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unreleased
THE
FUTURE TAPES
LP,
Virgin OVED 4
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Once
the second incarnation of The Human League began having major
chart success in 1981, Virgin Records were predictably keen
to capitalise on interest in the group and eager to make plenty
of Human League 'product' available.
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As
luck would have it, Martyn and Ian were interested in releasing
a compilation of their work as The Future, prior to Philip
joining them to form The Human League. Virgin realised they
could easily sell such a compilation to the new legions of
Human League fans, simply by mentioning the League's name
on the album's sleeve.
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A
compilation was quickly assembled, using extracts and full-length
tracks from Martyn and Ian's archives, and a spoken introduction
was recorded by their friend Nicholas Dawson, explaining the
origin of the material to the listener (read the transcription
here).
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However,
when the planned release came to Philip's attention, he suspected
that Virgin (and perhaps also Martyn and Ian) were simply
exploiting the popularity of the new-look League, and recognised
that no-one in the League's current line-up would profit from
the album, because none of the group appeared on any of the
tracks.
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So
Philip intervened and prevented Virgin from issuing the album,
even though its forthcoming release had already been announced
on the sleeve of Heaven 17's 1981 debut album, Penthouse
And Pavement. For twenty years, the majority of the tracks
planned for inclusion on this album remained unreleased, but
in 2002, Philip gave his consent for the release of the Dance
Like A Star EP and The
Golden Hour Of The Future, which between them included
more than half of these songs in one form or another.
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The
titles of two of the pieces on this album are unknown and
they are not thought to have ever surfaced on bootlegs.
Regarding the remaining titles listed above - some may not
be the titles which would have been used on the released
album, as many pieces from this period were known by more
than one name. No sleeve artwork is known to be available,
so it's possible that, for instance, the curious second
version of Dance Like A Star above would
have been listed with an alternate title (it does after
all sound as though Martyn and Ian were trying to present
this as a track in its own right).
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According
to the album's spoken introduction, the tracks are split into
thirteen 'bands', the first of which seems to include the
first six tracks after the introduction, i.e. those recorded
by the Marsh/Ware/Newton line-up of The Future. Band thirteen
appears to include both Dada Dada Duchamp Vortex and
the excerpt of The Last Man On Earth, as C'est Grave
is described as band twelve.
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Some
of the tracks which had originally been recorded in mono were
given a fake 'stereo' treatment, and even the tracks in 'band
one', which were recorded in stereo, have been slightly altered
in places, with the addition of effects. For reasons best
known to Ian and Martyn, Blank Clocks and Looking
For The Black Haired Girls are welded together as one
track. The early version of Dreams Of Leaving is actually
a good deal longer than the one-minute extract issued on The
Future's early demo tape, and here lasts three and a half
minutes.
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Also,
Treatment would have been listed on the album's sleeve as
Depression Is A Fashion, which is how it was re-titled
after Martyn added vocals to the track - the album would not
have included these vocals..
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Please
note that there are a number of bootleg CDs and cassettes
based on that early demo tape, and these are often titled
The Future Tapes too. These are completely different
to the album described here, and feature rather fewer tracks
(usually eight or ten), though they do include full-length
versions of tracks presented here as excerpts, plus a few
tracks which were not included on the planned album.
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These bootlegs usually offer some or all of the following
tracks: Blank Clocks, Looking For The Black Haired
Girls, Almost Medieval, Cairo, Pulse
Lovers (sometimes listed as Pulse Colours), Future
Religion ,
Daz,
Dancevision,
Dreams Of Leaving (excerpt) and Philip's first solo
effort, The Circus Of Dr Lao
(often listed as Circus Of Dr Boo), which has nothing
to do with The Future, other than the fact that Philip borrowed
Martyn's synthesizer to create the track!
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Writing
credits for Blank Clocks to Dreams Of Leaving
and unknown titles are uncertain, though all other tracks
are likely to be Marsh/Ware compositions, except C'est
Grave (traditional, arr. Marsh/Ware/Pearce?)
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Produced
by Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, except Blank Clocks,
Looking For The Black Haired Girls, Almost Medieval, Cairo,
Pulse Lovers and Dreams Of Leaving (co-produced
with Adi Newton) and C'est Grave (co-produced with
Timothy Pearce)
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Release
cancelled
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| Previously: |
Next:
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| In
Darkness (bootleg) |
Dance
Like A Star
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