"Little Fluffy Clouds" | ||||
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Single by The Orb | ||||
from the album The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld | ||||
B-side | Alternate mixes | |||
Released | November 1990 | |||
Format | 12", cassette, CD | |||
Genre | Ambient house | |||
Length | 4:27 (Album version) | |||
Label | Big Life | |||
Writer(s) | Martin Glover, Alex Paterson, Steve Reich | |||
Producer(s) | The Orb | |||
The Orb singles chronology | ||||
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"Little Fluffy Clouds" is a single released by the British ambient house group The Orb. It was originally released in November 1990 on the record label Big Life and peaked at #87 on the UK Singles Chart. The Orb also included it on their 1991 double album The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld. "Little Fluffy Clouds" was re-released several times with different b-sides, with its 1993 re-release reaching #10 in the UK.
It ranked number 275 in NME's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.Pitchfork Media ranked it at number 40 on their list of the Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s.
Alex Paterson had previously worked with Jimmy Cauty as The Orb. Upon Cauty's departure from The Orb, Paterson began work on "Little Fluffy Clouds" with ex-Killing Joke member Martin "Youth" Glover. However, because of other production obligations, Glover did not become a permanent member of The Orb. Kris "Thrash" Weston joined The Orb soon after. Weston mixed and engineered several versions of "Little Fluffy Clouds", including the version on The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld.
"Little Fluffy Clouds" makes extensive use of clips from an interview with Rickie Lee Jones in which she recalls picturesque images of her childhood. Critics and fans sometimes attribute the odd nasal tonality of Jones' voice to drug use, though Jones later claimed that it was the result of a heavy cold. The samples are widely believed to have come from a conversation between Jones and LeVar Burton on the children's television programme Reading Rainbow, but in fact originated from an interview disc that was issued with some promotional boxed copies of her album Flying Cowboys. The interview was not actually conducted by Burton at all.