THE FUTURE
SOUND OF LONDON - 1997 ALBUM (1997/1998)
Unreleased
Potential tracks:
Trying
To Make Impermanent Things Permanent
Head
Hunter
Popadom
Sendero Luminoso
A Sweltering Heat
Exploded Funk
Private Psyche And Inner Life
East Pacifica
Glacier
(Part 1)
Glacier
(Part 2)
The Shining Path
How To Be A Genuine Fake
Tudor
Oak (Manor Farm)
Untitled "French
Live" track
Notes:
Warning: below is a lot
of speculative fan-wank
Following Dead Cities, the band's move towards lighter, funkier
and more organic sound is well documented in regards to 2001's
Translations and work as The Amorphous Androgynous, but what is
often forgotten is this move began much earlier, even before the
first Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble DJ set, the band's 1990s
swansong. Only four shows are known to have previewed this
material, but they have become fan favourites and the tracks were
much saught after until over ten years later. Despite a number of
them now being released, it is still interesting to speculate how
the album would have turned out if it was released on schedule as
they may have planned, for late 1997 or possibly early 1998.
Relevant shows:
Mixing
It (25/03/97)
John
Peel Session 1997 (08/05/97)
"French
Live" (1997)
A
Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind (1997)
The first show
playing this material was the short but sweet Mixing It programme
in early 1997. Containing the long, sitar-driven Sendero Luminoso
(then one version of The Shining Path) and moving on to A
Sweltering Heat, then with vocals, and into Glacier (Part 2), it
was entirely new material. The final track was Exploded Funk
which, while from these sessions, sounds more like an experiment
in making Dead Cities material sounding more lively and funky.
The Peel Session, a couple of months later, gave the band chance
to show off their continuing work, opening with Tudor Oak (Manor
Farm), and moving on to The Shining Path, the full eight minute
Trying To Make Impermanent Things Permanent, Thinking About
Thinking About Thinking (now Private Psyche And Inner Life) and
How To Be A Genuine Fake. Tudor Oak and How To Be A Genuine Fake
remain unreleased. A similar setlist began the mysterious
"French Live" performance later in 1997, followed by
Popadom, East Pacifica (which appeared on EBS1 as Kaaawa) and a
currently untitled track. This second version of The Shining Path
- currently unreleased - is much shorter than the Sendero
Luminoso version, with a distorted synth leading the track. With
longer and shorter versions, it is very possible this was lined
up as the lead single, with this later version being the a-side,
and Sendero Luminoso featuring on the album. The untitled track
from "French Live" remains incomplete and unreleased,
but has funky organ and electric guitar, and the drums as
featured on Chawawah from The Isness & The Otherness in 2003.
The FSOLDigital From The Archives series finally gave fans the
opportunity to own many of these tracks. Among the already known,
was a piece called Head Hunter, a long track featuring drums,
bass and guitar which suggest it was recorded during the same
sessions as The Shining Path.
The album paved the way for The Isness, with funk bass and
guitar, sitars, organs, strings, live sounding drums and even
occasional vocals. If the album had been released in 1997 or
1998, it would have been interesting to see how the band would
have progressed, and whether they would have moved more fluidly
into The Amorphous Androgynous, maybe even never adopting that
moniker. Certainly Mello Hippo (based on Impermanent...) and
Chawawah would never have existed as they do now.
Make your
own 1997 album!
Insert 'sticky back plastic' joke here. With the album
incomplete and evidently no tracklist available, this is about as
guesswork-based as the unreleased section gets. I have, however,
attempted to make my own version of this unreleased album, based
on tracks we already know. Getting these tracks without tape
hiss, radio static or robotic voices announcing 'The Future Sound
of London Live Via ISDN!' is more difficult (actually, impossible
at the moment), but to make the best approximation, I have
included in brackets where the track was sourced. Including the
"French Live" untitled track is probably stupid
considering how awful the bootleg quality is, and you'd probably
be best not bothering.
1. Tudor Oak (from Electric Brain Storms 2)
2. Popadom (from From The Archives Vol. 3)
3. Glacier (Part 1) (from Environments 2)
4. Head Hunter (from From The Archives Vol. 1)
5. Untitled (from "French Live"
bootleg)
6. East Pacifica (from Electric Brain Storms 1)
7. Trying To Make Impermanent Things Permanent (from
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind Vol 1)
8. Thinking About Thinking About Thinking (from
From The Archives Vol. 5)
9. How To Be A Genuine Fake (from Peel Session
'97 bootleg)
10. The Shining Path (from Mixing It '97)
11. A Sweltering Heat (from Mixing It '97)
12. Glacier (Part 2) (from Mixing It '97)
Maybe.