Graeme Thomson

‘Ray of Light made me, and I didn’t know what I was doing’: William Orbit on Madonna, being sectioned and resurrection

The hit producer and electronic musician explains why things are looking up

William Orbit co-produced (and co-wrote) Madonna’s best album, Ray of Light, followed in 1999 by Blur’s best album, 13. Andrew Catlin / Alamy Stock Photo

William Orbit is an electronic musician living a jazz life. ‘I like to make it up as I go along,’ he says. ‘It’s one long improv session.’ For most of his 65 years, the music skipped along well enough. In the late Nineties, Orbit was the man with lightning at his fingertips. He co-produced (and co-wrote) Madonna’s best album, Ray of Light, followed in 1999 by Blur’s best album, 13. He created big hits for big movies, including The Beach, which featured his song ‘Pure Shores’. Recorded by All Saints, it became the second most successful British single of 2000.

Orbit worked with U2 and made more records with Madonna, but the tune he was improvising became increasingly jagged and discordant until, for a spell, the music stopped completely. His new album, The Painter, is his first in almost a decade following a period blighted by drug issues and a mental health breakdown.

Success was part of the problem. Orbit had grown accustomed to being on the margins. Born in London in 1956, in the Eighties and Nineties, with synth group Torch Song and then Bassomatic, he was at the vanguard of electronic music without becoming either very successful or remotely famous. Suddenly, in his early forties, he was both.

‘I certainly wasn’t used to it or acclimatised to it,’ says Orbit, who is candid and charming company. ‘Previously, there had been this slow burn, because I’d never really fitted into any prevailing trend. When Madonna happened, it was suddenly a wholly different thing. We had an album that was getting critically enjoyed and was commercially successful. It outperformed expectations multiple times. So that’s great, but…’

Nonetheless, he liked working with Madonna. ‘Most of the time, it’s very musical,’ he says. ‘You’re making a record, and that’s her core skill set.

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