The Future Sound of London thread / song-by-song blog

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As it's 2022, I suppose it's a good time to have a quick look at what will be out this year.

Environment Seven
This will actually be a trilogy of albums, like Six was. 7.1: Rituals is due to be the next release through FSOLDigital, sometime later in the winter. This is the first 'proper' FSOL album to have its own name since Dead Cities. 7.2 is expected in the summer, with 7.3 in late 2022/early 2023. Four tracks from the E7 sessions have been revealed so far, and are stylistically very varied.

Mind Maps 3
Third and final volume of this mix series released through Touched, with remixes and exclusive tracks.

Record Store Day
There is expected to be another album of reworkings of a classic track. Last thing I heard, the choice of track may surprise some.

Mantra
Second album-length single from the still unfinished Amorphous album Listening Beyond the Head Chakra. Features Paul Weller.

Tales of Ephidrina
Believed to be the next '90s album reissued on vinyl by Universal.

Apertures
My project with Brian, a mini-album is nearly complete, with a release this year hopefully.

Side-projects
I think there'll be a couple of new aliases coming to FSOLDigital this year.

Calendar Album
We'll know by the end of the month. I'd be surprised if there wasn't one.

And, I'm sure, a handful of other things too. There are 20 more releases in the pipeline that I'm aware of, and they always surprise me by putting something out that I've not even heard of every few months.

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2017 Calendar Album
"This is where things start to get a bit silly."

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Well this one took quite a while. The band's longest album. So far.


Archived : Environmental : Views

Had another "I forgot how good this was" moment listening to this. Can't believe just how textured the E + V discs are on it. Beautiful stuff.

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Here's a bizarre and totally overlooked record. I'm not that keen on it, but it was interesting to revisit...

Ai - Paradigmension


And the first in a series of books with accompanying EPs... I'm hoping they get back onto the series soon. Maybe. Although it's not like there isn't enough coming this year.

FSOL - Ramblings of a Madman Vol. 1

FSOL:Digitana - The SX-One Live Improvisations
Some live-in-studio jams.

2017 Remixes and compilation tracks
And some more work for Touched and De:Tuned, as well as a remix for our very own Nmesh.

 

And that's it for 2017.

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2018, then.


2018 Calendar Album
Another very enjoyable bunch of tracks here.


Ramblings of a Madman Vol. 2
More stories and a really great EP here.

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It's Record Store Day again, and instead of keeping things simple, Brian and Gaz instead start another going series...

The Future Sound of London - My Kingdom Re-Imagined

...and release another mix of The Isness.

The Amorphous Androgynous - The Isness (The Abbey Road Version)

[purlieu]

...and with that, we enter the final 24 hours. Before starting this blog, I made a playlist in my iTunes with every single release in the order I was going to write about them, and have been deleting them as I go along. At the start, there was more than ten days' worth of material, and there's now less than a day. The end is nigh.

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And so we enter an era where even record titles aren't concrete...

The Future Sound of London - From the Archives Vol. 9 / Archived 9


Humanoid - 30303 EP / Stakker Humanoid 30303

A brief rebundling of some earlier remixes for the Stakker 30th anniversary...

Humanoid - Remixes EP

Humanoid's very first radio mix...
Humanoid - In Session 2nd-4th November 2018, Solid Steel, 05/12/18

And a lot of unheard material on the third Touched night...

Touched Music FSOL Night 3, 14/12/18

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2019 Calendar Album

My favourite of all the calendars to date, this.

 

And, on the topic of Calendar Albums, last year's is now available on Bandcamp (including lossless for the first time), and they've just launched the 2022 album on Bandcamp and FSOLDigital, with FLAC option on the latter too, for the first time. Not sure whether to go with the FSOLDigital or Bandcamp version, obviously the latter is generally better for keeping in my collection, but I doubt it'll come with the descriptive email and embedded art every month. Decisions, decisions...

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Third and final (so far) in the series, and the last FSOLDigital book published to date.

Ramblings of a Madman Vol. 3

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The re-recording series continues...

Yage 2019

 

 

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Brian brings the IDMzzzz on the first Humanoid album in 30 years.

Humanoid - Built by Humanoid

And the 12th and final Electric Brain Storm...

The Future Sound of London - Electric Brain Storms Document 12, Soundcloud, 30/12/18

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Rounding out the decade!
2019 Remixes and compilation tracks

And a new radio mix, away from the Electric Brain Storms series, with a very different sound and feel...

