William Orbit

Shape Navigator – Sternenabfall

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Peter Coyte returns as Shape Navigator with a new single and an album on the way. “Sternenabfall” [EN: “Star Litter”] pays tribute to the kosmische sounds of yesteryear, while managing to impart a modern feel. It arrives ahead of Journal, the first Shape Navigator album, which is released on 27 February 2026.

The act played an important role on the Guerilla label founded by Dick O’Dell and William Orbit. Tracks like “Crystalize” set the standard for progressive house, back in the 90s. On the present evidence, it has not stood still; nor lost any of its innovative appeal.

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail

William Orbit Announces New London Date

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

William Orbit, the legendary musician and producer, has announced a new London show. “William Orbit: The Journey Continues” will take place at his favourite venue, the Notting Hill Arts Club, on Friday, 26 September 2025.

Orbit, who rescued the careers of both Madonna and Britney Spears, recently took to the stage at the same venue to relive some career highlights.

(Photo: Simon Helm)

Tickets go on sale on Friday, 15 August 2025, through ARD.

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail

Prepared to Energise: William Orbit Live

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

William Wainwright, the son of two schoolteachers, dropped out of school at the age of sixteeen. William Orbit, the producer of Madonna, Blur, and Britney Spears, is on stage in Notting Hill at the age of sixty-eight.

Had young Billy followed a traditional path, there is no doubt he would have been a successful academic. For the assembled fans, treated to a casual retrospective of Orbit’s contributions to music, it is clear that his real classroom is the dancefloor.

William Orbit

The evening’s lesson begins with “Funky Love Vibrations,” a track released by Orbit as Bassomatic. In many ways the successor to Torch Song, Bassomatic captured the vibe of the early 1990s perfectly. Stuttering, gated sounds and flowing, delayed bleeps created a party atmosphere above a solid rhythm. Brought to the stage, it loses none of its freshness.

The crew for the night has Pips Taylor spinning tunes before the band take the stage Callum Dearden is on bass. Erire Obano handles most of the vocals and keeps the vibe going. James Hockley takes control of keyboards. A lot of work has been done by Orbit’s guitar tech, who has at least ten instruments lined up around the stage.

Shazza Shazza Hey! Shaznay Lewis (l) joins the crew

There are improvised interludes; fragments of tracks that are sometimes hints rather than  Greatest Hits scorchers. But there are those, too. Shaznay Lewis of All Saints fame joins proceedings for a performance of “Pure Shores.” “Water from a Vine Leaf” grows slowly, slowly, slowly, into an ecstatic phase. And the building shakes for “Ray of Light.”

Orbit supervises proceedings like an impish don. He spins in his office chair while picking at his guitar. Obano is crowned. There is an encouraging squeeze for Dearden after he leads vocals for one track. He makes it look easy, but William Orbit – A Journey is a moment of fun that took a lifetime to prepare.

Orbit and Obano

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail

Hit Me with Your Rhythm Schtick: Orbit Returns

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

William Freaking Orbit – is that what WFO stands for? It should, as the man sometimes known as Billy Bubbles is back with a smashing new album.

A self-produced and self-released affair, WFO dropped on Bandcamp, instead of through one of the monopolies. It features artwork by Orbit, in his familiar fluoro style, and his new logo. Stylistically, it spans the gamut – from Strange Cargo to Pieces in a Modern Style. Instead of seeking out vocalists to collaborate with, as he did on 2022’s The Painter, Orbit has decided to let the music speak for itself.

The great thing about Orbit’s approach is that he dabs in delay and fills in the lines with epic electronics. He knows his way around a symphony, but also how to pull out the strings for the dancefloor. Orbit is as happy with plant-based dub (“Babel Fish”) as he is with four-to-the-floor bangers (“Concrete Butterfly”). The focus of WFO is on the staring-at-the-stars end of the scale, but there are tracks like “JD 800 ooo” that remind you this is an artist who can shake the walls and test the limits of the largest sound systems.

