At the lowest point in my life — after years of watching my work with The Orb be degraded, altered, and treated with contempt — I said: “I don’t want anything to do with The Orb anymore.” What I meant was clear: I wanted distance. I wanted no further involvement in something that was hurting me. I wanted my name removed — a moral right I was entitled to. This is also a function of my disability and I have to eject things that are causing immense mental harm.
I have a history and other events to do with this function that have fucked my life up in many other ways.
What ended up happening was the opposite of my intention, instead of removing my name they removed my rights. They continued to use my name, my photo on their stuff in a long list of other collaborators like I wasn’t the one person in control of the Orb while I was there. That’s one of the tactics. Bury me in a bunch of other producers.
I asked because I had one non-negotiable red line from the very beginning:
No interference in my creative decisions. No record label involvement in my music. That was the only thing I insisted on when I signed.
And it was the one thing they systematically broke.
But instead of honouring that, they twisted it.
They took my words — spoken during a mental health crisis — to mean I no longer wanted anything:
Not my name. Not my credit. Not my royalties. Not even my rights.
And they acted on it.
I was pressured into signing everything over to Universal — while homeless and sleeping on the floorboards of a near-stranger’s empty flat. I didn’t have a lawyer and I didn’t understand what was happening. I was exhausted, isolated, and completely worn down. What I wanted was to remove my name from it completely, which I believe is a legal right but hey ho Universal and ‘the friend group’ guided me into something entirely different, like fucking sharks smelling blood. Now I am putting this online I think its FUCKING clear that this is not legal.
Universal and anyone in the Orb didn’t question this of course. They jumped at the chance.
A contract no sane person would sign — treated as binding. I think its called unconscionable in legal terms.
This wasn’t a negotiation.
This was a crisis exploited as an exit clause.
After removing my control, they continued to play my work live, claim credit for it, and profit from it — all without permission. My attempt to reclaim dignity and distance was used as a justification to erase me completely, financially and creatively. Some people on the net say things like ‘If someone signs a contract then its their own fault i have no sympathy” etc. But I was literally ejecting something that was causing psychological harm.
Publishing money was supposed to be the writer’s share.
Instead, a manager took 20%, the registrations were completely fraudulent — and when I said no more, they took that, too.
