Dr. Alex Paterson is the co-founder and sole constant member of the Orb, a long-running electronic group synonymous with ambient house. Throughout his career, Paterson has blended psychedelic imagery with a distinctly British sense of whimsy, and maintained a pirate radio-inspired sense of eclecticism, incorporating elements of progressive rock, dub reggae, techno, and pop music. Paterson formed the Orb with the KLF's Jimmy Cauty in the late 1980s, and the group has included other notable members such as Thomas Fehlmann, Kris Weston (Thrash), and Andy Hughes. The band's 1991 debut album, The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, and its chart-topping follow-up, U.F.Orb, are both landmark releases for electronic music, and the group has maintained a devoted following throughout its career. Aside from the Orb's collaborations with Steve Hillage, Lee Scratch Perry, and David Gilmour, Paterson has also worked with Robert Fripp as FFWD, and participated in numerous other short-lived projects. He was also briefly a member of industrial supergroup Pigface. All of his releases under his own name have been mixes and compilations, from a 1993 Mixmag cassette with Mixmaster Morris to 2021's Kompakt retrospective, Connecting the Dots.

Born in Battersea, London, Duncan Alexander Robert Paterson attended the same school as Martin Glover (aka Youth), who went on to co-found Killing Joke and become a famous producer and bassist in his own right. Paterson worked as a roadie for Killing Joke during the 1980s, and he became an A&R man for the band's label at the time, E.G. Records, in 1986. He began collaborating with Jimmy Cauty (the KLF, Justified Ancients of Mu Mu) under the name the Orb in 1988, recording an acid house track called "Tripping on Sunshine" and releasing The Kiss EP, based on samples of New York City radio station KISS-FM. The EP appeared on WAU! Mr. Modo Recordings, a label co-founded by Paterson and Glover.

Paterson and Cauty focused on ambient DJ gigs, performing beatless sets in chill-out rooms at London clubs such as Heaven. These sets incorporated multiple sound sources, including records, tapes, and sound effects, all focused on atmospheric elements rather than heavy beats. The duo began making studio recordings similar to these gigs, and following an acclaimed 1989 session for John Peel's celebrated program on BBC Radio 1, the Orb signed to Big Life and released the Minnie Riperton-sampling single "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld." Paterson didn't want the Orb to be regarded as a KLF side project, so he split with Cauty and continued using the group's name. Cauty removed Paterson's contributions from what was intended to be the Orb's debut album, and released them as the self-titled Space LP on KLF Communications. The KLF also released the seminal ambient house album Chill Out, which Paterson later claimed was based on his own in-studio DJ work, yet he didn't receive credit on the album.

Paterson and Glover recorded the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds," based on a spoken sample taken from a Rickie Lee Jones interview and Pat Metheny's recording of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint. The song was first released as a single in late 1990, then appeared on The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, which appeared in April of 1991. Featuring collaborators and co-producers such as Kris Weston (Thrash), Steve Hillage (Gong, System 7), and Thomas Fehlmann (Palais Schaumburg), the album was a major critical success, and reached the Top 30 of the U.K. album charts. Paterson and Weston co-wrote "Blue Room" along with bassist Jah Wobble (Public Image Ltd.), Hillage, and System 7's Miquette Giraudy. The dub-influenced track clocked in at nearly 40 minutes, and became the longest song to ever reach the U.K. singles chart, where it surprisingly peaked at number eight, prompting a memorable Top of the Pops appearance where Paterson and Weston played a chess-like game onstage while the song played. A 17-minute version of the song then appeared on U.F.Orb, the band's second full-length, which topped the album chart. "Loving You Live," credited to just Paterson, appeared on Artificial Intelligence, Warp's compilation of home listening techno which helped give rise to the genre known as IDM.