Orbit’s former home and studio, just around the corner from Cold War Night Life Towers, was in London’s Crouch End. It gets checked in “Crouch End Massive,” which sounds like an amped-up version of “Scorpion.” Left to his own devices, this is what ends up on Strange Cargo albums or gets lifted by major artists for their own glories.

There are musical hints and Easter eggs galore throughout the album. “Royal Flush” references two Orbit-produced Madonna tracks – “Ray of Light” and “Beautiful Stranger” – but there are more gems buried in the arrangements. “My Way” is in there, somewhere. And there is a message in that.

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail

Lush Sounds for Barren Worlds: Zanias Returns

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

If you don’t hear the new album from Zanias as the soundtrack to the next Dune movie, it will only be because someone else licensed it first. With its striking atmospheres and lush textures, Ecdysis is evocative, exotic, experimental, and awe-inspiring. It is a rock-solid demonstration of the immense talent of the Berlin-based Earth-child, Alison Lewis.

With a sonic palette that recalls Jean-Michel Jarre’s Zoolook and Peter Gabriel’s Last Temptation of Christ, the album moves even further forward than last year’s Chrysalis. Vocally, Zanias releases have been powerful, raw, and soaring. From the opener, “Earthborn,” this element has been enhanced and amplified. The songs have been shorn of lyrics, as Lewis’ voice is abstracted, sampled, and taken into the stratosphere.

Comparisons to Lisa Gerrard are borne out on the majestic “Duneskipper,” but the magic spun by Madonna on her Ray of Light album is a closer reference point on “Acacia.” William Orbit recently said that he dreams of working with Ms Ciccone again, but the creative center of gravity should draw him to Zanias, instead. The power of the project has been refined and restrained, so that it sweeps like a sandstorm seen from a distance, and the material is more at home in a concert hall than a club.

Where we really expect to hear Zanias turning up is on soundtracks. Ecdysis is as cinematic as anything Lewis has done. Tracks like “Habenula” offer the kinds of resonances and moody textures that should get music directors in Hollywood in a complete lather. The title track opens with the kind of sensitivity that characterised Orbital’s “Halcyon,” before hardening slightly, like the formation of a new exoskeleton. If that doesn’t add lustre to scenes on celluloid, we don’t know what does.

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail

The Painter of Dreams: William Orbit Returns

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

William Orbit has experienced a few things in his time: building a studio in a squat run by refugees from Franco; collaborating with Madonna; producing Blur; running a progressive house and techno label; rescuing Britney’s career; hoovering up more white lines than the Wembley parking lot; experiencing a psychic break; and then regaining a sense of mission with a set of creative collaborators.

William Orbit (Photo: Simon Helm)

The last of these is what brings us to an event at Dolby’s flagship listening room in Soho. It takes the form of a series of paintings from Orbit’s catalogue, set to tracks from his concept album, The Painter. Animations based on the psychedelic-tinged images roll past as the native Atmos tech breathes space into the individual tracks. It is a high-specification journey through the imagination of a creative mind that has been stretched to its limits.

Orbit is an artistic genius – there is no shade of a doubt. His bag of tricks is deeper than most, and the familiar bubbling of delayed Juno 106 sounds covers The Painter as generously as it has many of his productions over the past four decades. We have come a long way since the dark pulses of “Scorpion” (from 1987’s Strange Cargo) or the dancefloor-led tape collage of “Prepare to Energise” (the 1983 single from Torch Song), but the Orbit touch remains both deft and recognisable. The question is, have the intervening years – and the substances imbibed – dulled and dented it?

Some will think so. Fans of Madonna’s “Ray of Light” or “Beautiful Stranger” might be disappointed by the lack of ecstatic release across the tracks on The Painter. They probably won’t appeal to followers of All Saints searching for the pop heaven of “Pure Shores,” either. Britney’s army of supporters will feel let down by the lack of material to lift the Louisiana lass back up the charts. Audiences from more than one generation, across multiple genres, who have counted on Orbit to move their feet, will have their expectations dashed.

