The second Electric Brain Storm mix was first announced in June 2008, just over a week after the first volume. Intended to be broadcast on PBS in Melbourne Australia, the link between band and station was made by Steven Harran, aka FSOLDigital artist Seafar, a friend-of-a-friend of Brian’s from Glasgow, now living in Melbourne. Unfortunately, the extensive three hour show was eventually considered too long for broadcast in a single block, and the station asked to transmit it as three hour long mixes; communication eventually broke down, and the mix went on hold. In November, Harran provided the FSOLBoard with a full tracklist, with more than 60 tracks listed, several of them simply labelled ‘Environments 2’. Had the show been broadcast in August as intended, it would have acted partially as a promotional mix for Environments II; I’m not sure if I prefer the way things happened, with the album being a musical surprise, or if I would have liked to have had all these teasers. Certainly the tracks played would have really upped the hype and excitement for the album. As is typical with these things, one track labelled ‘Environments 2’ remains unreleased, and ‘A Corner’ appears not to have been part of the album at the time. That, or the others were unnamed at the time the mix was completed.
“OK, let’s go. Five… four… three… transmit. FSOLDigital.” We’re still in the ’96/’97 tour area when it comes to a lot of the spoken samples. For a show with a task of promoting Environments II, it actually opens on a track from Environments 3. ‘Heart Sick Chord’ had, of course, been recorded as part of the San Monta Tapes sessions for the 2006 Life Forms 5.1 surround exhibition soundtrack. Still, an interesting choice, although it’s quite possible that it hadn’t yet been confirmed for inclusion on that album. A brief spoken word environment, including a tiny snippet of the Amorphous track ‘Carousel‘ follows, and then it’s an Eno and Cluster track, first included on the very first Kiss FM Transmission in 1993, overlaid with the Delia Derbyshire 7 Barry Bermange “it was a foreign voice” spoken section from ‘Dreams’, as also heard on Kiss FM shows. Then it’s some mellow IDM from Fizzarum, surrounded by works by some of the world’s most important figures in electronic and tape music: a snippet of a collaborative work by Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaeffer, a piece by Pauline Oliveros, inventor of the ‘deep listening’ concept, and an excerpt from Luc Ferrari’s third groundbreaking ‘Presque Rien’. Early experimental compositions were an occasional part of the band’s 1993 Kiss FM transmissions, and they have remained a reference point through to the present, regardless of other styles that have come and gone. “He knew more about what I was going to do than I did,” an Apocalypse Now quote used throughout the 3D Headspace Tour is overlaid; after an Advisory Circle hauntology track first heard on the first Electric Brain Storm, the “it’s my mind that works” sample from Repo Man is included.
The more experimental tone returns, with a Nurse With Wound track overlaid by the burbling electronics of early tape music composers Herbert Eimert & Robert Beyer, with Amorphous-esque Osho speech on top. This eventually makes way for an EMS : Piano track, ‘The Suitcase’; with those analogue Synthi AKS tones, it could easily have come from the early days of electronic music itself. This eventually resolves into ‘Serengeti’ from Environments II; interestingly, when ‘The Suitcase’ was released in 2013, it retained the ‘Serengeti’ flutes in the background. It closes with a bunch of environments, including spoken word, children’s laughter, and applause from ‘Five Six Five‘. Then things take a left turn into the flute-led instrumental prog of Focus, although to keep things from getting too Amorphousy, what sounds like film footage is played over the top for the most part. It crossfades to a really familiar ambient section, although much as I’ve racked my brain, I can’t identify it. Some Steven Jessie Bernstein – ranting about being “mesmerised the hopelessness of logic” – from classic ISDN broadcasts follows, and then another unknown track – from the lo-fi analogue synth sound, it’s either something from the ’70s (Cluster-esque), or a modern artist aping the sound. Unfortunately, Shazam seems incapable of differentiating between artists using synth sequences, and it offered numerous suggestions for the track, none of which were correct. Ennio Morricone’s ‘Ninna Nanna Per Adulteri’ is the second track to be replicated from the first EBS mix, with the “they gets to missing what they had, they get so lonely for the high-scrapers and the video,” sample from the Kiss FM transmissions over the end, only slowed down somewhat. An Eno/Byrne track is up next, with some Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble samples afterwards; these make sense followed by Bruce Haack’s early electronic pop song ‘Electric to Me Turn’ follows, a wonderful midground between the MPB sound and the early electronics of the EBS shows.
