Join us this Friday, September 13th for Yu Su’s debut live Ambientale performance at In Sheep’s Clothing HQ. Born in Kaifeng, a city in central China’s Henan province, […]
Watch Future Sound of London’s psychedelic takeover of MTV in 1996
39 minutes of futuristic electronic music and psychedelic visuals on MTV’s Amp program.
As one of the earliest artists on the essential 1990s label Astralwerks, Future Sound of London helped define ambient electronic music for a new generation. Crafting tripped-out psychedelia to enhance whatever hallucinogen was currently warping your reality, the work of Gaz Cobain and Brian Dougans produced sounds not for peak 2 a.m. revelry but for the 5 a.m. post-trip comedown.
The pair were present at the formation of British acid house, absorbing its spirit and energy and transforming it on the fly. Dougans’ first-ever track, as Stakker Humanoid, is a frenzy of Roland rhythms and ref whistles.
A few years later Dougans and Cobain converged to create more pensive tones that were no less prescient.
Their 13-minute video for “Lifeforms” features computer graphics that, while rudimentary, were remarkably forward-thinking. At the time it was an illuminating, alien look at where computer animation was headed, a kind of free-floating flight through somebody else’s imagination.
By 1996, Astralwerks had begun establishing itself as a tastemaking powerhouse, releasing 12-inches and albums by the Chemical Bros., Mike Paradinas’ project µ-Ziq, and intercontinental production team Skylab, among others. Simultaneously, MTV was trying to figure out the post-grunge 1990s, and eager to connect with the youth culture that was their demographic lifeblood. That same year the network premiered Amp, a three-hour block of contemporary electronic music. In retrospect, it was a visionary show, highlighting for American viewers artists including Daft Punk, Brian Eno, Autechre, Tricky and dozens more. Here’s a clip of Amp that gives you sense of the show’s spirit. Be sure to check out Ken Ishii’s fantastic anime-inspired clip.
That first year, Amp devoted 20 minutes of one show to Future Sounds of London, which the production team filled with experimental videos by themselves, Gaz Cobain’s ambient project Amorphous Androgynous and more. The clip is like a time capsule, offering a sense of the strange, surreal direction that electronic music was taking.
A number of other Amp clips are floating around. Track them down; they’re beautiful documents of a lesser-known moment in electronic music culture.