More fool them. Orbit’s own work has always been wide-ranging and even experimental. For every “Water from a Vine Leaf,” there has been a “Last Lagoon.” The songs on The Painter aren’t written for the charts (even if he dabbles in reggaeton with the Canadian singer, Lido Pimienta). They are companions to his visual work as a painter, as well as sonic adventures with old and new collaborators; each of whom has impressed their own mark on the material. Yes, there is a Leftfield remix of “Bank of Wildflowers,” the result of work with Georgia, but the rework isn’t really the point. You don’t expect Polly Scattergood to turn in a substitute for Blur, either. Beth Orton’s presence on two songs might raise hopes for another “She Cries Your Name,” but only for those with preset expectations. Instead, there is a dreaminess and ambience more attuned to the psychedelic imagery of Orbit’s paintings.

There are also tracks with Katie Melua, the late Hukwe Zawose (here in sampled form), Ali Love, Gloria Kaba and Laurie Mayer. The latter has often worked in Orbit’s shadow – so far as the PR machinery has focussed on him alone – but has been a key part of his story since the earliest days of Guerilla and Torch Song. Her own Black Lining album is a lost classic, and both she and Kaba worked on Madonna’s MDNA project with Orbit. As much as anything else, The Painter is about connections, and the circle that Orbit has drawn to it provides a sense of continuity with his previous work. After the challenges he has had, the need for familiarity is understandable – for Orbit and listeners alike.

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail

Orbit Releases New Single with Polly Scattergood

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

William Orbit has released a new single with Polly Scattergood. “Colours Colliding” is the first track to be revealed from his forthcoming album, The Painter.

Orbit has been showing his paintings, which use day-glo colours and psychedelic images, for several years. His palette is bright and warm – rather like the sonic shape of this new release.

The Painter is released on 26 August 2022.

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail

Smack My Beach Up: Rico Conning’s Frogmore

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Rico Conning’s musical career began with The Lines, a legendary post-punk combo. He went on to become a studio wizard, recording Wire, remixing Depeche Mode, and producing Martin Gore and Frank Tovey for Mute Records. As the engineer for Guerilla Studios, Conning worked closely with William Orbit and Laurie Mayer, whom he joined as Torch Song in 1995.

If you look at the sleeve notes, you will find Conning credited on works by S’Express, Test Dept., Laibach, Coil, Colourbox, The Bambi Slam, Pere Ubu – getting the picture, yet?

So, when Conning steps into the studio to record his own material, what do you get? The answer is Frogmore, a sophisticated and weighty album.

The opening track, “Mustang,” is named for the guitar Conning used on The Lines’ “White Nights.” That song became part of the core Torch Song curriculum (Bonus points for knowing that a version was recorded with Sarah Blackwood at the microphone but it is Laurie Mayer’s voice on the track that was released). Conning notes that there are some thematic elements in common between “White Nights” and “Mustang;” but, to the attuned ear, there are also echoes of Colin Newman in the vocals. That is a cool thing.

The song runs to almost ten minutes, which would represent almost half of a side of a vinyl LP. As an album opener, it would be an unusual and commercially brave choice in the hit-driven world where Conning has made his name. Freed from any profit motive and the restrictions of physical media, however, the atmosphere is able to spread like the bands of a rainbow.

In any event, for those keeping time, the next track clocks in at 15:49.

“Frogmore” takes its name from a cabin that Conning occupied in Malibu for many years. It goes through themes as an electro-ambient composition before transitioning into a poem based upon Conning’s memories of the space and its sounds.

“Fluxus” follows – not a reference to the art movement that drew in Yoko Ono so much as a combination of Cocteau Twins chords and a synth-led part that Conning had been looking for a home for since 1994. Nestled between the reverberating guitar sections, it is a neat piece of Krautrock that could have been carried out of Conny’s Studio twenty years earlier.

