For an explanation of why I’ve swapped around Transmissions 2 and 4, see the entry for Kiss Transmission 2.
The second of four weekly shows broadcast in November 1993, the fourth Kiss FM transmission actually starts in identical fashion to the third, with an identical environment. Things very swiftly head off in a different direction, however, with a still unreleased track known as ‘FSOL / Dead Can Dance Sound Samples’, an ambient track that, unsurprisingly, heavily samples Dead Dance Dance. It includes the oft-used Steven Jesse Bernstein “Will you marry me?” spoken sample, and is then followed by a number of environments, including two which would be released on the From the Archives series – ‘Environment – Birds’ and ‘Environment – Gong’ – and one which would appear on ISDN over a year later.
“Initially we were using a lot of other people’s records within the show, but eventually we started phasing that part out.” Garry, speaking to Melody Maker in 1994, is clearly describing this exact transmission. Most of the first 40 minute section (this show is, uniquely, split into five sections of 30-40 minutes) consists of then-unreleased FSOL material, and feels like a test run for the group’s ISDN transmissions of the following year. Many of the environments had their own titles at the time – ‘Environments – Birds’ was part of a longer section entitled ’18º to the Left’, named after the “Now turn the control 18 degrees to the left” spoken sample from the 1955 film This Island Earth. There are also samples from Blade Runner. After eight minutes, we finally get to the first full track, and it’s not even one from Lifeforms. ‘Dirty Shadows’ would eventually surface thirteen months later on ISDN. The version here is the one regularly appearing on transmissions, featuring an extended outro including slap bass samples. Afterwards, it’s into an acoustic guitar sample environment which would later end up on Environments. It isn’t until 15 minutes that we finally get Lifeforms material: the same pairing of ‘Bird Wings’ and ‘Dead Skin Cells’ that the band included on the previous transmission. Steven Jesse Bernstein reappears – some of his spoken bits from ‘Face’ have become iconic FSOL moments, especially ‘More Noise Please’, another sample which would go on to name an environment – and not for the last time. An unidentified sample of a man ranting, “Swinging, mesmerised by the hopelessness of logic,” is another that would go on to be used regularly in transmissions, even being the runout etching on the ‘Lifeforms’ EP 12″. There’s also the usual Silent Running fare, and some Apocalypse Now. Evidently some films contained particular dialogue that really resonated with the group.
The only material by other artists in this first part is that which is blended in to environments and was almost certainly used in a sampling sense rather than as part of an intended DJ mix. The Dif Juz track, in particular, is used many times in 1994. We even get another totally unreleased piece near the end of the part, ‘Open Enclosure’. Maybe it’ll appear on a future Archives release. The part ends with environments from the ‘Lifeforms’ single, which, due to it originally being planned for release before the album, is perhaps unsurprising (Lifeforms itself was still slated for a January ’94 release as late as October ’93). Still, if we can learn anything from this part, it’s that a significant amount of ISDN material was being worked along alongside later Lifeforms material.
From Part 2 onwards, the transmission reverts to the more familiar blend of other artists’ work and unreleased FSOL tracks, although still with a higher percentage of the band’s own material than previous entries. It’s largely early ’92 downtempo material – Teste, Cusp, Hypnopedia – although a 1967 Morton Subotnik piece also sneaks in. Interestingly, the Earthbeat Central Computer voice states, at one point, “ISDN one… two… three. We have full bandwidth,” suggesting that the group were well on their way to investigating it as a means of broadcast at this point.
“They pick up signals from the cosmos, and transmit them directly into the brain” – Danny in Withnail & I with an amusing conspiracy theory.
The second half of Part 2 returns to FSOL territory, starting with lots of Silent Running speech and ‘Bird Wings’ pigeon samples as part of yet another unreleased environment, before ‘Flak’ gets its second official outing. ‘Who the Hell Asked You?’, another working title for an environment that later appeared as part of Environments follows, and then it’s on to more ISDN, with one of the many sections of ‘Tired’, which gradually becomes the outro of ‘Little Brother’, a nice link tying the two albums together. Another regularly used environment section follows, which samples Rachmaninov’s third Piano Concerto, The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s ‘Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)’ and Dionne Warwick’s ‘Do You Know the Way to San Jose?’ as well as some saxophone improvisation; the ‘More Noise Please’ environment concludes this section. This four minute section would be utilised regularly throughout the 1994 3D Headspace Tour. Garry explained this approach to Melody Maker in 1994: “Now what we’re doing is exclusive products that mix very small elements from music, like Rachmaninov or Miles Davis – basically all the stuff we couldn’t get clearance for with the album. It just allows us to go completely mental, it allows us to do that album with 4,000 samples on it and say, ‘Clear these, you f***ers’.” In that regard, these environmental sections are almost FSOL at their purest: with copyright restrictions more lax on broadcast and performance, here is perhaps the album they would have liked to have released. And then listeners were given a chance to hear the first full piece from the ‘Lifeforms’ single, ‘Path 1’. Rights issues would go on to delay the release of this track by another eight months, making it very much a teaser.
“Man was created as the ultimate organic weapon.” – the movie Guyver, and the band spreading their sampling wings a little further.
Part 3 begins with some further Environments material (and some raw Lifeforms samples), before heading into proper DJ mix territory for the most part. The material is largely ’92/’93 downtempo and ambient fare, although Edgar Froese and Richard Pinhas are thrown in to represent progressive synth music, an Eno/Byrne track from ’81 also appears, and there’s also a currently identified instrumental post-punk track in there. There’s a brief section in the middle where numerous tracks and samples are layered on top of a Zuvuya track, leading to a chaotic mesh of dance music, various traditional and folk pieces, odd spoken samples and the usual strange noises. Part 3, in an unusually backwards-looking moment, closes with ‘Papua New Guinea (Dumb Child of Q Mix)’.
