Space (album)

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Space
Studio album by Jimmy Cauty as Space
Released	16 July 1990
Recorded	Trancentral
Genre	Ambient house
Length	38:21
Label	KLF Communications
Producer(s)	Jimmy Cauty
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link

Space was a 1990 ambient house concept album by Jimmy Cauty under the alias Space. Originally intended to be The Orb's debut album, Space was refactored for release as a solo album following Cauty's departure from that group. Space was independently released on KLF Communications, the record label formed to distribute the work of Cauty's other project, The KLF.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Composition 3 Reviews 4 Track listing 5 References 6 Footnotes

[edit] Origins

Space began as a collaboration between Dr. Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty, the original line-up of The Orb. It was, according to Cauty's record label KLF Communications, to be The Orb's debut album,^[1][2] but when Cauty left The Orb in early 1990 to concentrate on producing music as The KLF with Bill Drummond, he took the recordings with him. Reworked to remove Paterson's contributions, the album was released on the KLF Communications label, with Cauty alone receiving credit.^[3]

According to Cauty, "It was a jam, all done on Oberheim keyboards. Loads of samples... were chucked in there as well. I started on Monday morning and by Friday it was all done".^[4]

[edit] Composition

Space takes the listener on a voyage through the solar system from Mercury outwards, with vast distances of empty space between worlds represented by periods of minimalist ambience and near-silence. Synthesisers, excerpts from classical compositions, sinusoidal loops and communications from space flight controllers are among the sounds used to describe the voyage. This musical interpretation of a physical journey is also a characteristic of the early ambient house recordings The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld and The KLF's Chill Out.

Cauty has called Space "a record for 14-year-old space cadets to go and take acid [to] for the first time".^[4]

[edit] Reviews

The All Music Guide attributes "incredibly sparse ambience" to Space, with "long periods of near-silence [and] only an occasional break for galactic sine-waves and similarly spacy tones". The album is "more important for who's on it than what's in it", they concluded.^[5]

[edit] Track listing

Space comprises eight contiguous pieces across two sides of vinyl or one track of a CD.

1. "Mercury" – 1:40
2. "Venus" – 2:00
3. "Mars" – 8:47
4. "Jupiter" – 6:36
5. "Saturn" – 2:35
6. "Uranus" – 3:08
7. "Neptune" – 9:38
8. "Pluto" – 3:57

[edit] References

• Library of Mu press archive - a library of KLF-related press clippings
• Discogs.com, KLF Communications discography
• Longmire, Ernie et al (2005). KLF discography ^[6]
• Author unknown (1991). "The KLF: Enigmatic dance duo" (feature and discography up to that time), Record Collector Magazine, April 1991.

[edit] Footnotes

The KLF
Bill Drummond | Jimmy Cauty
Also known as
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu | The Timelords | K Foundation | One World Orchestra | 2K | K2 Plant Hire
Main albums
1987 (What the Fuck Is Going On?) | Who Killed The JAMs? | Chill Out | The White Room
Related articles
Discography | Films | The Manual | Disco 2000 | Space | The Black Room | The K Foundation Burn a Million Quid Big In Japan | Brilliant | The Orb | Blacksmoke
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The Orb
Alex Paterson | Jimmy Cauty | Kris Weston | Simon Phillips | Thomas Fehlmann | Andy Hughes | John Roome
Main albums
The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld | U.F.Orb | Live 93 | Pomme Fritz | Orbus Terrarum
Orblivion | U.F.Off | Cydonia | Bicycles & Tricycles | Okie Dokie It's The Orb on Kompakt
Related articles
Youth | The KLF | Space | FFWD | Badorb.com | Transit Kings
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