Conning’s a talented singer, and when his voice is joined to the mix the song is lifted into a dreampop state of mind. This is music for running along a beach or watching the Sun drop into the ocean.

The album wraps with “Mercury,” drawn from a forthcoming project, On a Wire. In places, it has the psychedelic feel of a Nico song, and one can almost feel her waiting for the cue to come in.

Frogmore is an accomplished work. Conning has drawn deeply from his well to create a personal work that will resonate with an open-minded audience as naturally as anything from the artists he has recorded.

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail

Post-Punk’s Not Dead: Here Come The Lines

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

hull downDepeche Mode fans will know Rico Conning’s name best from the Blind Mix of “Strangelove” or the Black Tulip Mix of “A Question of Time.” Nick Cash will come to mind first as Fad Gadget’s drummer. Jo Forty’s name is less bound up with the heroes of early electronic music; but, together with Conning, Cash and ex-Alternative TV guitarist Mick Linehan, he formed the core of The Lines, a celebrated post-post incubator.

Founded in London in the immediate wake of punk and its DIY culture, The Lines came together when Conning and Forty met on an English literature course. As Conning tells the story:

We both had a strong interest in music. For me, music was probably a stronger interest than English literature. I found the study of music very boring. I didn’t like to study it; just to play it. We decided to start a band. This was around ’76, and a lot of other people in London were focused on the same thing about the same time. It took us a couple of years to get to where we thought we were good enough to put a record out, and we put out “White Night” in 1978.

whitenight_back“White Night” had a long shelf life: besides The Lines’ original, it was covered by both Torch Song and Adult Net. Although Laurie Mayer, the third member of Torch Song, together with Conning and William Orbit, sang the version that appeared on their album, a version also exists with Sarah Blackwood of Dubstar and Client. Adult Net, the band launched by Brix Smith after she left The Fall, took a more indie route with its version.

Although major success proved elusive, The Lines or its members crossed paths with many of the key players in the city’s independent music scene. Recording at Blackwing Studios, they returned one time to find Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet concluding the first Yazoo single, “Only You.” The band had been drawn to Blackwing by the sound of Dome, the Lewis-Gilbert side project, and Conning went on to work with all of Wire as a mixing engineer for “Eardrum Buzz.” That was only one of many assignments given by Daniel Miller to Conning, who became one of Mute Records’ house studio gurus, recording or mixing Depeche Mode, Erasure, Laibach, Renegade Soundwave and Frank Tovey.

Conning recalls:

I had known Daniel, anyway, from the late 1970s, and The Lines were gigging at about the same time, and our drummer was in Fad Gadget’s band. I did know Daniel vaguely, and one day he turned up at Guerilla, where I worked, to mix some Depeche Mode live tapes. He asked me to do a few of the mixes by myself. He asked me to do “Black Celebration.” After that, he asked me to do “A Question of Time.” They were both good mixes, and then the one I did with Daniel after that was a really good mix which I think actually affected the career of the band – the Blind Mix of “Strangelove” – was a pretty important mix for them. It was the main single out here in the States.

It was another Mute favourite, John Fryer, who did a lot of the studio work on The Lines’ first two full-length albums, Therapy and Ultramarine, together with studio boss Eric Radcliffe. Fryer, one of two permanent members of This Mortal Coil, had developed a reputation as an experimental engineer, and his ability to cope with reel-to-reel tape loops, wrapped around the studio premises, was one of the attractions for the band. Like Dome, The Lines played the studio as an instrument, and their sound owes a lot to the creative setting in Southwark.

After those albums, the band went on hiatus. It was never officially dissolved, but the band members all went in different directions: Conning assumed a job as engineer at William Orbit‘s Guerilla Studios and as a member of Torch Song (just listen to his work on S-Express’ glorious “Mantra for a State of Mind” with Orbit to see where he was going); Cash had his Fad Gadget responsibilities; and Forty and Linehan each went on Eastern travels. Although tracks were in demand for compilations and a retrospective was issued in 2008, it seemed a remote prospect that new material would be forthcoming from The Lines.

