The Orb enjoys new found fame as they collaborate with Pink Floyd's David Gilmour

(Reuters)

Alex Paterson has every right to sound slightly tetchy as he points out: "You've ignored us for years, but suddenly everyone's interested just because of who we're working with." His ambient-house pioneers The Orb have been treated as whimsical irrelevances for much of their career; now they're getting to work with one of their heroes and the world is sitting up and listening. Paterson's latest album is Metallic Spheres, by The Orb featuring David Gilmour. The chill-out mavens have been paying tribute to Pink Floyd since their 1991 debut album The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld, with its Battersea Power Station cover and a track called "Back Side of the Moon". Now they have worked the guitarist and vocalist's precise, bluesy style into their own dubby excursions.

Their joint album is essentially The Orb and producer Youth working on tapes of the guitarist. While Gilmour has pointed out on his blog that he has not actually worked with The Orb, Paterson insists the Floyd member was still involved. "We kept him in the picture and he wanted to hear the masters as soon as we made them," the producer insists. "He let us do what we wanted, but he knew we weren't a bunch of ravers."

With talk of The Orb working with an opera company, and further collaborations with reggae eccentric Lee "Scratch" Perry, they are fast becoming something of a national institution.

'Metallic Spheres' by The Orb featuring David Gilmour is out on 4 October