Part 4 continues in a very similar vein: other than a few environments (notably the opening of ‘Among Myselves’), it’s almost all ’92/’93 electronica. As with Part 3, there’s little in the way of movie dialogue. One link to the later ISDN transmissions is the appearance of an unidentified performance of John Glover-Kind’s music hall song ‘I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside’ played on organ, a somewhat whimsical piece that was used regularly in 1994. A brief appearance of the White Noise’s ‘The Visitation’ is the only older piece in the part.
Part 5 is a bit cheeky, being identical to the second half hour of Transmission 3 Part 1. Still, for a group tasked with putting together twelve hours of radio in a month, a half-hour’s repetition can be forgiven.
The transmission was released as part of The Pod Room’s launch, with the band’s other mixes, in November 2008, and removed a couple of years later. There are a couple of errors on the Pod Room version, most clear on ‘Teeth of the Wind’, which features skipping and digital glitches. Parts can be still found on YouTube and Mixcloud.
Tracklist
Part 1
00:00 Transmission intro
01:00 The Future Sound of London – FSOL / Dead Can Dance Sound Samples
03:26 The Future Sound of London – Environments Birds
04:42 The Future Sound of London – Environments Gong
05:52 The Future Sound of London – Unknown environment
06:28 The Future Sound of London – A Study of Six Guitars environment
07:58 The Future Sound of London – Dirty Shadows
13:40 The Future Sound of London – Environments (Part 1)
14:54 Daniel Lanois – El Conquistador
15:34 The Future Sound of London – Bird Wings
16:52 The Future Sound of London – Dead Skin Cells
24:10 Dif Juz – Love Insane
26:37 The Future Sound of London – Unknown environment
27:44 The Future Sound of London – Open Enclosure
30:54 The Future Sound of London – Unknown environment
32:35 The Future Sound of London – Teeth of the Wind
37:09 The Future Sound of London – Environments (Part 1)
37:54 The Future Sound of London – Lifeforms Path 4 environment
39:12 End of Part 1
Part 2
00:00 Edgar Froese – Aqua
00:26 David Holmes & Stuart McMillan – Total Toxic Tranquility
02:24 ????? – ?????
05:55 Teste – The Wipe (Sonik Dub)
09:42 Morton Subotnick – Silver Apples of The Moon (Part Two)
12:25 Cusp – Venusian Biosphere
13:14 ????? – ?????
14:08 Hypnopedia – Spectral
14:58 ????? – ?????
15:46 The Future Sound of London – Unknown environment
16:52 ????? – ?????
18:14 The Future Sound of London – Flak
21:44 The Future Sound of London – Environments (Part 1) (Who the Hell Asked You)
22:37 The Future Sound of London – Unknown environment
23:36 ????? – ?????
26:25 The Future Sound of London – Tired
28:21 The Future Sound of London – Little Brother
29:18 The Future Sound of London – Unknown environment
29:18 Sergei Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor (Op.30)
30:25 The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
31:05 The Future Sound of London – Unknown environment
33:14 The Future Sound of London – Lifeforms (Path 1)
37:32 The Future Sound of London – Tired
38:45 Amorphous Androgynous – Pod Room environment (Cactus)
39:41 End of Part 2
Part 3
00:00 Begum Parveen Sultana – Ye Bahut Khushi Ki Nishani Hai
01:04 The Future Sound of London – Environments (Part 2)
04:07 Beastie Boys – The Maestro
05:47 Sub Sub – Past
08:17 ????? – ?????
11:40 The Future Sound of London – Unknown environment
12:31 Balil – Choke and Fly
15:18 The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)
15:48 The KLF – Trancentral Lost in My Mind
16:34 ????? – ?????
19:48 Marilyn Monroe – Do It Again
20:54 Edgar Froese – Specific Gravity of Smile
22:46 Crypt Corp. – Greenpoint
26:14 Zuvuya – Grabbing Nandi by The Horns
26:48 Fedor Tau – Steppe Kargiraa
29:14 Hawkwind – Avante
29:36 ????? – ?????
33:22 Richard Pinhas – Trapeze / Interference
34:10 Brian Eno & David Byrne – Mountain of Needles
36:52 The Future Sound of London – Papua New Guinea (Dumb Child Of Q Mix)
40:49 End of Part 3
Part 4
00:00 The Future Sound of London – Among Myselves environment
01:06 The Orb – Blue Room
02:10 Hypnopedia – Spectral
03:03 Vapourspace – Gravitational Arch of 10
05:00 ????? – ?????
08:33 The Future Sound of London – Unknown environment
09:48 John A. Glover-Kind – I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside
10:23 Sad World – Treasury
12:47 ????? – ?????
14:18 69 – Desire
17:46 Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia – The Tides (They Turn)
18:18 Atom Heart – Pure Function
19:48 Pod – Northern Lights
23:46 White Noise – The Visitation
24:38 Keiichi Suzuki – Satellite Serenade (Trans Asian Express Mix by The Orb)
29:58 End of Part 4
Part 5
00:00 The Future Sound of London – Cascade
05:52 Space – Venus
08:28 Rabbit In The Moon – Dubassex
16:10 Phil Thornton – Colonade (The Summoning)
19:12 Ross 154 – Remembrance
22:28 The Future Sound of London – Vit
28:10 Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange – Dreams (Colours)
29:13 Transmission End
Fractional Difference 