The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld
The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld is the debut studio album by English electronic music group The Orb, released as a double album on 2 April 1991 by Big Life. It is a continuous, progressive composition following a two-hour psychedelic trip through various genres, samples and sound effects. Much of the album was recorded after founding member Jimmy Cauty left the group, leaving Alex Paterson as the central member, with additional contributions by Andy Falconer, Kris Weston, and others. The album was preceded by the charting 1989 single "A Huge Ever  Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld," which closes the album. "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" was well received in Europe, and reached number 29 on the UK Albums Chart. It has since been credited with popularizing the UK's nascent ambient house movement. Background. Alex Paterson began his music career in the 1980s as a roadie for the post-punk band Killing Joke before eventually leaving in 1986 to pursue his own musical interests. Influenced by the growing popularity of Chicago house music in Britain during the decade, shortly thereafter he began working  with another ambient house pioneer, Jimmy Cauty, who had been involved in the Killing Joke side-project Brilliant with Paterson's childhood friend Youth. Paterson, Cauty and Youth also performed chillout DJ sets in Paul Oakenfold's "Land of Oz" night in the club Heaven. Paterson said of these events: Following success in the singles market with their releases as The Orb, including 1988's "Tripping on Sunshine" and the "Kiss EP" and "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld", both released in 1989, Paterson and Cauty started work on the first Orb  album but split in April 1990 due to disagreements about releasing The Orb's work on Cauty and Bill Drummond's record label KLF Communications. While Cauty released his portions of the planned album as "Space" and continued with his other group The KLF, Paterson moved on to his next collaboration, "Little Fluffy Clouds", in autumn 2008 with Youth. The track was recorded by an 18-year-old studio engineer and future Orb collaborator, Kris "Thrash" Weston. Release. In April 1991, the Orb released "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" for an audience familiar with their groundbreaking singles and  several John Peel radio sessions. The album was received in the United Kingdom and Europe with critical acclaim, and reached number 29 on the UK Albums Chart. By mid-1991, The Orb had signed a deal to release the album in the United States, but were forced to edit the double-disc 109:41-minute UK release down to one 70:41-minute disc. This version replaced "Perpetual Dawn" with a remix by Youth and "Star 6 & 7 8 9" with its "Phase II" version, both available on the "Perpetual Dawn" single; and removed "Back Side of the Moon" and "Spanish Castles in  Space" entirely. The full double-disc version and cassette were later released in the US by Island Records. Artwork. The cover for "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" was designed by graphic design collective The Designers Republic, who are credited for "orbsonic love deep space & sampling image" in the liner notes. The album booklet features an image of the Battersea Power Station, as photographed by Richard Cheadle and "treated by dr/chromagene", as well as an image of cumulonimbus clouds over the Congo Basin, taken from the Space Shuttle "Challenger" on 1 April 1983. The Battersea Power Station image  was utilized as cover art for the US release of the album. Reception. In a contemporary review of "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld", the "NME" dubbed it "an album sounding like Pink Floyd without all the self-indulgent solos", concluding that "Reality is inside a pair of headphones overflowing with The Orb. Life will never be the same again. The flotation tank beckons." "Select"s Russell Brown wrote that "long and strange as it is, "Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" is without doubt a good trip." At the end of 1991, "Melody Maker" ranked it at number 22 on their  year-end top albums list, adding that it contained "some of the most unique sounds of the year." In the years following its release, "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" has received continued critical acclaim. A 1993 list of the greatest albums of all-time by "NME" placed the album at number 45. In 1999, "Spin" ranked it at number 82 on their list of the best albums of the 1990s, with critic Richard Gehr opining that ""Ultraworld" is art at its most functional: It works equally well as both acid-peak booster rocket and as Prozac-ian relief  from an ecstatic all-nighter." In 2002, "Muzik" named it the seventh best dance music album of all-time, while "Slant Magazine" deemed it the fourth greatest electronic music album of the 20th century. The following year, "Pitchfork"s decade-end list ranked the album at number 100, with Alex Linhardt's accompanying write-up noting that it "managed to make ambient house a perpetual 'next big thing' for the rest of the decade." John Bush of AllMusic cited "The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" as "the album that defined the ambient house movement." Personnel. Credits for "The Orb's  Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld" adapted from liner notes.