Intuitive Music

Future Sound of London

British duo The Future Sound of London consists in Brian Dougans, from Glasgow, Scotland, and Garry Cobain, from Bedford and is one of the most reputed and creative ambient electronica bands fro the 90’s.

Dougans and Cobain met in Manchester in 1985 while Brian was working on a course in the allied science of sound engineering and Gary was studying an electronics degree. In 1987, Gary dropped college and enrolled on a Enterprise Allowance Course in order to build his own studio. A year later, Brian recorded the track “Humanoid” under the moniker of Stakker, which was an important anthem of the progressive dance movement and the first true acid house record ever to hit the Top 10 chart in U.K.

Humanoid’s innovative combination of graphics and house music was frequently used for MTV links and also on an MTV half-hour special. The named of Humanoid was used again by Douglas to produce a serie of works along with producer John Laker. In 1989, Gary Cobain started getting involved in the Douglas productions and after several projects under different pseudonyms, the duo started their sonic exploration toghether with the name of The Future Sound Of London.

Future Sound Of London’s first recordings appeared on the series of Pulse EPs, on the Jumpin’ an Pumpin’ label, under other aliases such as Indo Tribe, Smart Systems, Semi Real and Yage. In the summer of 1991, they created a great expectation in the club scene with a radical remix of Loleatta Holloway’s soul classic “Do That To Me (Set Me Free)”.

In 1992, Future Sound Of London released their debut album “Accelerator” on Jumpin’ & Pumpin’ records. The album included two great hits: “Energy ‘Buzz “ reaching Chart’ No.1, and “Papua New Guinea” reaching Top 20 , that atracted the inmediate attention of Virgin records to sing them. By this time, the artist Buggy G. Riphead joint the Future Sound of London team with their computer artwork. After the success of the first album, Brian and Douglas got locked into their Earthbeat Studios at Dollis Hills, London, to work in a new album. The result was that they end up with a lot of material that didn’t quite fit in. Part of it was mixed and released under the name of Amorphous Androgynous in an album titled “Tales of Ephidrinaâ€?, where they made again full use of the sampling from Peter Gabriel, Deep Forest and loads movie material.

The duo’s double album “Lifeformsâ€? was released in 1994 by Virgin and is considered as a masterpiece of ambient music. In this work they created a whole world of abstract and organic electronic landscapes. Collaborations in this album were King Crimson’s guitarist Robert Fripp, Talvin Singh, Toni Halliday, and the band Ozric Tentacles. The album was followed by a video release titled “Lifeformsâ€? featuring 3D computer animations.

Future Sound Of London’s next album “ISDNâ€? was a very curious and innovative proposal: it was recorded live in 1994 during various ISDN transmissions, broadcasted on radiostations and art galleries directly from their London studios via telephone line. In the album you can find samples from Robert Fripp, 23 Skidoo, and John Williams. The album was originally released as a limited version, 10.000 for sale in the USA, and another 10.000 in the UK and the rest of Europe and was sold out within 3 days of release. A re-issue contained 3 different tracks, while the replaced ones were also been released as ” The Far-out Sun Of Lung” CD-single.

In 1995, the duo appeared, along with other ambient masters like Deep Forest, Global Communication and Trans-Global Underground in the re-mixes album of Yes vocalist Jon Anderson: “The Deseo Remixes�.

“Dead Citiesâ€? was released in 1996, which was originally released with a 192 page book containing the artwork by Buggy G. Riphead in a 10.000 limited edition. In “Dead Citiesâ€? Future Sound of London the duo got closer to harder textures, even reaching industrial, big beat and drum ‘n’ bass climax. Samples in this album was from Ozric Tentacles to Vangelis.

In 2002, Amorphous Androgynous broke the silence of a 7 years period with the album “The Isness” and they give an important turn in their sound, embracing their influences from the 60’s psychedelia of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, The Rolling Stones’ “Their Stanic Majesties Request”, and Pink Floyd’s “The Piper at the Gates of Down”. In 2004, another Amorphous Androgynous, “The Otherness”, was released on the same psychedelic fusion style.