The psychedelic story of Telepathic Fish, the ’90s ambient party that perfected the chillout room

Foakes remembers an interesting cast of people popping into the parties. “Daniel Pemberton, who is now an internationally acclaimed soundtrack composer for Marvel Studios, was still at school when he would come to our parties,” he recalls. “He would just hang out and ask us innumerable questions. To the point where he was almost a pest. He was so keen. ‘What’s this?’ ‘What’s that?’ He just wanted to learn.”

The crew were in such demand that they soon found themselves hosting parties overseas in places like Amsterdam, taking over an abandoned gas holder. But, by 1994, people were moving in different directions and things wound down. The talent that Black had spotted were now being brought into his Ninja Tune label to work across both music and design, while Passamonte moved to Sheffield to work as a press officer for Warp, where she would also release superb music of her own as Mira Calix.

There was also a cultural shift. “The chillout room changed,” says Foakes. “You had places like the Big Chill, which then became a big festival. Ultimately, it grew and got bigger. You could say it got more commercial but, I don’t know, it was a popular thing anyway. The Orb were at number one, selling out Brixton Academy and on the cover of NME. That’s not small beans. It just dissipated into something else.”

Foakes is accepting that these things come in waves, and Telepathic Fish managed to ride one for an unexpectedly decent stretch. “It’s like any movement, isn’t it?” he asks. “There’s a little spark for a few years where the location, the personalities and the culture are at a crossroads and something forms out of that. And then, as everything does, it moves on, you look for new things. I mean, the whole thing could have just been a very short-lived house party but the pieces fell in the right place at the right time.”

It remains something special and singular for Black. “The whole vibe was like: ‘this is underground London’,” he reflects. “Which was not always easy to find. I was delighted to be part of this scene which was so vibrant, DIY, and just for the pure love of it all. It really was a beautiful thing.”