Click the picture of The Orb below to see Dr Paterson’s favourite albums, and why he picked them
Dr Alex Paterson was already a well-experienced head when acid house broke, which put him in a very good position indeed to be a guiding figure in the ambient house/tecnho movement. He hit his mid-teens in Oxfordshire as punk was breaking, along with his mate Martin ‘Youth’ Glover, who would go on to become the bass player of Killing Joke and to work with Paul McCartney as The Fireman. After a few years spent roadie-ing for the Joke and bands such as Public Enemy, he also became an A&R for EG records, the then home of Brian Eno.
Much of this, as well as his status as a refined crate digger, fed into The Orb, the ambient duo he set up with Jimmy Cauty of the KLF. They hit the ground running with groundbreaking albums The Orb’s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld and UFOrb, not to mention killer Peel Sessions and stunning live shows. Since their inception the group (essentially Paterson and a rotating cast of collaborators) have released ten studio albums, the latest being a collaboration between him (and Youth) and Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd, called Metallic Spheres.
We thought we’d ask him to share his favourite albums with us and have to say that we were blown away by what awesome taste in music he has… even if he doesn’t believe we’ve been to the moon. Click through the gallery below to see his Baker’s Dozen.
Shine some sunlight on your Thursday with this 23 track Spotify list culled from AP’s 13. It’s taken from all the albums bar Jack Ruby’s Hi-Fi… and from that fearsome slab of vinyl we have this You Tube of Lennox Miller’s ‘Better Must Come’.
Metallic Speres is out now on Columbia
