Alex Paterson

The Orb’s Doctor vibes over Brian Eno’s Music For Films (EG, 1978).

It was June 1980 and I was a roadie for Killing Joke. I was at a party in a high-rise tower block in the Ruhr, in a place called Neuss, which is a suburb of Düsseldorf. Killing Joke were playing this club, the Okie Dokie – the very first place I ever saw a club of people robot-dancing!

EG, the label, was on my radar as Killing Joke had just signed to them. Anyway, I discovered this very plain, grey-sleeved album and it was Music For Films. I have to say, I was very inebriated and I had done some LSD at the time. So I stuck it on the turntable and went out onto the balcony overlooking the Ruhr factories, and I had a vision of the future, basically! I’d never heard anything that was so sparsely beautiful. It was one of those moments where I really did get it, an epiphany, my version of seeing God.

That pushed the boat out for me. I was lucky, I had the keys to the cupboard, so I went to EG and I got every ambient thing there was, Eno’s Ambient 1, 2, 3, 4, and then Michael Brook, Frippertronics… I became addicted. Those moments don’t happen that often. Another was when Run-D.M.C. started off when we were setting up for the Def Jam tour at the [Brixton] Academy, hearing an 808 bass drum for the first time. [1981 Eno and David Byrne LP] My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts wasn’t too far off as another album that changed my life.

In the early ’80s I worked at EG and did get the occasional nod from Eno. Later, he was sitting behind me at a bar and I had a [CD wallet] with me, so I opened it at the four Eno albums, stuck it behind his head and had a picture of the back of his head with this record! But I didn’t say hello, silly sod that I am. Way ahead of the game, he was. The older you get with Eno, the better it sounds.

The Orb’s Abolition Of The Royal Familia – Guillotine Mixes is out on April 9 on Cooking Vinyl