LogFAQs > #955732770

144. The Orb Little Fluffy Clouds (1990)
from the album The Orbs Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHixChYgGRI

Key lyrics:
And the clouds would catch the colors everywhere
Thats neat, cause I used to look at them all the time when I was little
You dont see that

With Little Fluffy Clouds, The Orb found a unique method of creating a simple pleasure. The entire track is built around sampling a Rickie Lee Jones interview. She sounds blazed out of her mind while ranting about clouds, and The Orb go all in on simulating her apparent bliss. Much like actual clouds, Little Fluffy Clouds feels gigantic while lacking density. This is not a bad thing. As an ambient house track, Little Fluffy Clouds is built to return the energy you put in. The dance elements are just subtle enough that one can easily zone out and take it in without any effort.

The Orb achieve this by mixing spacey synthesizers with a simple yet effective beat. The persistence of the Rickie Lee Jones sampling assists both elements. As the synths bubble into the stratosphere, Jones feels right there with them, absolutely amazed by the experience. She is made an unwitting tour guide, almost sounding regal with this production. Simultaneously, The Orb chop her words up, reducing her to a skittering stutter which occasionally forms part of the beat. The whole track is an exercise in how non-musical samples can be recontextualized into something magnificent. Little Fluffy Clouds is a blast of silliness that lingers long after the novelty should have worn off, all thanks to its stellar production.

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My top 100 games (with write-ups): https://foolfantastic.com/top-100-video-games-project/