300x300Fast forward to 2016, then, and one of the surprises of the year is the release of hull down, the third album from The Lines. Although the original demos had been recorded in 1982-3, and some attempt had been made to improve the recordings in 1987 for a potential release through IRS, the material had to be parked until 2004. That’s when Conning digitised the tracks and started to play with them in Pro Tools; blending the versions to create something new and potent.

We tracked down Conning at his Los Angeles base to learn something about the story of the album. He told us:

This is an attempt to realise what we were trying to realise back then, with the benefit of hindsight. All I did, on some of the tracks, was blend very early demos with much later, much more polished, 8-track versions. When I did that, it was a bit of a revelation. In a couple of cases, particularly – I would say “Flat Feet” and “Archway” – I had no idea what to do with those two until I blended the earliest demo with the later thing. With a couple of others – “Raffle” and “Haberdasher” – it was a similar thing, but in those cases the demo starts and finishes the track and the later development is in the middle.

Although the product of work that began in the 1980s, the sound of hull down remains fresh. “Flat Feet,” the lead track, is rhythmically vigorous and filled with enough authentically snappy analogue sounds to stump even the most jaded hipster. “Single Engine Duster” could be a later-era Wire track, albeit with trombone, Linn drum and Chakk-like funk in the mix. “Nicky Boy’s Groove” features Cash’s TB-303 actually playing a bass line – its sound sitting on the cusp of acid house while guitars and synths drift around in dark, apocalyptic swirls.

Proceedings enter ACR territory with “Zoko Am3,” a track based on a live jam. Conning describes his contribution as a duet with a Watkins Copicat echo unit, and the lines-out soar with a prog-like effect, comparable to the early material from Nash the Slash or Steve Hillage. The use of effects continues with “Where Is the World,” a track that was originally laid down to test out various new gear, including the then-current TR-808. Come “Raffle” and the sound is not a million miles from the Guerilla template: arpeggiators glistening over brilliant, dancefloor-friendly bass lines, while Conning’s vocals come and go as needed.

The pace slows down again for “Archway,” which incorporates Cash’s vibraphone and a Hammond organ in a tribute to the road running under Suicide Bridge. It doesn’t lift for the run-out track, “Haberdashers,” but the sound is much more easily located in its time, using Laurie Mayer’s Juno 60 for arpeggiation. The experimentation at the heart of the The Lines is in the clearest relief here, and it is remarkable that IRS didn’t go for it as part of their No Speak series of instrumental albums.

Three decades after the original tracks were laid down to tape, hull down is partly a sign of what could have been for The Lines, but it also contains traces of what has been for its members. More than an artifact, the album is a document for the present, and it’s dense with rich, experimental music that is even better suited to our time.

LINKS:

Rico’s Reel blog

Buy hull down at Carpark Records

The Lines on Facebook

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail

Shine On: William Orbit

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

William Orbit claims that he can’t play piano, but much of his success is clearly dependent upon his keyboard expertise. The legendary producer and composer is best known for mixes made with synthesizers – reaching across the commercial scale, from Nitzer Ebb and Depeche Mode to Madonna and Prince – so, even if he doesn’t perform Beethoven sonatas on a Steinway, he clearly knows the difference between the black keys and the white ones.

centrooutside

Orbit founded his first band, Torch Song, in the caretaker’s cottage attached to the Centro Iberico squat that he shared with Laurie Mayer. Located within shouting distance of what later became Mute Records’ Harrow Road offices, and a venue for performances by the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Centro Iberico was an abandoned primary school that had been occupied by Spanish anarchists. As he accumulated equipment, Orbit was able to establish Guerilla Studios on the site, initially to record Torch Song’s output.

