purlieu

Substrata, yup. Although the run from Substrata through to Dropsonde is pretty great. That said, the only album of his I'm not fond of is N-Plants. Anyone after more recent releases like his first couple, I'd definitely recommend last year's Shortwave Memories. And of course Fires of Ork I, his first collab with Pete Namlook, is very Microgravity-esque. The second volume is closer to the jazzier bits of Substrata / Cirque.

Mountain Path is, of course, a completely different track to the FSOL one on E6. It's also much better, a really gorgeous ambient piece based around the Mountain Goat guitar chopped and rearranged.

Tales is owned by Universal / Virgin so FSOL won't be able to sell it digitally. The Bandcamp is just for FSOLDigital releases.

They reckoned they'd do a Drift 2, different to the last but still not a conventional album, which I'm hoping for. While Oblivion With Bells will always be my ambient-lover favourite UW album, everything else since Darren left has had a patchiness to it, a mix of them not quite knowing whether to experiment or try and go for the big poppy club bangers, and feeling slightly compromised by that. When they've just gone "fuck it, here's a bunch of stuff" (Riverrun, Drift Series 1), it's been so much better because there are all-time greats mixed in with weird warts-and-all experiments that make for an exciting listen, even if they're not consistent in the way the 90s albums were. I loved Barbara on first listen, but in hindsight that might be considerably down to the relief that it didn't sound like Barking. These days the only tracks on there that get a regular listen are the first two, which are them pushing themselves out of their comfort zone. Oh yes, this new track, it's alright. Would be fine on one of those collections, but as a single and a potential album track, it's pretty dull. It might also just be standalone, as it seems to be part of their 12" 'drop' series of one-off tracks. Who knows. Also, £25 for a single sided 12" is fucking stupid.

I think that's sadly just an error - it's released on Debut, which was actually the label some early Mental Cube and similar came out on. More importantly, it was a sister label to Jumpin' & Pumpin', which is long gone, but the cat numbers are still used for FSOLDigital releases. So it probably just got lumped in with that as it's effectively the same label for distribution. The expanded Life in Moments, with four bonus tracks, is now available on Bandcamp as download and CD. The remaining LP copies sold out pretty swiftly: LIFE IN MOMENTS ( rsd 2023 ) by THE FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON The four bonuses can be picked up as individual tracks too. Tales CD & vinyl will be available on Bandcamp next week.

Ah I love that. Still hoping for another Zeebox release (or maybe a New Consciousness one). Brian has tons of unreleased 80s stuff lying around. CD version of Life in Moments with four bonus tracks is lovely! On Bandcamp now.

Didn't see another thread so here we are. Record Store Day will see reissues of the super-limited 2015 FSOL album Life in Moments (only available with purchases of the Most Important Moments in a Life book - 250 copies) and the 1993 Amorphous Androgynous album Tales of Ephidrina. Life in Moments will be expanded for its limited vinyl reissue, with the addition of an adaptation of Schubert's Violin Sonata (originally rumoured to be part of the Environment Seven trilogy) at the end of side A; as far as I know, there's a further expanded CD edition due to follow a couple of weeks later, as per previous RSD releases. Tales of Ephidrina follows recent vinyl reissues of Lifeforms and Dead Cities and will come with a bonus 12" featuring four extra tracks: 'Mountain Path', 'Static Field', 'Sky-Scraper (Extended)' and 'Swab (Alt)'. In an uncommon move, the RSD release will also be available on CD, which will feature the four bonuses as tracks 9-12. This is the first time an FSOL album has received the deluxe reissue treatment, and bodes well for potential further reissues by Universal. After the past six years have given us entire new FSOL albums for RSD this could be seen as a touch disappointing, but as we have Environment 7.003, Mind Maps 4 and a new Humanoid 12" all lined up for spring/summer, I'm welcoming the break!

Sad that Jimmy hasn't got some wider distribution for his more recent stuff. At one point it seemed like he was on the cusp of real wider awareness, but the past few records have been self-released. Guy deserves more attention. Grabbed the last copy of this from Bandcamp today.

Seems that Brian is generally pushing the IDM stuff towards FSOL and leaving Humanoid for straight up four-to-the-floor acid now. Eagerly awaiting this 12" of course.

Spring. I think the original plan was Before Record Store Day, but I think RSD itself has put paid to that with pressing plant delays. For RSD itself we have a Tales of Ephidrina reissue with four bonus tracks at the end of the CD and as a bonus 12" with the LP, and a first vinyl release of Life in Moments with a bonus track, and a further expanded CD reissue to follow. So lots to come. New Humanoid 12" and Mind Maps 4 also in the first half of the year.