More experimental pieces follow: industrial noise from Throbbing Gristle, and experimental voice and cello composition by Morton Feldman, and a wonderfully bleak poem by Andy Fairley. It’s kind of daft to compare the Kiss FM transmissions and Essential Mixes with the Electric Brain Storms, with roughly 15 years separating them, but it is remarkable to hear the difference between them. At this point, there’s very little interest in sounding contemporary (if such a thing really exists in the internet era), with modern tracks thrown in purely through quality, and given equal placing alongside early tape music, avant-garde composition, industrial, ’70s ambient and ’80s underground music. The overall tone is far, far more experimental, darker and noisier than ’90s mixes. With FSOL being very much not part of any ‘scene’ in any sense at this point, and with electronic music having developed massively in the intervening 15 years, this is unsurprising, yet it’s fascinating to compare the two eras. Much of the music used in the mix is very much in line with Brian’s FSOLDigital releases like Hand-Made Devices, Four Forests and Zeebox Vol. 1 & 2, with Gaz’s psychedelic and prog interests thrown in for variety, so it all fits perfectly.
Up next is some more ’60s groove music, and yet another duplicate from the first EBS mix in the form of EMS : Piano’s ‘The Vessel’. “Greed is good, greed is right…”, from the film Wall Street, appears from a Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble mix. Then we get two track from the 1997 proto-Isness sessions: ‘Gyrated’, listed here as ‘Somewhere’, and ‘Exchanged’, heard for the first time since the 1997 Peel Session, and listed under its working title ‘Tudor Oak (Manor Farm)’. The latter was warmly welcomed by fans, as an eagerly awaited unreleased track. Then its on to more hauntological synth music by Mary St John, and yet another EBS1 track in the form of Zeebox’s then-unreleased ‘Lanes’. A gorgeous track by 90º South follows, and I’ve spent the last 13 years telling myself I’ll check the full album out. Maybe tomorrow… Then it’s back to early electronics with BBC Radiophonic Workshop member Malcom Clarke’s charming ‘Bath Time’.
“I want him to stop… and the voices.” Willem Dafoe as Jesus Christ in The Last Temptation of Christ, not a sample previously used, but a film that was sampled a lot in earlier transmissions.
Further experimental rock music comes in the form of the dub-leaning Twilight Circus Dub Sound System and To Rococo Rot, a group who would also feature on the third EBS mix. Then there’s a track by Brian’s father Bill, recorded during his work for the Scottish Film Board. There was talk of an album of this material to be released through FSOLDigital, but it has yet to surface. Some Environments II environments (what an awkward phrase) close the track, before a run of further experimental pieces: works by GRM member Bernard Parmegiani and electro acoustic composer Gordon Mumm, and John Cage’s legendary ‘Imaginary Landscape No. 1’ sit alongside the more modern analogue sounds of Mordant Music, as well as releases from acclaimed labels Morr Music and Static Caravan; an unreleased Zeebox track – the rhythmic ‘Open Head Surgery’ – the full length version of ‘Newfoundland’ from Environments II, and ‘Til We Meet Again’, an outtake from Yage’s The Woodlands of Old add a FSOLDigital slant to this section. ‘Til We Meet Again’ also features the “imagine stripping a woman down and she had a body like a little submarine” Bukowski quote, first heard on the inaugural Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble transmission. Astonishing that after a 75 minute album, there were more unreleased tracks from those sessions (yet another leaked as part of a torrent a few years later). Cage’s piece is the oldest known track on a FSOL mix, dating to 1939. The Static Caravan track is Robin Saville’s ‘Colin the Lazy Cormorant (Part 1)’, which deserves mention for its title alone.
