1994-05-14: BBC Radio 1, Essential Mix

From the original ripper:

"Welcome to the Essential Mix where tonight we treat you to something very special. During the next two hours we leave the studios here at One FM and take you, out to the weird and wonderful world of The Future Sound Of London..............................."

Original transmission 14th May 1994

This was broadcast as part of the 1994 Future Sound Of London IDSN World Tour, which came about after their, earlier, regular, IDSN broadcasts to KISS FM the previous years. In 1994 the lads embarked on a "Huge tour" with a difference. They never left their home. They played all their tours from FSOL's Earthbeat studio, which was located in Dollis Hill, East London. They were able to do this by using ISDN. This was a digital phone communications link system, which allowed high-speed data to be passed over long distances, the pre-broadband if you like. At the time of this broadcast listeners with access to IDSN were also able to recieve Picture and text along with the music. They played many different Radio Stations and Internet Cafes and " visited " BBC Radio on many occasions for John Peel, Steve Lamaq, Mixing it and various Local BBC stations.

Some of the tracks featured here and also heavily on their 1993 Essential Mix were by Amorphous Androgynous, off their 'Environments' album (which is mentioned in the sleeve notes of their "Lifeforms" Album). A mysterious record with a plain black cover it was scheduled to be released on Astralwerks, but was scrapped for no known reason. Some of the tracks possibly mutated onto their ISDN album. Amorphous Androgynous are one of the many alternate names of The Future Sound Of London.

For this 1994 Essential Mix FSOL were joined by Robert Fripp. A guitarist and a composer who founded the band King Crimson in the late 60's. In the late 1970's, Robert Fripp worked with a technique termed Frippertronics, in solo performances featuring audio loops created with electric guitar and interconnected tape recorders. In the early 1990's Fripp revamped the Frippertronics system by incorporating digital electronics in lieu of tape recorders, renaming it Soundscapes. An album he released called "Soundscapes" which resemble the more ambient pieces in this Essential mix. He has also worked with Brian Eno and David Bowie on Bowies "Low" Album. He is also the husband of Toyah Wilcox.

Now there is no avaliable tracklist for this particular Essential Mix because there was never one released. (I know this because I used to subscribe to the early incarnation of "mixmag" which was produced for "the music industry" and was a little black and white, almost photcopy looking, magazine which was delivered by post (something to do with the DMC if I remember. They used to give a tracklisting of the early essential mixes and I waited for months for this tracklist to come but it never.

I wanted a tracklist and there isnt one so I have made one.

What I have tried to do here, because I wanted a cue sheet, is identify the majority of tracks in this set and pin them down in the mix. It helps that I'm an avid FSOL fan of course.

There are little snippetts of The KLF, Jimi Hendrix, Current 93, Gong, The Orb, John williams and 23 Skidoo but all to small to warrant an individual track cue.

In the sleeve notes to "Dead Cities" there are references to "Intro Breath Environment", "Quagmire environment", "In A State Of Permenant Abyss environment". Now these may have something to do with the mysterious 'Environments' Album maybe.I dont know. What I have done though is taken these titles and used them for parts of the mix I cannot identify along with "Environment Act 4" as it looks better to me rather than "Unknown". In no way do I claim these to be what they are really called but Im pretty confident in what else Ive ID in my tracklist is close to what it says it is.

I have called them that here as I cannot identify any parts of the mix which tally up with any recordings I have of FSOL, but it their unmistakenable style so Im crediting them using the 'Environment' moniker.

They could also be possible variations on the Cascade and Lifeforms EP which run into 5 different parts on Cascade and 7 Paths on Lifeforms, again Ive picked a few out which are recognisable but there are others similar but not enough to ID as that track.

I could have carried on searching but this has took up much of my time as I anticipated so Ive left it at that.

Again this is one of those Essential Mixes which was split by two news bulletins making it a three part mix. Now in the Massive Attack and Leftfield restorations, I left the news in to keep it as original as possible.(after requests to do so). What I have done here though is combine the three parts back into one, two hour continous mix. I have done this like I did the other FSOL 1993 restoration and due to the nature of the music I am able to seamlessly join the 3 parts. This is how I would have liked it someone else was doing it,and also this mix would really be spoiled by the news in two places. I tried it with the news in and it spoils the flow.

Also note that 67 mins into the set, due to the fact it was over IDSN, the music cuts out for 10 seconds as there was a glitch in the transmission. The 10 seconds of silence I have removed and cut the two adjoining pieces together as this really spoilt the set. The times are as below where these joins happen. I promise you would never know.

29.36 first join where News removed

67.04 the original broadcast dropped out for 10 seconds (as this was live via IDSN)

87.49 second join where News removed

TONG WATCH: Tong speaks at Mins : Secs

1:     00.02       introduction  

2:    68.00 

3:    87.49       

4:    116.14       to close the mix

Improvised tracklist

1. Atlantis - Paradise part 1

2. FSOL - Dirty Shadows

3. FSOL - Papua New Guinea

4. Amorphous Androgynous - Breath Environment

5. FSOL - Lifeforms Path 5

6. FSOL - Dead Skin Cells

7. FSOL - Cascade (Version)

8. FSOL - Cascade (Part 3)

9. Amorphous Androgynous - Quagmire Environment

---

News Removed----------------------------------

10. FSOL - Part 2 of set/Vertical Pig (version)

11. FSOL - Kai

12. FSOL - Little Brother

13. FSOL - Central Industrial (Version)

14. FSOL - Lifeforms Path 4 (featuring Elizabeth Frazer)

15. Amorphous Androgynous - In A State Of Permenant Abyss Envinronment

16. Amorphous Androgynous - Mountain Goat

17. FSOL - Cerebral

18. FSOL - Lifeforms Path 5

19. FSOL - Among Myselves

20. FSOL - Cascade (version)

21. FSOL - Tired (version)

22. FSOL - Slider (version)

---

News Removed----------------------------------

23. Amorphous Androgynous - Part 3 of set/ Environments Act 4

24. Unknown - Jazz Break

25. FSOL - Egypt

26. FSOL - Vit

27. FSOL - Eggshell

TECH Info: Original Capture to 3 Hour VHS Cassette 1994-08-06

Transfer to PC using Philips Nicam stereo VCR to M AUDIO 1010LT soundcard

Captured using Adobe Audition 2

Cue points set in Adobe Audition 2

Encoded by FLAC v1.1.2a with FLAC Frontend v1.7.1  level 8

No audio Enhancements have been done to the original recording this is how it was captured.

Number 5 in the Plugg Restoration series

Original recording, Transfer, edits, cues and encoding done by plugg for themixingbowl community.

April 2006