U.F.Orb by The Orb
U.F.Orb is the second studio album by ambient house/techno group The Orb. It was released in July 1992 and reached #1 on the UK Album Chart. It featured an edited version of The Orb's single "Blue Room". Noted graphic design group The Designers Republic designed the cover art. Orb member Kris Weston integrated his technical and creative expertise with Alex Paterson's Eno-influenced ambience on U.F.Orb, creating "drum and bass rhythms" with "velvet keyboards" and "rippling synth lines". U.F.Orb reached #1 on the UK Albums Chart to the shock of critics, who were surprised that fans had embraced what journalists considered to be progressive rock. Heavily influenced by The Orb and U.F.Orb in particular, many trip-hop groups sprang up emulating The Orb's "chill-out blueprint". U.F.Orb expresses The Orb's fascination with alien life with its bizarre sound samples and in the album's title itself. The album's single, "Blue Room", is itself a reference to the supposed Blue Room of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which was heavily investigated as a possible UFO evidence holding room. One highlight of the album is "Blue Room", a near 17-minute piece, that features bass playing by Jah Wobble and guitar by coproducer Steve Hillage. The full version of the song is 40 minutes and was released as a single. The initial UK vinyl release featured a limited edition which came in a sealed blue heavy PVC cover and featured two art prints and a bonus 12" of the soundtrack to the film The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld: Patterns and Textures. On October 1, 2007, the album was reissued on two CDs as part of Universal Music's "Collector's Series". Although all the tracks are remastered, its release is to coincide with 15th anniversary of the album's release. The second CD includes remixes from the singles released around the period of the original album.