“The following signal is recorded equally and in phase on both channels, and should provide a central image.” A sample of what sounds like an early documentary or demonstration of stereo sound from the early days of hi-fi equipment. What next? More hauntology from Ghost Box artist The Focus Group, some seriously creepy psychedelic soundtrack music from Ronald Stein, and some twee folk from Vashti Bunyan, an artist with a FSOL link: her comeback album, 2005’s Lookaftering, was produced by Max Richter. Then more early electronics from Delia Derbyshire, and a collaboration between two powerhouses of experimental music, Faust and Nurse With Wound. Then the previews of the third Zeebox album continue, with the vocal ‘Conceal Them’, listed as ‘Minimal Wave’ in 2008, likely after the genre the track inhabits. It’s followed by an odd piece of ’70s library music, and a wonderful live cover of Aphex Twin’s ‘4’ by experimental rock band The Coma Lilies.
The final hour of the mix focuses largely on more modern music, from the brutal minimalist techno of Pan Sonic, the woozy IDM of Proem, more hauntology from Belbury Poly, and experimental rock from The Land of Nod and Sunburned Hand of the Man. Three friends of the band also appear: Roel Funcken, Dan Pemberton and Second Thought. The latter being my second appearance on an Electric Brain Storm mix; Brian seems to love ‘Street’, while I reserve the right to think it’s not one of my best tracks. Ah well, it’s always a real honour to be included. There’s also an answerphone message, seemingly from the woman used in ‘The Galaxial Pharmaceutical’. The rest of the final hour is set aside for FSOLDigital material: Environments II is further represented by ‘A Corner’ and an unreleased guitar-led track with the girl screaming Hyde Park field recording; more from Bill Dougans’s Clyde Port Authority soundtrack; two previously released From the Archives tracks, ‘Distant Nebulus’ and ‘UU’; samples from the band’s sound design for Pete Fowler’s Monsterism Island concept; another then-unreleased version of ‘Yage’; a final preview of the third Zeebox collection; and the still-unreleased archive FSOL track ‘Turned’. There’s very little in the way of movie dialogue, as with much of the mix, although the number of “The Future Sound of London” stings increases dramatically at this point. There’s a brief snippet of dialogue and foley from Escape From New York, as well as ’96/’97 tour favourites “take a sample there” and “will you wake up for one minute, open your eyes, open your ears!”, as well as the 1994-era Apocalypse Now sample “You can’t travel in space, you can’t go out into space”. The final minute features an extended version of the closing environment to ‘Herd Killing’.
As a listening entity, EBS2 is a tricky one to sum up. Ultimately, it’s too long to simply just pop on, and requires a serious block of time to set aside and pay close attention to everything that’s gone on, which is how the mix works best. The heavy use of experimental music from the ’50s-’70s, combined with the continuing inclusion of Ghost Box artists, extends the ongoing hauntology feel of the FSOLDigital era, while the appearance of IDM material is intriguing: the more complex IDM style developed in the ’90s, after the band stopped working on electronic DJ mixes, effectively making this a previously unheard sound in the FSOL catalogue, with the only hints at it coming from the band’s own experiments in the style on Dead Cities. Because of the show’s length, and its release as a single three hour file, I haven’t listened to it anywhere near as much as the other Electric Brain Storms, but it’s hard to deny that it’s an effective set that veers brilliantly from quiet abstract sections to full-on bursts of energy.
The mix was eventually released with the opening of The Pod Room, a few days after the tracklist was shared in November 2008. The Pod Room itself had been teased a few months earlier, as a home for mixes, transmissions, podcasts and live streams. The name is inspired, tying in with the 1993 track and being a room for podcasts. As the only ‘new’ mix in the Pod Room upon its launch (although the Kiss FM broadcasts were unheard or incomplete as bootlegs), it was very much the highlight of the launch. As with the bulk of the Pod Room mixes, it has since been removed from sale, but can be heard on MixCloud.
