Amorphous Androgynous - We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal

[BUNKUM]

Mine has that sticker but I was expecting something very much Fsol anyway, remember the sound of the first AA album?

Edited December 6, 2020 by BUNKUM

[brisk]

Tales Of Ephidrina was a relatively unknown/non-mainstream album, at least compared to the Virgin FSOL albums in the 90s. I think the only ones who really knew/cared about the AA name were the hardcore fans, which I assume is why the boys decided to use that name rather than their much more popular FSOL alias.

I think *all* USA copies of The Isness were released as FSOL though, presumably to help sell more copies. That undoubtedly caused a much bigger shitstorm among their fans, as the internet as a whole was a much smaller place in the very early 00s and misinformation was even worse than it is today. Most people (including myself) still bought their music in stores. Imagine being an FSOL fan who was patiently waiting for the follow-up to Dead Cities and you pop FSOL - The Isness CD in for the first time... It's no wonder the fans got confused/angry heh.

It's a shame really, as I doubt anyone would really have cared much had the FSOL association been completely removed from the album and have it marketed purely as its own thing. Blame the marketing team I suppose.

[fumi]

1 hour ago, brisk said:

Most people (including myself) still bought their music in stores. Imagine being an FSOL fan who was patiently waiting for the follow-up to Dead Cities and you pop FSOL - The Isness CD in for the first time...

That was me. And maybe a few others on here.

[Extralife]

41 minutes ago, fumi said:

That was me. And maybe a few others on here.

Me too. I remember thinking “slow mo with the dildo? Uh no thanks.”

[BUNKUM]

7 hours ago, brisk said:

Tales Of Ephidrina was a relatively unknown/non-mainstream album, at least compared to the Virgin FSOL albums in the 90s. I think the only ones who really knew/cared about the AA name were the hardcore fans, which I assume is why the boys decided to use that name rather than their much more popular FSOL alias.

From my experience in the UK the first AA album wasn’t unknown at all. I remember plenty of music press coverage (NME, Muzak Mag etc) when it came out. But that’s the UK, can’t comment about anywhere else in the world

[purlieu]

Interestingly, it was very late on that they decided to do it as Amorphous - I think possibly after they parted with Virgin. 
It's a weird one, because it's clearly so different to FSOL, but the labels were terrified of releasing it as anything else. In the UK they put it out as their own sub-label of Artful/Fulfill, so they had more control, but the label still wanted to put the "Future Sound of London Present" stickers on the front. Hypnotic decided they'd put it out in the US as FSOL against the band's wishes, and even put it out with a press release that made absolutely no mention of the change in sound whatsoever. The hilarious thing is they tried to reissue it in 2012 (probably to distribute the remaining mispress Abbey Road version stock they still had) under the FSOL name, despite the fact that Amorphous probably had more critical clout at that point thanks to the MPB CDs, Noel Gallagher links, etc.

I sympathise with those expecting another FSOL-sounding record and getting very confused / disappointed. What did baffle me was being on the FSOLLIST discussion mailing list, where we'd been talking about the 1997 Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble mix, Gaz's psychedelic mixes at The Big Chill and The Winter Chill, the 2001 Mello Hippo Disco Radio Show mixes on XFM and Ammocity.com, two Monstrous Bubble mixes on Radio 1, their Beatlesy remix of Robert Miles, the guitar & sitar led Papua New Guinea Translations, all the interviews in which they'd talked about making psychedelic rock-inspired music, and my own lengthy review of The Isness from buying the first promo that turned up on eBay (cost me £65 - a fortune at the age of 17!) - and then when The Isness leaked, one very regular poster on the list said he was gutted because he expected it to sound like Dead Cities. You can't blame people for not following the band closely, but when they make a clear effort to point out how much they've changed to the people who do follow closely and those people still don't listen... tough crowd.

11 hours ago, BUNKUM said:

I’ve always suspected that the more epic moments on the 90s albums was more down to Gaz and that’s why there’s much less of them in the newer stuff. It might also be because the newer stuff is less of a melting pot and more focused on particular themes

Yeah, while the new albums are still very much the pair of them, you can really tell when Gaz is more heavily involved - tracks like Moments of Isolation, Hollow Earth, The Day the Poles Shifted (titles that sound like conspiracy theories are always a good signifier of a Gaz composition) sound really epic with tons of instruments and huge sweeping melodies. There have been three tracks revealed from Environment Seven so far, and two are along those lines, one being what looks like a Brian solo electronic track, from the Facebook video. So it should be a nice mix of all their strengths.

Edited December 6, 2020 by purlieu

[BUNKUM]

For some reason I hadn’t bothered with Translations, so the change from Dead Cities to The Isness was even more of a shock. 
 

(Edit) Regarding Translations, from memory I think at the time it had been a while since Dead Cities and thought they’d lost it by releasing a remix album of their biggest hit and so I didn’t buy it. Big mistake

Edited December 6, 2020 by BUNKUM

[purlieu]

It's a very useful stepping stone of a record, but I totally get why some people might have rolled their eyes at it. It's quite a nice one, actually, I listen to it more these days than I did when it came out.

[BUNKUM]

I’ve not listened to it for a few years but I agree, it’s a lovely album and has a great flow. I usually skip the original and go straight to track 2, Papsico, that’s where it starts for me.