''Space'' is a 1990

ambient house Ambient house is a downtempo subgenre of house music that first emerged in the late 1980s, combining elements of acid house and ambient music. The genre developed in chill-out rooms and specialist clubs as part of the UK's dance music scene. It w ...

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

Jimmy Cauty James Francis Cauty (born 19 December 1956), also known as Rockman Rock, is an English artist and musician, best known as one-half of the duo The KLF, co-founder of The Orb and as the man who burnt £1 million. He is married to artist and mu ...

under the alias Space. Originally intended to be

The Orb The Orb are an English electronic music group founded in 1988 by Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty. Known for their psychedelic sound, the Orb developed a cult following among clubbers "coming down" from drug-induced highs. Their influential 19 ...

'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 KLF (also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, the JAMs, the Timelords and other names) are a British electronic band formed in London in 1987. Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) and Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) began by releasing h ...

, the record label formed to distribute the work of Cauty's other project,

The KLF The KLF (also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, the JAMs, the Timelords and other names) are a British electronic band formed in London in 1987. Bill Drummond (alias King Boy D) and Jimmy Cauty (alias Rockman Rock) began by releasing ...

Origins

''Space'' began as a collaboration between

Dr. Alex Paterson Alex Paterson (also known as Dr Alex Paterson, born Duncan Alexander Robert Paterson; 15 October 1959 in Battersea, London) is an English musician and co-founder of ambient house group The Orb, in which he has worked since its inception. Life ...

and

, the original line-up of The Orb. Cauty's record label

planned to release it as The Orb's debut album, but when Cauty left The Orb in April 1990 to concentrate on producing music as

with

Bill Drummond William Ernest Drummond (born 29 April 1953) is a Scottish artist, musician, writer, and record producer. He was a co-founder of the late-1980s avant-garde pop group the KLF and its 1990s media-manipulating successor, the K Foundation, with wh ...

, he took the recordings with him. Reworked to remove Paterson's contributions, the album was released by KLF Communications in July 1990 as an eponymous album, with Cauty alone receiving credit.

Youth Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. You ...

, a friend and colleague of both men, recalled: "Jimmy and Alex were making an album called Space when they had a big argument. Jimmy stormed off, took all of Alex’s bits off the record and released it under his own name. Alex was mortified. I told him not to worry – we’d make a record that was even better". According to Cauty, ''Space'' "was a jam, all done on

Oberheim Oberheim is an American synthesizer manufacturer founded in 1969 by Tom Oberheim. History and products Tom Oberheim founded the company in 1969, originally as a designer and contract manufacturer of electronic effects devices for Maestro (most ...

keyboards Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

. Loads of samples... were chucked in there as well. I started on Monday morning and by Friday it was all done".

Composition

''Space'' takes the listener on a voyage through the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

from

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

outwards, with vast distances of empty space between worlds represented by periods of

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

ambience and near-silence.

Synthesisers A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

, excerpts from classical compositions and nursery rhymes (including

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" is a popular English lullaby. The lyrics are from an early-19th-century English poem written by Jane Taylor, "The Star". The poem, which is in couplet form, was first published in 1806 in '' Rhymes for the Nurser ...

), sinusoidal loops, and communications from space

flight controller Flight controllers are personnel who aid space flight by working in such Mission Control Centers as NASA's Mission Control Center or ESA's European Space Operations Centre. Flight controllers work at computer consoles and use telemetry to mon ...

s are among the sounds used to describe the voyage. This musical interpretation of a physical journey is also a characteristic of the early

recordings ''

The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld ''The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld'' is the debut studio album by English electronic music group The Orb, released as a double album on 2 April 1991 by Big Life. It is a continuous, progressive composition evoking a two-hour psychedel ...

'' and The KLF's ''

Chill Out Chill-out (shortened as chill; also typeset as chillout or chill out) is a loosely defined form of popular music characterized by slow tempos and relaxed moods. The definition of "chill-out music" has evolved throughout the decades, and generally ...

''. Cauty has called ''Space'' "a record for 14-year-old space cadets to go and take

acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...

ofor the first time".

Reviews

John Bush at

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

attributes "incredibly sparse ambience" to ''Space'', with "long periods of near-silence ndonly 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", he concluded.

Track listing

''Space'' comprises eight contiguous pieces across two sides of vinyl or one track of a CD. #"Mercury" – 1:39 #"Venus" – 2:00 #"Mars" – 8:47 #"Jupiter" – 6:34 #"Saturn" – 2:44 #"Uranus" – 2:57 #"Neptune" – 10.28 #"Pluto" – 3:10

References

{{Authority control 1990 albums KLF Communications albums Jimmy Cauty albums Concept albums Albums produced by Jimmy Cauty Ambient house albums