William Mark Wainwright known professionally as William Orbit, is an English musician and record producer. In 1980, Orbit teamed up with electronic musician Laurie Mayer and Grant Gilbert to form the electronic/synth group Torch Song. They initially self-released recordings in an audio cassette series, generated from their home-built studio in a squatted anarchist centre, the Centro Iberico in Notting Hill Gate. Stuart Copeland signed them to the label, the deal enabled them to build their ideal studio. There they recorded two albums and four singles, the most successful being the dance chart hit “Prepare to Energize”, which was featured in the film Bachelor Party. Orbit and Mayer also composed the soundtrack to the ice hockey movie Youngblood, and recorded “White Night”, written by colleague Rico Conning, which was used in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
Bassomatic was another of Orbit’s group projects. The band recorded house music in the 1990s. The band included vocalist Sharon Musgrave and rapper Steve Roberts, also known as MC Inna Onestep amongst others. For the second album, singer Sindy Finn replaced Musgrave on vocals. Both albums were released by Guerilla Studios, founded by Orbit with Laurie mayer and Grant Gilbert. Bassomatic’s biggest hit single was “Fascinating Rhythm” in 1990, which reached No. 9 in the UK, and performed well on the UK Dance Chart.
In 2000, Orbit worked for Madonna on her album Music, recorded at The Hit Factory in New York. At this time, he also co-wrote and performed with her on the song “Beautiful Stranger”. In 2011, he worked with a team of writers including Jean-Baptiste Kouame, Julie Frost and Klas Ahlund and brought their compositions and his production work to contribute to the twelfth studio album by Madonna, MDNA, released in March 2012. He co-produced 6 tracks on the album, including “Masterpiece” which won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song in the Miramax film W.E., at the 69th Golden Globe Awards. After the release of the album, Orbit openly expressed in various media sources his dissatisfaction and disappointment with this Madonna project.
Inspired and encouraged by Rob Dickins, Orbit’s first commercial release in the classical sphere was Pieces in a Modern Style. It was originally released in May 1995 on Orbit’s N-Gram Recordings label, and then again in 2000 by Warner Music in the UK and Europe, and on Maverick in the U.S. The album reached No 2 in the UK album charts. The first single release from the album was “Barber’s Adagio for Strings”, and a dance remix of the track by Dutch DJ Ferry Corsten was hugely successful. The single reached number 4 in the national singles chart. In 2010 he teamed with Rico Conning and Laurie Mayer to make a follow-up album, Pieces in a Modern Style 2, which was released as a two-disc set on the Decca label. The album featured German countertenor Andreas Scholl on an interpretation of Henry Purcell’s “Dido’s Lament”.
In 2007, he took part in Alex Poots’ Manchester International Festival, and composed a symphonic work in nine movements, “Orchestral Suite” which was performed by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, augmented by additional harps, pianos and percussion, and with The Manchester Chorale, conducted by Alexander Shelley at Bridgewater Hall. In 2018, he worked on “After All”, a song by English-Canadian girl group All Saints from their fifth studio album, Testament (2018). Written by group member Shaznay Lewis along with Peter Hutchings and Orbit, whilst produced by the latter, it was released as the album’s second single on 26 July 2018.
