Released on:
Dead Cities
Runtime: 2:38
There’s no messing around on Dead Cities: ‘Herd Killing’ sets the stall from the word go. Compared with the full five minute version, the album version is a short, sharp attack designed as an introduction to the album. In, out, done. It opens with a range of what are fairly typical FSOL effects – odd gurgling sounds – which, even once the drums come in, interrupt the rhythm – and then it’s into a barrage of power chords, wah-wah guitar, and head-mashing weirdness in the strangely triggered drum samples. The track briefly veers into a steady rhythm for a while, before breaking into the intro section again. A second run of steady drums leads into an even more complex section, drum loops and hits so staggered and utterly mangled that it’s quite bewildering. Probably the most intense section of any FSOL track. And then it’s gone. It’s a wise decision to cut the rest of the track and leave ‘Herd Killing’ linked to ‘We Have Explosive’ through samples rather than let it move into what is basically an ‘Explosive’ remix; also, a five minute rhythm-lead track at the start of an album is maybe a little much to be going on with. Even so, it’s a powerful and aggressive sounding piece of music, by far the band’s most rhythm heavy – other than the power chords, there are no other melodic elements – and most of the usual textural density is given over to percussive sounds. Two minutes of chaos to tell the listener that this is going to be a very different album.
The Run DMC samples are taken from ‘Tougher Than Leather’, ‘Soul to Rock & Roll’, ‘I’m Not Going Out Like That’ and ‘Hit it Run’, all from the Tougher Than Leather album. Run DMC are given writing credits in the Wipeout 2097 soundtrack liner notes, but not on Dead Cities, interestingly.
For live transmissions, an alternate version with synth samples, released later as ‘We Have Explosive (Part 4)’, was referred to as ‘Herd Killing’. The title was used for a musically unrelated track in 1994, released on Promo 500. The title itself appears to be a reference to the 23 Skidoo title ‘The Culling is Coming’: mass scale killing? Not very friendly. It’s appeared as a key phrase on numerous bits of FSOL art in the years following 1996.
Credits
Written and produced by The Future Sound of London.
Recorded at Earthbeat Studios, London ’96.
Engineered by Yage.
Guitar stab, wah guitar and vocal yell sourced from Run DMC – LP Tougher Than Leather (J. Simmons/D. McDaniels/J. Mizell (courtesy of Profile Records Inc., and Protoons Inc.
Fractional Difference 