I discovered the Orb's landmark album Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld roughly around the same time i chanced upon electronic music culture in 1992. It enveloped my listening for a very long time in that decade and beyond. CD 1 in particular is particularly weather worn. Best known for the hit 'Little Fluffy Clouds' it invaded my consciousness and provided the soundtrack to many mind expanding weekends.
For the first time in my short lived musical explorations it wasn't the songs that demanded to be revisited. It was the mind altering journey the album takes you on. The musical transition through soundscapes interspersed with samples from the movie Flash Gordon or NASA footage of the moon landings stamped a mark in my brain that's as fresh today as it was the very first time I listened to it.
Although the Orb at the time were steeped in the LSD influenced ambient scene of the 1990s you don't really need to take acid to understand its magic. Although it wasn't a DJ mix just like Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon,' it opened my mind to the possibility of a fluid musical emotional journey. Almost two decades later the DJ mix compilation and the idea of the DJ journey is now stamped into our culture and watered down year after year by successive onslaughts of bland hits compilations (usually involving the words 'Ibiza' or 'Chill'). Yet few take you into the valleys and up the peaks of human emotion quite like 'Adventures.'
WHen Electronic Beats invited me to provide a mix for their digital radio station I decided to embark on a similar musical journey to the Orb's hallucinogenically inspired albums. Unlike my previous mixes which are largely aimed at highlighting the music I play in clubs, this mix is aimed at your inner space. Amongst other samples it references LSD evangelist Timothy Leary talking about his experiences in the world of consciousness expansion as well as Buddhist priest Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi teaching Zen Buddhist techniques. As much as it takes influences from the idea of the musical trip it's also inspired by the idea of mind expansion. Hopefully like Adventures in the Ultraworld once did for me, it'll open a door in someone else's brain to a new way of thinking about music, consciousness and your inner space.
To listen to the show on Electronic Beats radio click here
If you'd like to download the mix directly click here or visit this links page www.gavinherlihy.com/mixes
Thanks to Electronic Beats and everyone who provided music for this mix and I hope you enjoy it.
Gxx