ISDN (album)

ISDN
Second edition cover
Live album by The Future Sound of London
Released	5 December 1994 (limited) 5 June 1995 (second) [1]
Recorded	Earthbeat Studios
Genre	Ambient, techno, ambient dub, experimental
Length	74:57(limited) 75:27 (second)
Label	Virgin
The Future Sound of London chronology
Lifeforms (1994) ISDN (1994) Dead Cities (1996)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Almost Cool	(8.5/10) [3]
Music Week	[4]
Muzik	[5]
NME	[6]
Fluffhouse	[7]

ISDN is an album by the electronic music duo the Future Sound of London. It was released in two different versions in 1994 and 1995 through Virgin Records. The music is edited together from various live broadcasts that the band had transmitted to radio stations all over the world using ISDN networking, a new technology at the time. Its first release in December 1994 entered the CIN's Dance Albums Chart at no. 1. ^[8] The band repeated the format in 1997 with the limited edition ISDN Show , another live album of ISDN broadcasts.

The album

Stylistically, the record features some of the ambience of their previous work, but brings in elements of trip hop, acid jazz and Middle Eastern music. ^[9]

The two released versions have different track listings and cover art. The limited edition, a 10,000-copy pressing released in December 1994, has a black cover. It entered the CIN's Dance Albums Chart at no. 1 on 17 December 1994. ^[8]

The later release, which first appeared in June 1995, has a white cover with black writing, and a different track listing.

The album contains numerous references to several films such as Repo Man in "Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead" is a line spoken by the character J. Frank Parnell, and the track "It's My Mind That Works" samples Miller saying "you know the way everybody's into weirdness right now?" and "it's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness." There are also samples from the sci-fi epic movie Aliens in the track "Far Out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of A Madman", ^[3] along with robotic sounds and laser-fire from the film The Black Hole in the track "Just a Fuckin Idiot", and samples from films Escape from New York , Predator and Exorcist II: The Heretic scattered throughout the record.

Track listing

Limited edition

1. "Just a Fuckin Idiot" – 5:39
2. "The Far out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman" – 4:29
3. "Appendage" – 2:26
4. "Slider" – 7:22
5. "Smokin Japanese Babe" – 4:59
6. "You're Creeping Me Out" – 6:32
7. "Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead" – 3:45
8. "It's My Mind That Works" – 3:25
9. "Dirty Shadows" – 6:15
10. "Tired" – 6:32
11. "Egypt" – 4:11
12. "Are They Fightin Us" – 6:23
13. "Hot Knives" – 3:20
14. "A Study of Six Guitars" – 4:13
15. "An End of Sorts" – 5:26

Second edition

1. "Just a Fuckin Idiot" – 5:39
2. "The Far out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman" – 4:29
3. "Appendage" – 2:26
4. "Slider" – 7:22
5. "Smokin Japanese Babe" – 4:59
6. "You're Creeping Me Out" – 6:32
7. "Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead" – 3:45
8. "It's My Mind That Works" – 3:25
9. "Dirty Shadows" – 6:15
10. "Tired" – 6:32
11. "Egypt" – 4:11
12. "Kai" – 4:24
13. "Amoeba" – 5:21
14. "A Study of Six Guitars" – 4:13
15. "Snake Hips" – 5:52

Vinyl edition

1. "Just a Fuckin Idiot" – 5:39
2. "The Far out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman" – 4:29
3. "Appendage" – 2:26
4. "Slider" – 7:22
5. "Smokin Japanese Babe" – 4:59
6. "You're Creeping Me Out" – 6:32
7. "Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead" – 3:45
8. "It's My Mind That Works" – 3:25
9. "Dirty Shadows" – 6:15
10. "Tired" – 6:32
11. "Egypt" – 4:11
12. "Are They Fightin Us" – 6:23
13. "Kai" – 4:24
14. "Amoeba" – 5:21
15. "A Study of Six Guitars" – 4:13
16. "Snake Hips" – 5:52

Personnel

• Written and produced by The Future Sound of London
• Engineered by Yage for EBV
• Recorded live at Earthbeat Studios, London 1995, during various ISDN transmissions
• Guitar on "Dirty Shadows" was sourced from Robert Fripp live with FSOL, Radio 1 FM, on 14 May 1994.
• John Williams - acoustic bass loops was sourced from the album Cavatina - put through the machines on "Smokin' Japanese Babe" & "Are They Fightin Us".
• "Snake Hips" contains a horn sample from "Vegas El Bandito" and additional percussion loop from "Kundalini" by 23 Skidoo.
• "Slider" and "Kai" contain samples from "The Waiting Room" by Genesis (from the album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway ). ^{[ citation needed ]}

Charts

Chart (1994)	Peak position
CIN Dance Albums Chart (CIN) [8]	1

References

1. "New albums". Music Week . 3 June 1995. p. 52.
2. ISDN at AllMusic
3. "Future Sound Of London – ISDN – almost cool music review". Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 28 May 2008.
4. "Reviews: Albums" (PDF). Music Week . 26 November 1994. p. 21. Retrieved 17 June 2025.
5. Bush, Calvin (July 1995). "Future Sound of London: ISDN" (PDF). Muzik . No. 2. p. 85. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 April 2022.
6. NME (12/10/94, p.44) - 8 (out of 10) - "...has more bite and more energy [than Lifeforms ], possibly as a result of being performed live...the ideal soundtrack for going surfing around the rings of Saturn or hang-gliding through the methane clouds of Jupiter..."
7. "Fluffhouse review - The Future Sound Of London - ISDN". Archived from the original on 13 July 2004.
8. Redmond, Steve, ed. (17 December 1994). "Dance Albums" (PDF). Music Week . London: Spotlight Publications. p. 26.
9. The Future Sound of London: Welcome to the Galaxial Pharmaceutical Archived 13 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine

External links

• ISDN at Discogs