This track was originally released as a single in November 1990 on the record label Big Life. It is a song with a complex history, including a measure of controversy and two threatened legal cases.
Written by Alex Paterson and Martin Glover.
Produced by Kris Weston.
Performed by Alex Paterson and Kris Weston.
www.theorb.com
At its inception in 1988 The Orb consisted of Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty. Upon Cauty's departure from The Orb, Paterson began work on "Little Fluffy Clouds" with ex-Killing Joke member Martin Glover (aka Youth). However, because of other production obligations, Glover did not become a permanent member of The Orb. Kris Weston (Thrash) joined The Orb soon after. Weston mixed and engineered several versions of "Little Fluffy Clouds". The original single is known as 'Seven Inch Mk1' (featured here). Other versions feature on two later albums and several compilations running up to 1994.
The Orb typically use a lot of samples in their work and 'Little Fluffy Clouds' is no exception. There are at least five for which no credit was originally given, two of which led to the threat of legal action.
1) 25 seconds of "Electric Counterpoint III Fast" performed by Pat Metheny (1989), composed by Steve Reich. After several years Reich did engage his legal team on this matter and an agreement was reached to pay him a percentage of royalties for the use of his work.
2) A harmonica sample from Ennio Morricone's The Man With The Harmonica (from the film Once Upon a Time in the West).
3) Clips from an interview with American singer Rickie Lee Jones in which she recalls picturesque images of her childhood. These originated from an interview disc that was issued with some promotional boxed copies of her album Flying Cowboys. The interviewer is not identified. Jones' record company was upset at the unauthorized use of her voice and initially sought to pursue a legal claim. Big Life chose to settle out of court for an undisclosed sum of money for use of her voice on The Orb's recording. In 2016, Alex Paterson said the record company paid $5,000 to use the sample.
(My comment) If the $5,000 sum is true then it seems ridiculously cheap. Rickie Lee Jones' case would seem like a very strong one. Arguably, her dreamily sexy voice is a key feature of this song and the release would have had limited success without it. I've added the text from the sample to a pinned comment below. Asked about the sample in an interview years later, Jones referred to The Orb as "those fuckers."
4) In 2006 a previously uncredited sample from "Little Fluffy Clouds" was recognised by MTV label director Dan Waite, who identified the first voice heard on the ambient mixes of the song as that of his cousin John Waite. A 1990 John Waite BBC Radio 4 broadcast for the programme You and Yours was sampled and features at the beginning of the track. John Waite can clearly be heard saying, "Over the past few years, to the traditional sounds of an English summer, the drone of lawnmowers, the smack of leather on willow, has been added a new noise...". In 2013 the Orb management asked John Waite to join them on their 25th Anniversary tour to read the classic line live on stage.
5) Revelations about sampling continued to emerge for years afterwards when Alex Paterson himself suggested that the drum track is sampled: “If anyone actually knew where the drums on 'Little Fluffy Clouds' came from, they'd all just die, but I'm not at liberty to tell. Record companies have always warned me, ‘Don't tell anyone where you got your samples until we get them cleared!’”. He later said that the drum track was sampled from Harry Nilsson's album Nilsson Schmilsson, and others have specifically identified this as a sample of Jim Gordon's drum solo from "Jump Into the Fire", slowed down approximately from 45 to 33 rpm. The use of a slowed-down "Jump Into the Fire" was acknowledged by Paterson in a 2016 interview with The Guardian, in which he also said the track included a Lee "Scratch" Perry sample.