The Orb signed to Island and released Live 93, which was certified silver, and a re-released "Little Fluffy Clouds" hit the Top Ten. Paterson and Mixmaster Morris (the Irresistible Force) recorded the cassette Mixmag Live Volume 9 for the popular dance publication; the session was later issued on CD. The Orb released the mini-album Pomme Fritz (1994) and full-length Orbus Terrarum (1995), which were far more experimental than their previous releases, yet still achieved commercial success. FFWD, a self-titled collaboration with Robert Fripp, appeared in between the two releases. Paterson and Underworld's Darren Emerson recorded TEXtures, a double-CD mix for Volume (home of the Trance Europe Express compilation series), which appeared in 1996. After Fehlmann joined the Orb as a full-time member, the group made the more accessible Orblivion, which appeared in February of 1997. The album became the Orb's first to chart in the Billboard 200, and lead single "Toxygene" became the group's highest-charting hit in the U.K., reaching number four. Paterson's mix-CD Ambient Meditations 2 was issued by Return to the Source in 1999.

The Orb's fifth album, a vocal-heavy effort titled Cydonia which flirted with trip-hop and drum'n'bass, was scheduled to appear in 1999, but as Island was restructuring due to the merging of MCA and PolyGram, the release was delayed until 2001. Several advance editions of the album appeared as promotional discs, which were leaked online, and the album charted significantly lower than past releases, marking the end of their tenure with Island. The unmixed compilation Dr Alex Paterson's Voyage into Paradise was issued by Youth's Liquid Sound Design in 2001. The same label also released East of the River Ganges by the Kumba Mela Experiment, a project featuring Paterson and members of Dreadzone and Suns of Arqa, as well as guest appearances from Uri Geller and Terence McKenna. Paterson formed Badorb.com for limited-edition side project releases, culminating in the 2002 compilation Badorb.com: Bless You, before the label folded.

The Orb's volume of the Back to Mine mix series appeared in early 2003. Also during that time, the Orb released Kompassion, their first EP for German minimal/ambient techno label Kompakt, which also issued solo works by Fehlmann. Bicycles Tricycles, the Orb's sixth studio album, appeared in Japan in 2003 before it was given a worldwide release in 2004. Including material from the group's Kompakt releases, the album appeared on V2 in Japan, Cooking Vinyl in the U.K., and Sanctuary in North America, each with differing track listings. The Fehlmann-heavy Okie Dokie It's the Orb on Kompakt appeared in 2005, and Malicious Damage released Orbsessions Volume One. Paterson had reunited with Cauty as part of the group Transit Kings, and their debut album, Living in a Giant Candle Winking at God, appeared in 2006; Cauty left before the album's release, but he still received credits as a composer on several of the album's tracks, and Johnny Marr played guitar on one. Paterson and Transit Kings' Dom Beken started an ambient hip-hop project called High Frequency Bandwith, releasing a trilogy of EPs and a full-length in 2010.

The Orb continued issuing additional studio efforts and Orbsessions releases, and a collaboration with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Metallic Spheres, was released by Columbia in 2010. Collaborating with another major influence, the Orb and Lee Scratch Perry released The Orbserver in the Star House in 2012, followed by companion album More Tales from the Orbservatory. Paterson and Italian producer Gaudi formed the group Screen with vocalist Chester Taylor, releasing the full-length debut We Are Screen in 2012. Returning to Kompakt, the Orb released the hip-hop-influenced Moonbuilding 2703 AD in 2015, followed by the ambient album COW / Chill Out, World! in 2016. Fehlmann left the Orb, and the group's No Sounds Are Out of Bounds (2018) and Abolition of the Royal Familia (2020) both appeared on Cooking Vinyl. Paterson and Paul Conboy (Bomb the Bass) formed the duo Chocolate Hills and released the album A Pail of Air in 2019.

In 2021, Paterson launched an imprint called Orbscure and released debut albums by two projects with former Orb members. Sedibus, Paterson's duo with Andy Falconer, released The Heavens, and OSS (Orb Sound System), with Fil Le Gonidec, issued Enter the Kettle. Connecting the Dots, a Paterson mix focusing on ambient material from Kompakt's back catalog, was digitally released the same year. ~ Paul Simpson, Rovi