The Future Sound of London - Planet Earth, Chill Lover Radio, 26/12/19

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Here's one I still struggle with a little. Couldn't quite find the words to explain why, but this album doesn't sit right with me at all...

2020 Calendar Album

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A brief diversion for a re-release...

Mental Cube - Mental Cube

And then the Controlled Vista trilogy.

FSOLDigital Presents A Controlled Vista


A Controlled Vista 2.7 MiniPack 1


A Controlled Vista 5.6 MiniPack 2

Having already dismantled the idea of doing conventional album releases with the Environments, Archives, Calendar Albums and re-recordings, FSOL decide to go a step further and start creating ISDN transmission-style mixes of new tracks and releasing them as single files. Are they mixes? Albums? Compilations? Who knows. I've approached them in the way I have the transmissions, though.

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A trilogy of EPs today.

Humanoid goes dark...

Humanoid - KAAGE EP

Yage returns...

Yage - Pygmy

And Humanoid goes light...

Humanoid - Future: Turned EP

Listening to them in such close succession I'm amazed at just how different those two Humanoid EPs are. Also rediscovered how much I love the Yage record. More Yage please chaps.

 

 

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The Future Sound of London - Cascade 2020
Haven't listened to this in a year or so, God it's good isn't it?

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The Amorphous Androgynous – A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble (Exploding in Your Mind) Presents We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal Remixes


The Amorphous Androgynous & Peter Hammill – We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal

Y'know, I quite like the song, but no piece of music can stand up to 90 minutes of reworkings without getting really bloody tedious. I don't think I'll be listening to it again in a good long while.

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Some odds and ends today.
2020 remixes and compilation tracks


FSOLDigital Presents 2021 Calendar Album
Some utterly incredible tracks on this one.

-and now I cross the one year line, with every remaining entry being something released within the last 12 months-


The Future Sound of London - Music for 3 Books
Technically just a compilation, but in actuality, a really great album in its own right.


FSOL / FSOLDigital - Music from Calendars 2017-2020
A compilation I helped curate.


Humanoid - Orfan Atmosphere EP
And a brief, somewhat overlooked EP featuring some of my favourite Humanoid material.

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Just about reaching the home straight today, with last summer's music...


The Future Sound of London - We Have Explosive 2021
I didn't listen to this one that much last year, largely because most of my FSOL listening was focused on the blog, so this was a wonderful reminder of how utterly fucking brilliant this album is...


The Future Sound of London - Accelerator (30th Anniversary Edition)
Sound quality vs. artistic intent here.


The Amorphous Androgynous - The World is Full of Plankton
Fairly inconsequential 10" EP.


FSOLDigital Present Mind Maps
And with the Controlled Vista trilogy complete, a new series of Touched Music-focused mix CDs begins...

Touched Music FSOL Night 5, 25/06/21
And a new mix to promote that mix's release.

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Aaand, this is it...

ACID TIME

Humanoid - 7 Songs

Touched Music FSOL Night 6, 12/11/21
Another Mixlr night intended to launch...


FSOLDigital Presents Mind Maps 2
My favourite of the Controlled Vistas and Mind Maps so far.

More acid...

Humanoid - sT8818r Humanoid

...and the first ever full length Humanoid radio mix to promote it.
Humanoid - De:tuned Records Guest Mix, We Are Various, 03/12/21

And ending on what is probably the strongest run of compilation tracks and remixes in the band's history.
2021 remixes and compilation tracks.


That's not actually it, though, as I do have a list of omissions to work through later today, plus a brief look at extra-curricular activities (library music, NFTs, EBV) and, following that, a final post to sum up what I've learned from the whole experience. But in terms of the overall story, we're at the end.

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Extra-curricular activities, then. Some obscure material and probably a few things you never knew:
Library Music
Soundtracks
Unreleased tracks and scrapped records
Artworks
EBV & FSOLDigital


And, finally, checking off the various little missing pieces and corrections I've noted down over the last year:
The track from the Athens show with Gaz singing is called 'Welcome'.
Homeboy's Sunshine & Brick from 1989.
Mention of the 30th anniversary reissue of Earthbeat.
DPTV track on EBS5 identified - Daniel Pemberton TV Orchestra. With overdubs from Brian.
A mystery Amorphous flyer.
Immortal & MPB double pack.
Another Amorphous gig where they didn't bother promoting it and fans missed out.
Mention of The Otherness mispress featuring The Isness on the disc.
20th birthday alternate take stream added to Tales of Ephidrina.
PNG / Stolen Documents RSD 7".
Original longer version of Considered.
Another Stakker remix.
A reluctant attempt to write about a track I was involved in.

