The Future Sound of London - Environment 6 + 6.5

[Rubin Farr]

More news forthcoming.

[Alcofribas]

Fuck.

 

so much precum doth moisten these pants mine

[sexagon hun]

this plus a new AA album "before xmas" according to Gaz. 2016 lookin good for the FSOL

Hope Environments is a early Fall release, stoked!

[BUNKUM]

Excellent news, I really thought we'd already had 6 but getting my archives and environments mixed up.

[Rubin Farr]

I'm hoping this will hit in the Summer, then they can focus on getting the AA album out by year's end.

[purlieu]

Can't see the Amorphous album being out before Christmas. Gaz said it would be, which means it'll be out next summer at the earliest. He's so good at optimistic release estimates. From his updates on Facebook they're still writing and recording the album, don't think anything's even been mixed yet.

 

Environments 6 is done and dusted and I reckon it'll be here in the next couple of months.

[Rubin Farr]

[kichiguy]

Environment 5 was SO GOOD. Exciting news :)

[Alcofribas]

pls

[purlieu]

Unexpectedly, this is available tomorrow as a double album of Environment Six + 6.5 from FSOLDigital - double vinyl, CD, MP3, FLAC. 

Video for I Dream in Viral Blue here

[Alcofribas]

HOLY YES

[purlieu]

Apparently 6.5 is a second album.

[BUNKUM]

^^ Looking good. So is 6.5 a bonus for ordering from fsoldigital?

[BUNKUM]

Ordered along with the calendar

[purlieu]

46 tracks in total. Given that the vinyl tracklists are shorter than the CD ones (and they've not been afraid to put 60 minutes on an LP in the past) I reckon these are pretty long albums too.

[Rubin Farr]

EV6 vinyl has exclusive track "Silent Around Them"

[BUNKUM]

Yeah, I noticed that, bit annoying, still went for the CD pack. For some reason I always buy my fsol on CD

[purlieu]

Both run to around 65 minutes, so this is 130 minutes of new music. That said, it's definitely not a double album, it feels very much like two different records.

 

Six is fucking mental, by far the most IDM thing they've ever done. There's quite a bit of fast, rhythmically heavy stuff in there. I know Brian's been playing a lot with his analogue gear these days and you can definitely hear that in here. Lots of squelches and beats. And a decent number of more laid back interludes, often quite abstract. My girlfriend said it sounded more like Aphex than FSOL to her, and although I wouldn't quite agree, I do see where she's coming from. 

6.5 is more traditionally FSOL sounding, slower tempos and more breaksy beats, lots of instruments and other sounds used as samples. Feels more like a direct continuation of the previous two Environments records.

 

Both are very, very melodic and melancholic sounding. At 46 tracks there's a lot to get through and it's probably going to take me a few months to properly understand what the hell is going on here, but overall it's immensely impressive and totally not what I was expecting from them.

[Rubin Farr]

[BUNKUM]

@Perlieu

 

Sounds great from that description, I am excite! Did you get an advance copy or did you purchase the digitals? Any idea when they will start shipping the CD version?

 

I've just thought, I ordered the calendar at the same time, so I'll probably have to wait until that ships.

[Rubin Farr]

[Rubin Farr]

First listen impressions: album of the year material here.

 

EV6 - much more digital and dare I say IDM sounding than they have been since Dead Cities, really well done DSP and beat making, relentlessly rhythmic.

 

EV6.5 - the more recent proggy, analogue half of their sound.  Melodic, pulsing patterns, chillage of the highest order.

 

 

Taken together as EVsix+, I can't think of anything else in 2016 equaling the amount of effort and polish that went into this.  Hundreds of man hours in the sound lab, no doubt.

[fumi]

I got both these releases yesterday. Only just started listening. They've changed a bit over the years, haven't they?

On initial listening there are some nice sounding tracks but it doesn't sound like the older 90s stuff. I'm trying think what might be different now? They used to use lots of samples from films and stuff. Has that all ended now?

[Rubin Farr]

[purlieu]

I got both these releases yesterday. Only just started listening. They've changed a bit over the years, haven't they?

On initial listening there are some nice sounding tracks but it doesn't sound like the older 90s stuff. I'm trying think what might be different now? They used to use lots of samples from films and stuff. Has that all ended now?

 

Other than the first one (which was intended to be released in late '94 originally anyway), the Environments albums have been much more 'earthy' than their '90s stuff. There's not much of the otherwordly cyberpunk kind of stuff of their '90s material, fewer samples in general. It's much more performance based and such. I suppose it is 20 years since Dead Cities (ugh I feel old).