Peter O’Grady, more commonly known as Joy Orbison, is a British electronic producer from Croydon in south London. O’Grady burst onto the scene in 2009 with his UK Dubstep track ‘Hyph Mngo’. The track was released with Hotflush Recordings, founded by fellow DJ and producer, Paul Rose, better known as Scuba. Since his debut single, Joy Orbison has released an extensive list of singles and mixtapes with various record labels, including two set up by himself: Doldrums Recordings and Hingefinger.
Although Orbison hasn’t produced anything with Doldrums Recordings since 2010, his second startup, Hingefinger, has seen more activity. Hingefinger, was a joint venture between O’Grady and DJ/designer Will Bankhead. Under Hingefinger, Joy Orbison released ‘Ellipsis’ in 2012. Since Orbison’s early days, Hingefinger has turned dormant, with Bankhead focusing on his music and fashion label Trilogy Tapes, and Joy Orbison focusing on his making, rather than publishing, music.
Orbison kept a relatively low profile online, often dropping some of his tracks on exclusively physical formats. However, over the last few years, the producer has released a steady stream of work online. Last year, he released ‘Freedom 2’ with Peckham rapper Kwengface and electronic music duo Overmono. This was part of a continued collaboration between Overmono’s Tom and Ed Russell and Joy Orbison. The three artists have been collaborating since 2019 on dance tracks, predominantly, under the label XL Recordings.
Making a return to XL Recordings, Orbison took to Instagram to announce the release of ‘Flight FM’. The track marks a divergence from Orbison’s usual upbeat dance tracks, moving in a more subdued and droning direction. Speaking on Instagram, Orbison said: “I’m always wary of playing new ideas cos you run the risk of completely losing faith in it before you really make sense of it. But luckily it went down well which spurred me on to finish it”. The track’s name is in reference to a pirate radio station that Orbison tuned into as a child. Established in 1998, Flight FM permeated south London’s airwaves with underground dance music until 2008. Since its physical end, Flight FM has moved with the times and has found a space online. However, the station’s twitter hasn’t seen activity since February of 2018, making Orbison’s track a call back to a now-dead age in music.
As of today, ‘Flight FM’ can be found on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music.
