FSOL / Amorphous - We Have Explosive, The World is Full of Plankton, Accelerator - RSD 2021

[purlieu]

Copypasting this from my FSOL news page...

This year, Record Store Day partially follows the pattern of last year's staggered format, with two drops. The first is on 12th June, and this will include a record three releases by Dougans and Cobain. The first, and most interesting, is the latest in the series of re-imaginings of the band's '90s tracks. This time, We Have Explosive is in the chair, with a set of new re-interpretations of the track. Given that the last two releases have featured archival works among the new tracks, it's possible that tracks like 'Exploded Funk', 'Abandoned Housing Blocks of Prypiat' and 'Blue Green' may be among the tracks here, but in general expect a series of new tracks based around the band's second-most-famous piece. An expanded CD version a couple of weeks later is, at this point, a near certainty. Interestingly, the cover and given title lists no 'Re-Imagined' or '2021', as with previous releases.


Secondly, The Amorphous Androgynous tease a forthcoming reissue of Alice in Ultraland with a 10" EP, with The World is Full of Plankton as the title track. The b-side will feature two as yet unknown tracks, apparently from the album too. This is clearly more for the collector, although taken on its own, it's really nice to see 'Plankton' get its dues as one of the finest compositions in the Dougans / Cobain ouvre. The album itself, of course, passed back into the band's posession last year at the end of their contract with Harvest; a reissue is overdue, and one hopes a bonus disc in the style of The Otherness will accompany it. No release details have been revealed for the reissue yet.


The third and final release is the most curious: Accelerator is coming out again, this time on its 30th anniversary (the minor issue of J&P delayed the 1991 release until the start of 1992 notwithstanding). There are no details on the Record Store Day page (linking, annoyingly, to the WHE page), but the full listings have it down as a double LP, suggesting there'll be some extra material here (a 12-minutes-per-side 2020s style release seeming unlikely, given it being mixed to play as two gapless sides). One assumes it's likely to be a set of 'Papua New Guinea' remixes on the second disc - possibly the same set as the 2001 reissue, given a vinyl release at last - although given the amount of archived material being regularly uncovered over at 9LW, it's not impossible that we're getting a whole album of Accelerator-era outtakes. The cover provided is the same 'remixed' version from the 2016 RSD release, so it's not totally impossible that it's actually a 12" + 7" pack as we had then, simply mislabelled by the people at RSD. We're going to do some digging, but either way we'll find out in the next few weeks...

Edited April 7, 2021 by purlieu

[NewSchoolScience]

Brian pls

[NewSchoolScience]

Garry pls

Edited April 7, 2021 by NewSchoolScience

[Extralife]

Love Explosive. Really excited to hear some new interpretations (and some breaks). 

[Rubin Farr]

With 3 RSD releases now with Dead Cities versions, we must pretty much have all of the extra DC era material that would have been included in a box set reissue. Currently, there are really 7 discs of Dead Cities sessions (8 if you count the Semtex 12"), so that has to be a record. I'm thinking:

Dead Cities

My Kingdom 

Semtex - We Have Explosive

FSOL - We Have Explosive

Environments 3

My Kingdom Re-Imagined

Yage 2019

We Have Explosive (2021)

This isn't even counting the remixes from that album, and I guess the Semtex ver. might be on the RSD release?

 

[purlieu]

I doubt Semtex will be on it, as that's owned by Virgin (similarly the Oil remix of Yage, which looks set to remain officially unreleased at this rate). I think one of the ideas behind these re-recordings is that by doing new versions, the band retain the phonographic copyright so can use these for licensing and such if required (a tactic most famously used by Taylor Swift at the moment).

In terms of Dead Cities outtakes, most of them ended up on the Archives and earlier Environments, I think. The majority of tracks on the re-recordings are newly done. These are Dead Cities era, to the best of my knowledge:
A Corner
Dream One
Exploded Funk
Abandoned Housing Blocks of Prypiat
Blue Green
The Empty Land
Insides
Switzerland
Absent With Concept / Swarm
War Machines
Mango Tree
Protractor
I Turn to Face the Sun
Yashica
Tif Feetal
Yage Rhodesia - Insulin
Hallucination / Ayahuasca
Colour-Blind
Environment Thunder
100 Baby Spiders
La Tronik 1
LA 7
Futura
Is This Real
Mouth Muse
Hazey Day Girl
Arrived
Slow of Motion
Dark Matter
mas x-xx-xx 2
The Exhibition
Accompaniment for Melodious Expression
Yage Sunset Strip
Glacier (pt 1 & 2)

 

There are still a handful of tracks from the 1996/1997 tour that haven't been released, including Carlos (from the ISDN Show promo CD) and an amazing one with a male vocal sample in it that's in the LA show. There's also the 1995 Peel Session version of My Kingdom. And Landmass, from the Wipeout soundtrack.

