1990s

It was 1992, and England had a hangover. The Happy Mondays had bankrupted Factory Records, the Stone Roses had disappeared, and the KLF summed it all up at the Brit Awards when they shot blanks into the audience and announced, “The KLF have now left the music business.” The glow sticks had cracked and leaked. Madchester and the rave phase were evolving into something entirely different. Looking to decorate their cultural comedown with new sines and wonders, partygoers sought spacey sounds and calmer frequencies. Enter Telepathic Fish, an ambient scene lovingly chronicled in Telepathic Fish: Trawling the Early ’90s Ambient Underground, a new release from Fundamental Frequencies.

Telepathic Fish is a curious collection, seeing as it doesn’t document a specific label or artist but rather a small sonic scene that organically emerged in 1992. It’s a friendly tale of fortuity, with random roommates uniting their shared interests to create the eponymous events in South London. David Vallade, Mario Aguera, Kevin Foakes, and the late Chantal Passamonte (also known as Mira Calix) found themselves living together at 102 Grove Vale, London SE22. When the friends began throwing parties under the collective name Openmind, they didn’t immediately realize how deftly they had tapped into the countercultural zeitgeist, like oracles of auricles.

Their parties included a “chill out room”, covered in mattresses and awash in UV lights, in which ambient techno flooded the atmosphere. Soon, that electronic ambience became the leading player, not just a supporting act, in a series of so-called “Telepathic Fish” shindigs. Openmind and various DJs (including Richard D. James of Aphex Twin fame) would select songs for these house parties, and the most representative and essential tracks from the time make up this ten-song ambient album. It’s obviously deeply personal to the compilers of this mix, and even if that intimate connection to the music doesn’t really come across (with Telepathic Fish achingly emanating a “you had to be there” vibe), it’s nonetheless a cleverly curated selection of chilled-out electronica.

Trawling the Early ’90s Ambient Underground features tracks from Nightmares on Wax, Spacetime Continuum, Global Communication, and Caustic Window, as well as remixes of songs by Keiichi Suzuki, Tranquility Bass, Barbarella, and others from the time. Perfectly sequenced, one would be forgiven for assuming that several of these tracks came from a single artist, so cohesive is the project’s vision (especially the first half). It’s rarely repetitive, though, with each tune reflecting a different aural facet of the scene, from silly synth squiggles to epic washes of waveforms.

The Barbarella remix is a phenomenal introduction, setting the sumptuous, warm tone of Telepathic Fish. Far from the icier, somewhat aloof sounds of certain contemporaneous electronic acts, the opening tunes are wholly inviting and accessible despite their length and musical complexity. With more than half the songs running eight minutes or longer, the album effortlessly immerses listeners in its wondrous, often playful sci-fi world. Insides’ “Skinned Clean” is perhaps the most beat-driven tune, and a great one at that, but danceable percussion isn’t missed on other lustrous tracks.

While a natural extension of the first six songs, the second half of Telepathic Fish is more musically diverse. After the somewhat aimless, 14-minute “Satellite Serenade (Trans Asian Express Mix)”, the record’s only real misstep, Telepathic Fish ends strongly with three unforgettable tracks. Tranquility Bass’ “Cantamilla (Bomb Pop)” magically combines a spry, funky rhythm with Arabic layali and a catchy vocal sample; it feels like the ancestor of so many less memorable songs on generic “world music” compilations. 

The album ends on a startlingly beautiful note with the radical No-Man remix “Days in the Trees (Reich)”, which features heartwarming minimalist accompaniment to a memorable moment from the brilliant series Twin Peaks, in which the character Donna Hayward vividly recounts a sweet girlhood memory. The song feels like a sly thesis statement for all of Telepathic Fish, a record of a gorgeous memory from the early 1990s.

The accompanying booklet is informative but also a treasure trove of imagery from the era. It collects pictures of the many bespoke artifacts created by the roommates and their friends, working within myriad mediums, “from spray-painted stencils and badges to stamps and stickers, ink-jet printers, photocopiers and fax machines, collage and early 3D computer art”, as the booklet notes. In retrospect, Openmind and their Telepathic Fish parties seem like the electronic descendants of Andy Warhol’s multimedia art studio, The Factory, with a ragtag assemblage of eccentric creatives building off each other to create a thriving space where art and music became a collective experience.

Considering how much of an ecstatic event the Telepathic Fish parties were, it’s admittedly mildly melancholic to listen to Telepathic Fish: Trawling the Early ’90s Ambient Underground on one’s own, as a private headspace alone between headphones. However, the inspirational DIY narrative of its hip and happy happenstance, so thoughtfully documented and recalled by this delightful mix and beautiful booklet, might just galvanize some burgeoning bohemians to create their own scene and perhaps host tomorrow’s parties.