Tracklist
00:00 Transmission intro
00:27 The Future Sound of London – Heart Sick
04:21 Eno / Moebius / Roedelius – Broken Head
04:27 Delia Derbyshire & Barry Bermange – Dreams Part 4 (Sea)
06:56 Pierre Henry & Pierre Schaeffer – Symphonie Pour Un Homme Seul: Erotica
07:11 Fizzarum – Phut of Plex
10:30 Pauline Oliveros – Procession (Peregrinacion)
11:41 Luc Ferrari – Presque Rien Avec Filles
12:26 The Advisory Circle – Hocusing for Beginners
14:35 Nurse With Wound – Russolo, A Little Fella on Very Ordinary Legs (On The Verge of Getting It On)
15:00 Herbert Eimert & Robert Beyer – Klangstudie II
16:49 EMS : Piano – The Suitcase
20:07 The Future Sound of London – Serengeti
25:59 Focus – Anonymous Two
28:15 Unknown
29:22 Steven Jesse Bernstein – The Sport (Part Two)
29:44 Arthur Lyman – Ebb Tide
30:15 Unknown
32:30 Ennio Morricone – Ninna Nanna Per Adulteri
34:30 Brian Eno & David Byrne – Two Against Three
36:17 Bruce Haack – Electric to Me Turn
37:50 Throbbing Gristle – Lyre Liar
38:56 Morton Feldman – Voices and Cello
39:25 Andy Fairley – Jack The Biscuit
39:48 The Supsonic – Mach 2/2
43:00 EMS : Piano – The Vessel
44:19 The Future Sound of London – Gyrated
47:31 The Future Sound of London – Exchanged
49:32 Turiya Alice Coltrane & Devadip Carlos Santana – Angel of Air / Angel of Water
50:23 Mary St John – Angular Reflectance Characteristics
52:42 Zeebox – Lanes
53:23 90° South – Citroën DS
59:39 Malcolm Clarke – Bath Time
1:02:47 cEvin Key – Blotter
1:06:04 Twilight Circus Dub Sound System – Carousel
1:09:50 To Rococo Rot – Eisfeld
1:12:13 Clyde Port Authority – Dredgers
1:14:47 Bernard Parmegiani – Deuxième Mouvement
1:16:22 Zeebox – Open Head Surgery
1:17:31 101 String – Malagueña
1:17:43 Gordong Mumma – Echo-D
1:18:56 The Future Sound of London – Newfoundland
1:21:04 Mordant Music – Ghost Ship
1:27:17 Robin Saville – Colin The Lazy Cormorant (Part 1)
1:30:00 F.S. Blumm – Binsen & Bast
1:30:00 Yage – Til We Meet Again
1:33:37 John Cage – Imaginary Landscape No.1
1:35:21 The Focus Group – Leaving Through
1:36:35 Ronald Stein & His Orchestra – Moon Rock Ad Talk
1:39:26 Matmos – Rainbow Flag
1:43:04 Roy Harper – Don’t You Grieve
1:43:14 Monstrance – I Lovely Cosmonaut
1:44:30 Vashti Bunyan – 17 Pink Sugar Elephants
1:46:17 Delia Derbyshire – Pot Au Feu
1:46:43 Faust & Nurse with Wound – Lass Mich
1:48:28 Zeebox – Conceal Them
1:50:32 Rino De Filippi – Calcolatore Elettronico
1:53:13 Black Dice – Snarly Yow
1:54:05 The Coma Lilies – 4
1:58:22 Pan Sonic – Pakoisvoima (Fugalforce)
2:01:19 Unknown
2:02:50 Proem – Cold Water (Flat)
2:06:07 Belbury Poly – The New Mobility
2:10:50 Second Thought – Street
2:12:55 Roel Funcken – Atmodion Drake
2:15:31 The Future Sound of London – A Corner
2:19:41 The Land of Nod – The Land of Nod (Sunrise)
2:21:03 Neu! – E-Musik
2:24:11 Sunburned Hand of The Man – Nice Butterfly Mask
2:29:30 Clyde Port Authority – Stand Still
2:31:09 The Future Sound of London – Distant Nebulus
2:35:14 The Future Sound of London – Unknown
2:38:28 The Future Sound of London – Turned
2:43:32 Various Artists – Monsterism Music Library
2:44:28 The Daniel Pemberton TV Orchestra – Pacific Drift
2:47:57 The Future Sound of London – UU
2:48:18 The Future Sound of London – Yage Sunset Strip
2:54:28 Zeebox – Heavily Involved With Drugs
2:57:43 Pierre Henry & Pierre Schaeffer – Symphonie Pour Un Homme Seul: Prosopopée
2:58:53 The Future Sound of London – Herd Killing environment
3:00:08 Transmission end
Fractional Difference 