With the advance provided by I.R.S. Records for the first Torch Song album, Orbit was able to expand the studio’s capabilities and relocate it to a house on Blomfield Road in Little Venice. By investing in the studio, rather than putting the advance up his nose – as was the pattern encouraged by most labels in the 80s – Orbit was able to build up a solid commercial venture. As recording assignments came in, the studios moved with Orbit, settling for about a decade in a terraced house in Crouch End.

From that base, Orbit started a label, Guerilla Records, with Dick O’Dell (formerly of Y Records and now at Mute) in 1990. Over a period of five years, Guerilla released dance records by Orbit’s own Bassomatic project, React2Rhythm, Billie Ray Martin, Shape Navigator and others, mainly in a progressive house vein. The label’s biggest successes came from Orbit’s own work, and particularly the single, “Water from a Vine Leaf,” which is the first recording to feature vocals from Beth Orton.

With some cash in the bank from the success of “Water from a Vine Leaf” and the Strange Cargo III album from which it was lifted, Orbit was able to take a little time out in California. In 1997, prompted by her label, the call came from Madonna to work on her Ray of Light album. Although Orbit had become a regular choice for remixes of Madonna singles, his elevation to a production and co-writing role took him into the big leagues. Widely regarded as her finest release, Ray of Light was darker, cooler and earthier than Madonna’s previous work, shot through with icy strings and Orbit’s trademark percussion sounds. “Frozen,” the first single, topped charts around the globe, and the awards and royalties started to pour in.

The house in Crouch End was exchanged for a California base, but Orbit didn’t rest on his laurels. He moved on to produce Blur’s 13, which included the hit single, “Tender,” and found himself playing the role of band psychiatrist. The group was wracked with emotional tensions, which Orbit had to reconcile in order to get music down on tape as recording moved between London and Reykjavik. The experience took its toll, and in 1999 he shifted gears and re-released Pieces in a Modern Style, a computer-arranged take on classical and new music tracks that he had originally put out in 1995. Orbit’s version of Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” caught the attention of Ferry Corsten, who reinvented it as a trance track which rapidly took over the global dancefloor.

In parallel with his commercial work, Orbit continues to pursue his interest in classical music. His composition, “Orchestral Suite,” was performed in 2007 by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Manchester Chamber Choir, and Pieces in a Modern Style No. 2 was released in 2010. Orbit released the “Orchestral Suite” recordings on Soundcloud in 2014 as Orbit Symphonic, and Soundcloud also became the release channel for Strange Cargo 5.

While his studio caravan has taken many trails and his style has evolved, one constant with Orbit has been the impulse to experiment. He was one of the first to make use of the internet to create interactive tools that fans could use to create their own mixes of his solo work. In 2013, Orbit experimented with a video channel, purchasing video equipment and releasing a series of humorous and experimental videos on Youtube, and in 2014 he launched a spoken-work show at the London Electronic Arts Festival (LEAF). As the selection of tracks below shows, the urge to create and to touch others through art is at the heart of everything he does.

10. Orbit – Feel Like Jumping

Orbit’s first, eponymous solo album is one that he now treats as a learning experience, but this 1987 release is of more than passing interest. “Feel Like Jumping” hints at the dub sounds that he would shortly marry to house music for his Guerilla Records releases, while showing off the respect that he shows to vocal performances.

9. William Orbit – Scorpion

Orbit’s first home was on I.R.S., the label started by The Police’s manager, Miles Copeland III. The relationship with Copeland was a fruitful one, allowing Orbit to put out both Torch Song and solo material. The sound of this instrumental, from the first Strange Cargo album in 1987, is a futuristic hint at what was to come in dance music.

8. Torch Song – Prepare to Energize

Behind every successful man, they say, is a woman. In Orbit’s case, that would be Laurie Mayer, whose own career has received less recognition but is impressive in its own right: she has co-writer credits on Madonna’s “Falling Free”, as well as this track from 1983, and was essential to the launch of Guerilla Studios. You can also find Mayer’s fingerprints on recordings from Baby Ford, Bassomatic and Robbie Williams, among others.

