuck in this position where we’ve been signed to Island by our management, and they ran it for all this money, so we did "Pomme Fritz." Boom, boom. It was a lot of money as well. But that’s another story, and that’s another rap.