Edited April 8, 2021 by purlieu

[Extralife]

Now I need to go make a playlist. Thanks, man.

[purlieu]

Unnecessarily detailed lists of FSOL trivia are my forte. Shame there's not much work in this area.

[NewSchoolScience]

59 minutes ago, purlieu said:

Unnecessarily detailed lists of FSOL trivia are my forte. Shame there's not much work in this area.

Fanzine

[purlieu]

I'm actually on the cusp of doing a FSOL blog to kind of replace the fansite I ran for years but got rid of a while back. There's still my plan of doing a book as well, but Christ knows if that'll really happen. Maybe I'll make a book of the blog.

[purlieu]

01. We Have Explosive 2021

02. Implosive

03. Abandoned Housing Blocks Of Prypiat

04. Vaporise

05. Detonation

06. Herd Killing (2021)

07. Stasis Field

08. Waiting Your Return

09. Mib1

10. Exploding

11. Exotype

 

Accelerator is just the same album split over four sides, so basically an audiophile version. Given that the sides are meant to be played gaplessly, I'm going to file this version under "pointless".

[NewSchoolScience]

4 hours ago, purlieu said:

01. We Have Explosive 2021

02. Implosive

03. Abandoned Housing Blocks Of Prypiat

04. Vaporise

05. Detonation

06. Herd Killing (2021)

07. Stasis Field

08. Waiting Your Return

09. Mib1

10. Exploding

11. Exotype

Lovely stuff.  Can't wait for this.

[purlieu]

To confirm, there will definitely be an expanded CD & digital edition following a couple of weeks after the RSD release, as with the past few years.

In other news, I've started my blog. I'll probably make a thread over in the general music forum when I get to the main posts.

[Extralife]

1 hour ago, purlieu said:

To confirm, there will definitely be an expanded CD & digital edition following a couple of weeks after the RSD release, as with the past few years.

In other news, I've started my blog. I'll probably make a thread over in the general music forum when I get to the main posts.

Absolutely loved reading about your personal dive into FSOL. Look forward to reading more!

[Rubin Farr]

On 4/9/2021 at 12:32 PM, NewSchoolScience said:

Lovely stuff.  Can't wait for this.

Looking forward to that new ver. of Herd Killing

[Somanymachines]

21 hours ago, Rubin Farr said:

Looking forward to that new ver. of Herd Killing

Yeah, will it be a take on the darker Dead Cities version? Or the Wipeout/Part 4 EP version?

[purlieu]

CD & digital should follow in late June, featuring two extra tracks: Slide Door and 5cam.

[Extralife]

30 minutes ago, purlieu said:

CD & digital should follow in late June, featuring two extra tracks: Slide Door and 5cam.

I will most definitely buy a cd. Feel more excited for this one than the Cascade and My Kingdom ones - always liked the way they did breaks.

[purlieu]

Just a heads up, I'm happy to confirm the 2" Tape Reels version is on here.

[purlieu]

The CD and digital are now available from Bandcamp: https://fsol.bandcamp.com/album/we-have-explosive-2021

Vinyl still to follow on Record Store Day.

It's by far the least ambient thing they've ever done, full on breaks and IDM throughout. Slide Door is very Autechre, Exotype sounds like it's about 180bpm, the new version of Herd Killing is absolutely bonkers. Detonation is the 2" Tape Reels version, and was worth the wait, it's incredible.

Still manages to retain the nocturnal atmosphere of the late '96 / early '97 ISDN shows and the original WHE EP.

Edited May 26, 2021 by purlieu

[Extralife]

1 hour ago, purlieu said:

The CD and digital are now available from Bandcamp: https://fsol.bandcamp.com/album/we-have-explosive-2021

Vinyl still to follow on Record Store Day.

It's by far the least ambient thing they've ever done, full on breaks and IDM throughout. Slide Door is very Autechre, Exotype sounds like it's about 180bpm, the new version of Herd Killing is absolutely bonkers. Detonation is the 2" Tape Reels version, and was worth the wait, it's incredible.

Still manages to retain the nocturnal atmosphere of the late '96 / early '97 ISDN shows and the original WHE EP.

In. Sta. Bought.

Description sounds great...can’t wait to listen.

[NewSchoolScience]

Marvelous stuff.  Marvelous.

[mcbpete]

Everyone on this site needs this album/ep - absolutely incredible.

[Extralife]

Yeah “Detonation” hits super hard and it gets wild from there.

[paranoid-666]

18 hours ago, mcbpete said:

Everyone on this site needs this album/ep - absolutely incredible.

I agree. This is something else