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And a wrap-up.

 

An End of Sorts

Well, it’s taken me almost a year, but I’ve reached the end. When I started this blog, I had a lot of thoughts going around in my head, and I was hoping writing all this would help me clear them out. And I think it’s worked. After all this in depth analysis, I’m really looking forward to being able to just listen to my favourite band again and enjoy their music for what it is.

It’s been incredibly interesting, following their music from the earliest days right up to the present. Although I’ve certainly listened to some things in order before, I’ve never done a fully chronological play through like this before (and I almost certainly won’t do again!). Being able to hear every release, transmission and performance in context, with accompanying quotes where relevant, has enabled me to understand and appreciate Brian and Gaz’s music more than ever, and revealed some interesting things that I’d never even considered when I started this blog. I might have thought I knew everything there was to know before this, but I’ve learned so much from the process.

It’s also allowed me to reassess a lot of their music. With a lot of stuff going on in recent years, including some radical changes in sound, a ramped up release rate, some negativity on the FSOLBoard, the fanbase shift from the board to Facebook, having to deal with the nonsense Gaz writes online, and – particularly – my own mental health problems, before starting this blog I had begun to wonder if I was really a big FSOL fan still. I’d maybe talked myself into thinking I liked some releases less than I do for various reasons (largely due to an excessive idolisation of the 1993/1994 material), and that, combined with one or two recent releases I’m slightly less fond of and the lack of many conventional albums in recent years had just soured my enjoyment a bit. At this point, I feel much, much more positive about the band, their music and their future. Which is a huge relief in itself.

This has also led me to really enjoy some records in years. Although I always knew it was great, I found a new love for Dead Cities while writing the blog. After so many releases and transmissions with a particular sound, the slightly starker, more melodically beautiful and melancholic sound of the album absolutely resonated with me in a way it hadn’t done is as long as I can remember. It was really like discovering the album for the first time again. I had very similar experiences with Environments Five and Six and particularly Archived Environmental Views, which has now become one of my favourite FSOL albums. And the re-recordings have really been a source of some of the band’s best material in recent years which, along with Music for 3 Books, have been excellent albums in an era defined by tracks and mixes, which I find generally less satisfying (although not as much as certain FSOLBoard members!). I’ve even discovered an bunch of material I really like on an album I’d previously considered not my thing, The Cartel Vol. 2. With Environment Seven just around the corner, I’m enthusiastically awaiting some wonderful new material…

Not everything I’ve taken away from the experience has been positive. The first three From the Archives albums are patchier than I remember – despite a lot of great tracks on them – and, although I still adore the 2002 mispress version of The Isness, on the whole I’ve found my opinion on most of the later Amorphous material has dropped a little. It has led me to wonder whether my initial love for Alice in Ultraland and The Peppermint Tree was more to do with the lack of new Dougans/Cobain material at the time than my genuine love of the music.

My favourite FSOL and FSOL-related releases, as of 25th January 2022:

Lifeforms
Environments II
Dead Cities
Environments 4
Archived : Environmental : Views
Environment Five
ISDN
My Kingdom
The Isness (2002 Mispress)
Cascade 2020
Environment Six
From the Archives Vol. 9
Blackhill Transmitter
From the Archives Vol. 7
Lifeforms Paths
Music for 3 Books

Last but not least, thank you to everybody who's read along, and given me feedback. I hope you enjoyed this, and maybe even learned something! It's been a labour of love, and a difficult one at times, but knowing that other people have enjoyed it to has given me the strength to keep on writing when I'm had one of my 'why the fuck am I spending all this time on this?' moments (they happened far more often than you might think).

And with that, this is done. Until I remember something I’ve forgotten in a few days. I’ll keep the blog updated with new releases as and when they come along. With around seven more planned for this year that shouldn’t be too long…

[toaoaoad]

This is an incredible project, and it's been fun to follow along. I was personally way out of touch with what they'd been up to since the earlier From the Archives releases and this has been quite helpful in deciding what to check out now. Thanks and great work!

Edited January 29, 2022 by toaoaoad

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Cheers, glad you enjoyed it!

Yeah, the past few years have been pretty difficult to follow for all but the most hardened fans. One of the aims of this blog was to get it all arranged in my own head as I'm behind on recent releases. It kind of worked in that respect.