“Prepare to Energize” was the first single from Torch Song, the project that Orbit began with Mayer and Grant Gilbert at Centro Iberico. Gilbert was to drop out, and his place was taken from 1985 by Rico Conning, formerly of The Lines. Collaborators with Torch Song would include Brett Wickens (Spoons, Ceramic Hello) and Jah Wobble, who themselves worked together on a single called “Between Two Frequencies,” but the project went on hiatus between 1987 and 1995.

7. Malcolm McLaren – Deep in Vogue

The Sex Pistols’ former manager, Malcolm McLaren, was a master of the cultural mash-up. It was McLaren who sent Adam Ant out into the world with the idea to mix a “dandy highwayman” image with African drumming; who crushed New York’s nascent hip-hop sound with squaredancing; and who mixed classical waltz music with dance styles cribbed from gay clubs before Madonna had heard of voguing. Together with Mark Moore, Orbit set about mixing “Deep in Vogue” from Waltz Darling, which resulted in the classic “Banjie Realness” mix in 1989. McLaren was so impressed that an edited version was used on the album, in place of the original version.

6. Erasure – Supernature

Originally the B-side to Erasure’s 1989 single, “You Surround Me,” “Supernature” was a cover of the classic eco-disco track by Cerrone. Mute Records were one of the masters of brand extension, releasing slightly different versions of singles to maintain sales momentum, and Orbit’s remix of “Supernature” appeared on the follow-on, limited edition release. It’s a great example of Orbit’s remixing skills, lifting the song to heights that even Richard Branson hasn’t visited.

5. Bassomatic – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Bass

By 1990, the London house music scene was in full swing and Orbit unleashed Bassomatic onto the dancefloor with “In the Realm of the Senses” and “Fascinating Rhythm.” Things got really interesting, however, with the Pink Floyd-inspired title track of the band’s first album, which featured a number of classic Orbit tropes, including bubbling sequences, ethnic flute sounds and celestial pads.

4. Kraftwerk – Radioactivity

Kraftwerk are notoriously precious about their legacy, so the choice of Orbit to rework their iconic track, “Radioactivity,” for 1991’s The Mix, was hardly accidental. Orbit provided two mixes, and this one appeared only on a 12″ vinyl release. It’s more of a bionic splice of Orbit and Kraftwerk than a simple remix, fusing the former’s percussive dance sensibility to the wiring of the original.

3. S-Express – Mantra for a State of Mind

Orbit’s collaborations with Mark Moore are the stuff of dancefloor dreams. Although Moore’s project, S-Express, had achieved its commercial peak by the time this track came out in 1989, “Mantra for a State of Mind” is one of its most enduring releases. Orbit and Moore were joined in the studio by Rico Conning for the “Elevation Mix,” a transporting, mind-expanding version that was well ahead of its time.

2. Madonna – Frozen

The story goes that Orbit’s computers kept breaking down during the recording of Madonna’s Ray of Light album. Madge’s patience was rewarded, however, as the sessions yielded the most sophisticated and dramatic material that she has put out to date. “Frozen,” the first single, stunned critics upon its release with the purity of its vocals (Orbit doesn’t do Melodyne) and the emotional tension drawn from Orbit’s machinery.

1. William Orbit – Water from a Vine Leaf

Taken from Strange Cargo III, “Water from a Vine Leaf” was co-written with and featured a vocal contribution from Beth Orton, with whom Orbit was in a relationship at the time. They also worked together on Orton’s first album, superpinkymandy (released only in Japan), which included a different version of another collaboration, “She Cries Your Name,” than the one that made it onto the award-winning Trailer Park.

FacebookTwitterWhatsappTelegramEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts

Copyrighted image. Enjoy it on our site!