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.
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]
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 and nursery rhymes (including Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), 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]
Reviews
Allmusic 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] It is worth noting that demand outstripped supply on release with the result that numerous bootleg versions of the CD version are in circulation.
Track listing
Space comprises eight contiguous pieces across two sides of vinyl or one track of a CD.
- "Mercury" – 1:40
- "Venus" – 2:00
- "Mars" – 8:47
- "Jupiter" – 6:36
- "Saturn" – 2:35
- "Uranus" – 3:08
- "Neptune" – 9:38
- "Pluto" – 3:57
References
- ^ KLF Communications, "Information Sheet Eight", August 1990 (link)
- ^ KLF Communications (1990), Space press release ("KLF Communications Info Sheet Nine") (link).
- ^ KLF Communications (1990), vinyl label notes, Space SPACE LP1.
- ^ a b "The KLF: Enigmatic dance duo" (1 April 1991), Record Collector (link).
- ^ Bush, J., Space review, Allmusic (link)
- ^ Compiled by Ernie Longmire, this has been the authoritative KLF discography on the internet for some 10 years or more and has been the subject of long-term scrutiny and peer review by KLF fans and collectors. It is now maintained by the fan site klf.de.
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