The Orb
The Orb - Featuring Lee 'Scratch' Perry - The Observer In The Star House Album Review
By Andy Peterson in Music Reviews on 19 November 2012
On the face of it, a collaboration between ambient techno pioneers The Orb - these days in reality only Alex Patterson - and Lee "Scratch" Perry sounds like a recipe for complete joy. The Jamaican's influence on British electronic music has been slow to assert itself after he pioneered the arcane studio-as-a-performer innovations that became dub reggae in the 1970s, but, along with Kraftwerk, without either you reckon we'd still be talking about getting our revolutionary dance floor kicks from the likes of free jazz, or The Ramones.
Problem #1: Perry barely sings anything here; it's more a case of contributing vocals, incantations that can frequently sound a bit in tone like an elderly relative at Christmas doing a Yoda impression after a sherry too much. It's all a bit inane really. Profoundly inane on occasions I think we accept, but the listener is made to work far too hard to make any real sense of what the veteran is going on about.
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The Orb, Metallic Spheres featuring David Gilmour Album Review
By Jenn McCambridge in Music Reviews on 08 November 2010
The story here, basically, is a team of legends meet up and fuse together a slightly unusual album. 'Dr' Alex Paterson of The Orb previously worked with Pink Floyds David Gilmour on a charity affair reworking Graham Nash's Chicago project. This went rather well and they decided to develop the partnership and brought in supporting Orb member Youth to flourish and remix the album.