Released on:
Lifeforms
Runtime: 6:46
Opening with another foghorn sample, ‘Eggshell’s initial environment is somewhat at odds with the rest of the track: a piece of grand-scale ambient music that alone sums up the album’s epic scale in a few minutes. Synth strings and a plucked melody introduce the main theme, before a pair of catchy and evocative squelchy synth melodies come in. ‘Eggshell’ is a rare example of synths playing a big part in a track at this point in the group’s career, and although there are plenty of samples on the track – that ethnic sounding plucked melody is based on a one-shot sample – the sweeping synths add a refreshing textural change, seven tracks into the album. Much like ‘Cascade‘, the track is rhythmic, but only relying on the lightest of beats: in this case, a single hi-hat line and a looped grandfather clock sample recalling Global Communication’s epic ’14 31’. The main track cuts out abruptly before the five minute mark, to be replaced by a synth reprise that builds up to a stunning climax. A real highlight of the album. The light touch to the rhythm section – despite its deep, dubby bass – makes it another of those floaty tracks on the album, one that makes me think, perhaps unsurprisingly, given its scope, of being high up, overlooking some grand vista or other.
As with much of Lifeforms, recurring sounds suggest a particular set of samples used, and quite possibly a similar recording time for this and ‘Bird Wings‘, both of which feature a flute sample (one that always makes me think of primitive cave paintings) and even the sharp note that follows ‘Bird Wings’ straight into ‘Dead Skin Cells‘; both ‘Bird Wings’ and ‘Eggshell’ were premiered on the third Kiss FM Transmission.
There were plans to release ‘Eggshell’ as a third single from Lifeforms, and the release was even given Virgin and Astralwerks catalogue numbers (VSCDT 1520/ASW6140). 1994 was a busy year for the band, however, and with the delayed release of the ‘Lifeforms’ single, the expected release of Environments, eventually to be replaced by ISDN, the single was scrapped. Nobody knows quite what was due to be on it, although it’s quite possible ‘Climbing’ was part of the sessions. The track was later heavily reworked as ‘Globular’, a 5.1 piece used at the Life Forms exhibition at the Kinetica Museum.
The title comes from a phrase used in the studio at the time, and is one of many wryly self-critical track names from the era: “‘I’m sick of tip-toeing on the eggshells that surround you’ Pinn spluttered to Yage, referring to his increasingly eggshell ego – inside the fragile eggshell mind.”
Credits
Written and produced by FSOL.
Written by Dougans/Cobain.
Engineered by Yage.
Recorded at EarthBeat Studios – London.
Fractional Difference 