William Orbit, the musician and producer best-known for helming Madonna's 1998 smash comeback album Ray of Light with his textured electronic ingenuity, has died. No cause of death has been reported, but family and friends confirmed in a statement on his social media accounts that he passed away on July 23 at age 69.

Orbit was lauded for bringing out previously unheard sides of his rather diverse array of collaborators; there isn't another Madonna song that flirts with psychedelic rock like "Beautiful Stranger," for instance. When Blur tapped him to produce their 1999 album 13, they ended up with an eight-minute opener closer to gospel than anything else, as well as weirdo punk fits like "B.L.U.R.E.M.I." on the same record.

Orbit also produced songs for Pink ("Feel Good Time"), Chris Brown ("Don't Wake Me Up"), All Saints ("Pure Shores," "Black Coffee"), and U2 ("Electrical Storm"). Regardless of how one feels about those artists, that's a wide-ranging résumé. Earlier this year, he was publicly lamenting that Madonna never returned his interest in a Ray of Light sequel.

Orbit was born William Mark Wainwright in London, UK, and in the early '80s formed his first band Torch Song, a synth-pop outfit whose debut album Wish Thing came out in 1984. In 1986, he scored the hockey-themed Rob Lowe vehicle Youngblood and later scored a top ten UK hit in 1990, "Fascinating Rhythm," with the project Bassomatic. He rose to prominence by adding contemporary electronica elements to Madonna tunes that gave her new relevance in the late '90s and continued to contribute to her albums through 2012's MDNA. Orbit's final solo album was 2022's The Painter.