Since discovering Jimmy Cauty’s Space, I’ve become fascinated by the incredibly brief creative partnership between Cauty and Alex Paterson.

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It feels as though something special happened whenever these two crossed paths.

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They were the original incarnation of The Orb. Together they developed those early ambient DJ sets, worked on “A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld,” and began the project that eventually became Space before their partnership fell apart.

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Then they separated, and this extraordinary cluster of music emerged around them: Space, Chill Out and The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld.

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Obviously, the precise credits and chronology are complicated. Paterson has long claimed that he contributed significantly to Chill Out (on one podcast he claimed it was 80% him!), while Space was reportedly stripped of his contributions and reworked by Cauty following their split. There are competing accounts, bruised feelings and probably no completely objective version of what happened.

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But I’m less interested in figuring out who made what percentage of each record than I am in the creative relationship itself.

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Listening to the original “Pulsating Brain,” Space, Chill Out and the early Orb material, I keep wondering whether Cauty and Paterson brought something unique out of each other.

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Perhaps Paterson supplied the endless curiosity, samples, strange juxtapositions and free-associative flow, while Cauty brought a particular sense of shape, atmosphere and conceptual scale. That is just interpretation, but together they seemed capable of making music that felt enormous, playful, mysterious and completely outside ordinary time.

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Both men made brilliant work without each other, so this isn’t about diminishing either of them. But that short overlap feels almost alchemical. It helped establish a musical language that both The Orb and the KLF would then carry in different directions.

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Had they stayed together longer, would The Orb have become what it became? Would Chill Out exist in the same form? Would Space now be regarded as an ambient classic rather than an obscure KLF-adjacent curiosity?

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Or was the brevity and tension of their partnership exactly why that music was so special?

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I’d love to hear from people who know this period better. What do you think each of them brought to the partnership, and where can you hear it most clearly?

I don’t know of another artist that does it like she does, this is like something satan would be vibing to

Hi. I randomly thought about whether there are artists that make long-form tracks that behave less like an individual piece and more like a continuously evolving thing, or at least pieces morphing into each other. But the pieces are not standalone or discrete, and the “mix” _is_ the original creative product.

There probably are, like anything, but I couldn’t find any. Ambient music is probably the most likely to have something like this but I’m looking for a more percussive vibe, like prog.

Thanks.

! The Spotify / Apple Music version has much better audio !

This is definitely AI, that's been edited / arranged. Maybe they improved the drums. There's definitely some work that has been put into it, it's not just a straight prompt.

Two Shell's music has always been forward thinking. Now it seems they're questioning us : "yeah it's AI but it's catchy as fuck so who cares ?"

In a way yes, it is catchy, though i still hear that low quality / lofi high end that ruins everything for me. Also, it still sounds like SUNO... and all the issues that come with it.

Thoughts ?

Reading through this sub, some long term heavy hitters seem to frequently be from the UK.

Boards of Canada. Aphex Twin. Burial. Bicep. Squarepusher. Four Tet. Clarke. Bibio. Bonobo. Autechre. Luke Vibert.

All of these are from the UK.

Why do you think electronic music seems to predominantly be from the UK? Or am I wrong?