William Orbit, the producer who turned Madonna's flagging career around with the 1998 album Ray of Light and made classical music sound like it was beamed in from the future, has died aged 69. His career was a kaleidoscope of collaborations, from Robbie Williams to Prince, Britney Spears to U2, but his partnership with Madonna on Ray of Light is the one that made him a household name - at least in households that care about Grammy-winning ambient pop.

Ray of Light came at a moment when Madonna seemed to be drifting, having just starred in Evita and had her first child, Lourdes. Orbit, who had previously remixed her tracks "Justify My Love" and "Erotica," proved to be the perfect foil, blending techno and ambient textures into an album that sold 16 million copies worldwide and earned Orbit two Grammys. He won another for "Beautiful Stranger" (1999), the Austin Powers theme that he co-wrote and produced for Madonna. That same year, he produced Blur's album 13, helping the band escape their Britpop cage, and Mel C's solo debut, Northern Star.

1999 was evidently the year the stars aligned for Orbit, as his solo album Pieces in a Modern Style hit No 2 on the UK chart - a collection of classical pieces given the electronic treatment. His version of Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, remixed by Dutch DJ Ferry Corsten, became a No 4 single. Corsten said Orbit "constantly challenged convention, embraced the unexpected, and created sounds that felt years ahead of their time."

Born William Wainwright in Shoreditch, east London, to schoolteacher parents, Orbit grew up with classical music as the household soundtrack. He left Minchenden grammar school in Southgate at 15, as his website puts it, "in favour of being self and world taught." That education involved living in squats, fruit-picking in Norfolk and Evesham, Worcestershire, and sleeping on a grain barge in the Netherlands. He worked as a builder, hospital porter, and trainee draughtsman at Humphreys and Glasgow, a company that designed offshore oil rigs.

His musical journey began with guitar, leading to busking in London and Paris and lunchtime gigs at the King's Head pub in Islington. But his destiny was electronics. In 1980, he formed Torch Song with Grant Gilbert and Laurie Mayer, releasing three ambient-electronica albums between 1984 and 1987, one of whose tracks, "Prepare to Energize," appeared in the 1984 Tom Hanks film Bachelor Party. Miles Copeland, who signed them to IRS Records, called Orbit "one of the few people I've come across in my career who I'd describe as a genius... He had an awareness of playing with space and time that I've only ever heard in one act before, and that was Pink Floyd." Orbit himself said, "Sound is like putty, it's elastic. You can do anything with it."

In 1979, Orbit and Mayer founded Guerilla Studios and Guerilla Records, hosting artists like Cocteau Twins, Howard Devoto, Erasure, the Fall, Gary Numan, and Sting. In 1988, he collaborated with comedians Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse, and Charlie Higson on "Loadsamoney (Doin' Up the House)," which became his first hit at No 4.

It's a testament to his unconventional path that, after decades in music, it was only after turning 60 that drugs became a problem. Living in Los Angeles, he returned to London in 2017, then moved to Chipping Norton in the Cotswolds. A surfeit of cocaine and other mind-altering substances triggered a breakdown, leading to a 28-day sectioning at St Mary's hospital, Paddington. In a 2022 interview with Channel 4's Krishnan Guru-Murthy, promoting his album The Painter, he said, "I had four pretty awful years. There was a lot of lifestyle awfulness, some of which I brought on myself, some of which was fate."

The album's title reflected his other talent: painting, which he took up at a stop-smoking retreat in Nevada, attending "vino and Van Gogh" adult art classes. "You turn up, get drunk and mess around with cheap acrylics," he said, with characteristic self-effacement.