Last Train To Trancentral

Last Train to Trancentral is a song by The KLF. Originally produced as E-Train to Trancentral featured in their abandoned film production; The White Room, the track was salvaged and later released as a single. The song has been through several different mixes, but its probably best known mix is the Live from the Lost Continent, the final chapter in the so-called Stadium House Trilogy, following on from the singles What Time is Love? and 3 a.m. Eternal.

As a fan of classic episodes of Doctor Who, I have frequently heard the song Doctorin’ The Tardis by The Timelords. It is a mash-up of several different songs and is mostly just a novelty release. It is quite cool though, with a nice electro variant of the Doctor Who Theme, followed by quite a catchy chorus section in the middle. From re-watching the Top of the Pops episode that they sung on, I was given a suggestion for another song by a band called the KLF, and then very quickly discovered that The Timelords were also The KLF.

This was the song by The KLF I was directed to. At first I didn’t believe it was the same band, as this song sounded very different in style compared to Doctorin’ the Tardis. Many years later I discovered that this was true, and sort of grew to like it in time. A couple of weeks ago, I listened to 3 a.m. Eternal for the first time, and have listened to almost nothing but that and this in the last week.

Last Train to Trancentral has an interesting composure as it’s sort of more like a piece of dance music, with themes of heavy rock and featured rapping from Ricardo da Force. It carries a simple but effective riff throughout, with little touches of different styles here and there to create an interesting sound. These can occasionally be heard as techno sounding lyrics featured throughout. It’s really hard to describe given that it’s rather different to other things I listen to, but it’s a really funky piece of music. The music video is pretty cool too. It features a cool model train running at high speed through an ominous valley (the kind of set I would love to see more of n The Great Model Railway Challenge). A police car is also seen nearby, sometimes flying through the air (aided by a hand you can just see appearing briefly in shot).

Yeah, it’s a very weird sounding track, but it’s very effective, as well as both funky and cool!