Been away - sorry! But in response I fucking hate it. Just make a fucking album and release it, don't ask people to buy four versions. I grabbed the bonus tracks from slsk, the first one from the Amazon version is superb but none of the others are worth bothering with. The fall from working with Greenpeace to doing an Amazon exclusive and an NFT is abysmal. Hard to know what to make of the album so far. I'm definitely baffled by the glowing reviews, but then again Blue got better reviews than The Altogether, so fuck knows what critics are on about. The Altogether is naff in places, but it's also them embracing their pop and electro influences in a way that was genuinely unexpected and experimental for them at the time, over time I've grown to appreciate it, even if it's not '90s Orbital standard. This is the first time an album has obviously been split between two people: there are seven Paul tracks and three Phil ones. Orbital, as it was, is dead. I suppose this isn't massively surprising or unusual - the AE AMA here suggested a lot of their tracks are solo ones; FSOL is mostly Brian's IDM stuff with a scattering of Gaz's not-quite-psych-enough-for-Amorphous tracks these days - but it has a very nasty effect on the flow of the album. Phil's tracks are fucking awful, or at least they're fucking awful Orbital tracks. Why anyone would want a brickwalled trap track on an Orbital album is beyond me, especially in 2023, but Phil has clearly provided for those people. None of his pieces feel remotely related to anything on the album or in the band's back catalogue. While 8:58 was clearly subpar even by Paul's standards, compared to these three it shows where the band's compositional skills lie. I do like all of Paul's tracks, except 'Dirty Rat', which has grown on me a tiny bit, but I still dislike intensely. I'm glad there aren't many obvious lyrics, despite the number of credited vocalists. I suppose after 8:58, a full-on lyricy vocal album was still a possibility, but it's still mostly Orbital-style vagueness with the voices. Not sure I get the hate for 'Ringa Ringa', the Medieval Babes sample isn't the greatest moment in Orbital history, but the backing track is pretty solid. 'Day One' and 'The New Abnormal' and 'Home' are pretty solid, 'Requiem for the Pre-Apocalypse' feels fairly underdeveloped but is inoffensive enough, and 'Are You Alive?' has grown on me now I'm used to the vocals. As an album, it's probably only above Blue Album for me, though. It doesn't have that album's dull, flat production or total lack of ideas (I do love 'Transient', but everything else sounds like b-sides to me), but with literally half of the album on the 'I would happily never hear it again' pile, it's pretty poor by Orbital standards. Better than I expected from the initial announcement, but only just. My rankings, currently: Snivilisation In Sides Brown Green The Middle of Nowhere The Altogether Monsters Exist Wonky Optical Delusion Blue Album

After a few listens, I'm actually really enjoying this. The main change is that it seems less obviously 'ambient' in the sense of droney synth pads. There are more overt melodies on some tracks, but the biggest change is the much heavier use of the jazz loops. It feels a much closer cousin to Cirque and Dropsonde as a result. I was worried that it would be really subtle differences (this synth is a bit louder, this field recording is a bit quieter), and that's true for three or four of the tracks, but some of these have a really different feel to them. Lovely stuff.

Yeah, I think I'm just going to stick to the CD + bonus from the official store, and then the Amazon one, and sell the original album from their store as it'll be redundant. The fact that I have to even consider doing this is still fucking ridiculous. Especially for three tracks.

They've added a CD + bonus CD option to their official store, means I won't have to buy the vinyl at least.

They also always champion environmental issues, and yet to get every track here they're asking you to buy three CDs, two LPs and a BluRay.

Great, even more versions to collect! https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/orbitals-optical-delusion-is-6-in-the-sde-surround-series/ Super-limited BluRay version with surround sound mixes, the Amazon bonus tracks and, so far, the only place with the instrumental versions. It can only be ordered for two weeks. As someone who doesn't have the facilities to play BluRay through my main hi-fi setup, this means that my current purchase option to get all the tracks is: buy a CD+2LP+bonus CD bundle from the band, a CD from Amazon so I can actually play the bonus tracks, and then the BluRay so I can listen to the instrumentals somewhere down the line. That's £71 plus shipping. What a fucking joke.

Fucking lol at the political slant of the single and some of the album titles and yet apparently there's an "Amazon exclusive bonus tracks" version.

I think I've listened to it twice, I only really bother with the instrumental disc. I'm hoping some of them will be like the Zola Jesus and Alison Goldfrapp features, going for wordless textural vocals rather than actual songs. Other than the two Grant Fulton ones in the '90s I don't like any of their past attempts at doing 'proper' songs (Illuminate, Frenetic, Wonky, all the stuff on 8:58, this new thing), so my hopes are really low. Which makes the idea of spending £40 on it for the bonus disc even less appealing.

Christ, that new single was the longest three and a half minutes of my life. Hopefully the bonus disc will be instrumental versions. Although I still resent having to pay £37 to get it.

Last time I was wary of a new Orbital record it was Wonky which turned out to be good, so this could still be fine. But... 1. Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song) (feat. The Mediaeval Baebes) 2. Day One (feat. Dina Ipavic) 3. Are You Alive? (feat. Penelope Isles) 4. You Are The Frequency (feat. The Little Pest) 5. The New Abnormal 6. Home (feat. Anna B Savage) 7. Dirty Rat – With Sleaford Mods 8. Requiem For The Pre Apocalypse 9. What A Surprise (feat. The Little Pest) 10. Moon Princess (feat. Coppe) Almost all vocal tracks? Not sure about this at all. All bundles come with a limited edition bonus CD, but there's no word on what it contains, and it won't be available separately. So if you want it, you have to buy a bundle with the CD and vinyl. As someone who just likes buying music because I actually listen to it, I'm not keen on the idea of being formats I won't actually listen to just to get the bonus. £37, great. Singles with Sleaford Mods: Still, it's got John Greenwood artwork, which is... something.

I might buy a new CD player with a remote for when the album comes out.

Well, we have a new contender for Worst Orbital Song. Orbital & Sleaford Mods - Dirty Rat, out tomorrow. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj0gkKDuaaA/

It does feel a bit weird knowing they've got both new material and reissues coming along.

Wasn't expecting them to start teasing more stuff so soon! I notice they've finally put the Radiccio EP on streaming, which feels like a very slow introduction to the reissue campaign.

I'll keep on misspelling him until he does those reissues. You hear that, Gier?