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

[purlieu]

 

These all contain new info direct from Brian btw.

[thumbass]

I saw Dead cities in my CD cabinet at the start of the month and I thought I'd put it on after like 5 years and I completely rediscovered them.

 

Dead cities is a masterpiece. Her Face Forms In Summertime, the track that made me aware of FSOL, still hits after all these years. Tracks that I'd skip every now and then (A lot of the latter half of the album) sounded like I had never heard them before, it was awesome.

 

So I decided to dive back into their catalogue again after missing out on years of releases. I also have to say that Lifeforms is one of the best things ever created imo. The first disc being more straight ambient techno and the second disc diving deeper into the weird enivronment soundscapes. Especially the two tracker Lifeform Ends and Vit just hit me for some reason, absolutely beautiful stuff.

Now for the Archived releases... I like them but they don't sound nearly as good as the classics, which is logical of course. I find myself returning to loose tracks more than entire Archived albums. If I had to pick one favorite, it would probably be Archived 8 (Which said no one ever lol). Aucturum Esse has such a great bassline and paired with the first track and the third it creates a very original and strong opening. I also love the cover art for this one because it looks like an actual archive or something. Other favorites from this one are probably Haloi Slope and Forlorn.

And then there are of course the Environments albums, prob the albums that come closest to the continuation of their mainline releases. I am still actively rediscovering these. I like EV1, 2, 3, 6/6.5 and 7.002. I do have to say that, just like the Archived releases, the projects don't work as albums nearly as well as their past stuff. I know it has been said to death lol. Anyway, there are still a lot of great ass tracks on each and evey one of them though.\

Big up FSOl! I'll go back to listening to them now.

Love to purlieau for documenting their catalogue too. You are a major help when one doesn't know where to begin.

[purlieu]

I think some of the Environments are as consistent as the '90s records, some are definitely a lot more disjointed though. 

Here's the next video - Accelerator, Fuzzy Logic & Papua '92.

 

[purlieu]

Final J&P releases today:

 

[purlieu]

Kiss Test Transmissions 1 & 2, Peel Session, Metropolis and 1992 remixes.

 

[NewSchoolScience]

Another cracker @purlieu, great stuff.

Out of interest, do you know if it's possible to get the Kiss Transmissions anywhere these days?  IIRC they used to be available via fsoldigital under 'the podroom', but sadly no longer.

Edited June 25 by NewSchoolScience

[purlieu]

Yeah, all the mixes from The Pod Room got removed because it was too expensive to license everything, IIRC they weren't actually up for that long. They're not available legally anywhere now and it's almost certain it'll remain that way. They're pretty widely available from other sources, though, which I tend to see as fine as they're basically like official bootlegs now.

[purlieu]

1993 time!

[purlieu]

Cascade!

[Walter Ostanek]

On 7/4/2024 at 12:35 PM, purlieu said:

1993 time!

Ephidrina (the track) was my route into FSOL, I think. It was the last track on some peak-90s "ambient techno" comp I found in a yard sale. Doesn't seem to be on discogs, damn I wish I remembered what else was on there.

[NewSchoolScience]

This is interesting.  And Noel Gallagher is odious.

 

[purlieu]

Oh God, he's changed his story about why he scrapped the album so many times. The reason was he was too scared to put out an experimental album first, and then he was scared that his debut would end up being upstaged by the AA one, given that they were based on the same songs. The moment everyone started saying "I'm more interested in the AA album" when the two were announced, he would have immediately shat himself and decided he wasn't going to let them get all the praise for how good it might be.

Mind you, Gaz and Noel in the same studio, must have been hard to breathe for all the ego.

[Alcofribas]

33 minutes ago, purlieu said:

Gaz and Noel in the same studio, must have been hard to breathe for all the ego.

need this as a documentary

[NewSchoolScience]

Noel Gallagher is about as psychedelic as a cheddar cheese sandwich.  The guy and his music is bland as all fuck.  How did he end up working with Brian and Gaz?  Totally bizarre.

Edited July 22 by NewSchoolScience

[purlieu]

He actually likes a lot of psych stuff, he's spoken about it quite a few times over the years. His regular praising of the first Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble comp was what took it from well received but mostly ignored to the whole 'compilation of the decade' plaudits the second volume received. He's just not very good at putting that side of things into his own music. Oasis's psych album was Standing on the Shoulder of Giants which was full of mellotrons, backwards guitars, organs, synths, flutes, tablas and such, and it just ended up sounding like Oasis with a bunch of mellotrons, backwards guitars, organs, synths, flutes and tablas very quietly playing in the background. Some of them start promisingly, but then it's like somebody presses the 'Oasis' button and things just return to normal.

It really feels like he was always terrified of anything getting in the way of the songs being perfect for lagered up lads to chant along to, which is kind of ironic because the Oasis fanbase actually seemed to be really receptive to Amorphous. But yeah, he just didn't want to be shown up as the lesser part of the collaborative partnership when the Amorphous record proved a thousand times more popular than his debut with its lukewarm reception.

Edited July 23 by purlieu

[NewSchoolScience]

I absolutely loathed Oasis.

[purlieu]

I was a big fan as a kid so I know a lot of their music way too well. My interest in them seems to have continued waning over the years, to the extent where I now can't even enjoy their widely praised debut. I do find a lot of their later work entertaining in an amusing way, though, the attempts to broaden their sound were usually hilariously misguided or literally just ripoffs of other people's music. 

Noel's a fucking pillock, though. Liam's an idiot, but at least he's an honest idiot, but Noel constantly tries to be something he's not. He has a really fragile masculinity that makes him play up to being some sort of swaggering lad rather than the nerdy music fan he is deep down. Pre-Oasis he was really shy and spent all his time listening to records and playing guitar on his own, but superstardom and cocaine turned him into someone who actually believes his own bullshit.

Anyway, I'll end up having to discuss Noel and Oasis on video number 50 or something. Meantime, here's part 11, Kiss FM, Essential Mix & some remixes.

 

Edited July 23 by purlieu

[NewSchoolScience]

Sensational @purlieu, I've been really enjoying this series.  Top, top work.

Very much looking forward to the Lifeforms (album) episode

Edited July 23 by NewSchoolScience

[purlieu]

Next up is the 3D Headspace ISDN tour, and then it's on to Lifeforms. I've written a lot about the album over the years, but never come even close to describing why it's my favourite piece of art in the history of human creativity, and I'm sure this time I'll end up falling short once again.

[purlieu]

 

[purlieu]

This turned out a bit longer than expected...