Prepare To Energize (The Fong Test) (8 Track Version) By Torch Song

Torch song members were: William Orbit, Laurie Mayer and Grant Gilbert. Prepare To Energize was their first release in 1983. Prepare To Energize was way ahead of its time. It sounds more like a prog house track from the 1990s than something from the 1980s, let alone 1983.

Prepare To Energize (The Fong Test) (8 Track Version)

Prepare To Energise reached number four in the US Billboard Dance Charts and became an anthem on the cosmic disco scene.

William Orbit's First Release

Prepare To Energize was William Orbit's first release. He was in Torch Song from 1983 to 1986 before he launched his own solo career. He is know for running Guerilla Records, Guerilla Studios, his interpretation of Barber's Adagio For Strings, and producing Madonna's Ray Of Light.

Barber's Adagio For Strings (Ferry Corsten Remix) By William Orbit

William Orbit's parents were teachers and he was raised listening to classical music. He was very enthusiastic about using his uncle's reel to reel tape recorder as a child. At 16 he left school and worked several jobs to try to save up for his first synth.

In the 1970s, squatting wasn't heavily criminalsed as it is today. As a young adult in London, he lived in a squatted caretakers cottage. He was able to salvage electronic gear from a local second hand shop and began creating experimental electronic tapes. This was the beginning of his mission to build Guerilla studios. He took well paid but arduous jobs on oil rigs to fund his studio. He was well established on the path to building his studio by the time he was signed to IRS records for the release of Prepare To Energize.

In the 1990s, Guerilla records was one of the main drivers of progressive house, although they famously called it Dub House Disco.

Dub Influences By Osmosis

Jamaican dub reggae and sound system culture were highly integrated in London's culture by the early 1980s. There were also many notable dub producers working in London who were expanding the range of techniques in dub reggae, for example Adrian Sherwood.

Groundbreaking British dub releases, such as My Life In A Hole In The Ground by African Head Charge, had transformed what was thought possible with studio technology. Dub also had broad popularity and wasn't in any way niche.

Therefore it's quite normal that William Orbit would osmotically absord dub sensibilities from his surrouning environment. The dub aspect of Prepare To Energize is what separates it form Italo or US electronic disco. This fusion of aesthetics was a key reason why this record became a staple of Club Cosmic. These sophisticated aesthetics also made it a favourite across multiple scenes and DJs, for example: David Mancuso, Frankie Knuckles and The Latin Rascals.

The Fong Test 8 Track Version

The Fong Test version is the more futuristic sound that DJs in Italy and Chicago loved. This mix is named after Lincoln Fong who was an engineer working with William Orbit at Guerilla Studios. Lincoln Fong was later part of the roster of artists on Guerilla Records when he was in React 2 Rhythm and Spooky.

The Chicago Italo Craze

House was a culture before it was a genre. In 1983 there were no house records, but there was house culture. The Warehouse is often credited as the sole cause of house culture, but there were really multiple scenes. The South Side youth culture was entwined with the aesthetics of The Warehouse, but it also had its own history. It developed an aesthetic that was strongly aesthetic, and by 1983 had moved through more than one iteration.

Prepare To Energize was well timed to coincide with the South Side Chicago teen scene's Italo craze, which was a major influence on the first house records. The record had an Italo disco sound and a space disco aesthetic. The style of Frankie Knuckles and The Warehouse had evolved from Philly and Salsoul, but the teen aesthetic had evolved from Herb Kent's Punk Outs and cross pollination between New Wave and disco. Ron Hardy brought both of these scenes together at the Music Box, and Prepare To Energize was released just in time for the Music Box's golden era, and Mendel's peak era. As this was a classy record, it was played by all the Chicago DJs.

A Cosmic Disco Anthem

The term "cosmic disco" was coined from Daniele Baldelli's residency at Club Cosmic by Lake Garda between 1979 and 1984. The UK at the time wasn't very interested in the highly futuristic sound of Torch Song, but Prepare To Energize became an anthem on the cosmic disco scene, and was championed by Daniele Baldelli, the godfather of the cosmic disco sound.

Prepare To Energize owes a debt to Italian space disco of the 1970s and the Italo disco wave of the early 1980s. It also incorporates dub sensibilities from the Jamaican culture of London. Italo disco in the 1980s tended to have bone dry synths, but the dub aesthetic of Prepare To Energize made it perfect for the Italian cosmic scene.

Cosmic 044 (Version 1) - Daniele Baldelli & Claudio Tosi Brandi (1981)

The cosmic style was led by Italian DJs: Daniele Baldelli and Beppe Loda. Daniele Baldelli used to play 12" 45s at 33+8, which makes them substantially slower, but not half speed. They also used drum machines and effects live from the DJ booth, which has a similar parallel in the live drum jams of The Playground. The dub reggae and Italo influences on Prepare To Energise makes it a perfect track for this practice, the end result being an aesthetic of future dub, predating the first dub techno record by ten years.

Club Cosmic was open from 10 PM to 3 AM, but people would drive from all over Europe to go there, which could take days. Even driving from a local urban centre to Lake Garda could take hours. As a result of the long journey, people would camp in their cars outside the club. After going on a Friday, they would camp until it was open again on Saturday. A festival-like experience of Club Cosmic emerged organically from the situational experience of clubbers. This made the experience similar to a festival stamina event, which is ideally suited to the low BPM deejaying style of around 100 BPM. Club cosmic was effectively an open air tailgate festival.

The Americanised Title

If you're British, you might wonder why "Prepare To Energize" spells energise with a "z" instead of an "s". After all, William Orbit is English and we English hate to use a "z" if we can avoid it. Torch Song was signed to a US label from LA. The label and band rightly believed that the US was a better market for their futuristic sound, due to the obsession with Italo space disco in many US cities.

A Time Travel Theory

It has been suggested that Prepare To Energize sounds so futuristic because William Orbit had a single-use time machine that only allowed him to travel back ten years from the prog house era. I haven't been able to confirm this theory, but it's curious that the track seems to have influences from genres that had not been invented in 1983, and that his nickname William "Orbit" predates the orbital raves of the late 1980s.

While it has been argued that nobody would use a time machine for the purposes of founding a synth band, we have no idea what else William Orbit may have travelled back in time to do. Establishing a synth band may have been part of a greater purpose to avert a global apocalypse. Nuclear armageddon was averted twice in the 1980s, and we can't say for certain what role William Orbit played in those events.

If you wanted to travel the world carrying future sci-fi stuff in your luggage, then hypothetically, a synth band is a perfect cover. Faced with the problem of trying to get future tech through customs, he could safely rely on "it's for my modular synth" as an answer to any questions from customs officers.

It's also true that Prepare To Energize could be a numbers station signalling mission success, thereby allowing other time travelling agents to stand down. Leaving those highly plausible time travel theories aside, Prepare To Energize is certainly a very futuristic track, even if it's not literally from the future.