It's 15 years since The Big Chill formed and they celebrate this year with a coup, having persuaded festival legends and electronic pioneers Orbital to come out of retirement. The band toast the 20th anniversary of rave-anthem Chime by headlining the festival on the Saturday night.

The organisation started putting on multimedia chill-out and electronica events in Islington's Union Chapel in 1994, before heading out the following year for their first festival, or more of an outdoor party, in the Black Mountains in Wales, where a stellar cast of DJs performed to just 500 people.

By 1998 they were putting on the festival in Larmer Tree Gardens in Wiltshire for a couple of thousand, before moving to Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire where they now have an annual event for up to 35,000 people.

It's the original small festival, starting when there was nothing other than the big guns providing for huge crowds, and now there's a raft of events that have mimicked their 'boutique' festival recipe.

I caught up with co-founder Katrina Larkin, regular guest DJ Tom Middleton and one half of Orbital, Phil Hartnoll, at a festival warm-up gig in Cargo, East London.

Katrina doesn’t mind the term ‘boutique’ as people will always try to categorise things, as long as they understand the thinking behind the festival: “The Big Chill was the start of something new, there was a wave of new larger festivals like V but ours blossomed and caught people’s imagination.”

Tom Middleton explains that they had the idea for the Big Chill when listening to his band Global Communication's seminal chillout album 76:14, and the parties were all about the "friendly ethos." When they took to the Welsh hills for that first outing they took along such talent as Mr Scruff, Hexstatic, Nightmares on Wax and Mixmaster Morris.

Phil Hartnoll has fond memories of the couple of times he played there: "a lovely little festival, I like the vibe."

It was the friendship between his brother Paul, the other half of Orbital, and Big Chill programmer Guy Morley that got the ball rolling: "Paul met Guy and he persuaded us that it would be a laugh,” says Phil. “I like festivals because of the loveliness of playing outside...you are preaching to the non-converted and we've always had fantastic audiences."

Other places that have been memorable for the Orbital brothers? "I love Spain, and we're really looking forward to playing Sonar in Barcelona. I also enjoyed Benicassim. It beats the British weather."

Orbital have since announced a string of gigs and festival appearances, but, short of them repeating their epic Glastonbury performances, could there be a better place to relive those heady days than the Big Chill?

www.bigchill.net – The Big Chill’s website has full details about this year’s festival, as well as news and listings for their two London venues

www.loopz.co.uk – Orbital’s official website for more information on the band’s reunion tour

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