Apr 8, 2012

Sundaze 1215

Hello, ready for some more fuzzy logic ? Having that brain stimulated electronically ? Some delicious Sundaze coming up

Their work covers most areas of electronic music, such as ambient techno, house music, trip-hop, ambient dub, acid techno and often involves extreme experimentation; for example they have, since the turn of the millennium, experimented with psychedelic rock under their Amorphous Androgynous alias. In addition to music composition, their interests have covered a number of areas including film and video, 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation. In making almost all their own videos for their singles they displayed their genius is not limited to manipulating sound, radio broadcasting and creating their own electronic devices for sound making further extended their understanding of the path they are on.. They have released works under numerous aliases.

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FSOL was formed in Manchester, England, in the mid 1980s. Dougans had already been making electronic music for some time when they first began working in various local clubs. In 1988, Dougans embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics company. The result was Stakker Humanoid. Cobain contributed to the accompanying album. In the following three years the pair produced music under a variety of aliases. Stakker Humanoid re-entered the UK chart in 1992, followed by the breakthrough ambient dub track "Papua New Guinea" featuring a looping Lisa Gerrard vocal sample, which was their first official release. Virgin Records looking for electronic bands and quickly signed them. With their newfound contract they immediately began to experiment, resulting in the Tales of Ephidrina album, released in 93 under the Amorphous Androgynous moniker. Thus preceding FSOL 's first album release Lifeforms (94)

Lifeforms followed in 1994 to critical acclaim. The new work featured unconventional use of percussion interspersed with truly ambient segments. The eponymous single from the album featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. The album was a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. 1994 also saw the release of ISDN, which was as close to a live album as most electronic acts get - it featured live broadcasts FSOL had made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide and to The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York. Its tone was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms.
In 1996, FSOL released Dead Cities. The new material was a curious mix of ambient textures and hard, gritty dance music. This album also featured a collaboration with the composer Max Richter. However, critics suggested that the duo's musical output seemed to dry up following this release, save for a few 12" singles and remixes.

After a long hiatus, and rumors of mental illness ( de facto mercury poisoning from teethfillings), Cobain and Dougans returned in 2002 with The Isness, a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's seminal track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. Three years on, Dougans and Cobain followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but more favourable among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost a hundred musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout. In 2006 FSOL released a best of album, Teachings From The Electronic Brain, then a year later they released 4 Archives albums thru their own FSOL digital platform (yage.co.uk) where all their releases are available for .

In early March 2008, the band released a new online album as Amorphous Androgynous entitled The Peppermint Tree and Seeds of Superconsciousness, which they describe as "A collection of psychedelic relics from The Amorphous Androgynous, 1967-2007". The release retains the sound of their last two psychedelic albums, while expanding on the element of funk first introduced on 2005's Alice in Ultraland. They recorded their following album, The Woodlands of Old, under the alias of their imaginary engineer Yage. Unlike the techno work recorded as Yage in 1992, this new record was darker, more trip-hop and world music-oriented and featured ex-Propellerheads member Will White.

Following on from the band's 1997 DJ set of the same name, a series of "Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind" mix CDs were begun in 2006. The first two were released under the Amorphous Androgynous alias, subtitled "Cosmic Space Music" and "Pagan Love Vibrations" respectively, with the first taking over two years to compile, mix and gain sample clearance, both featuring the band's psychedelic influences. A third is set for release sometime in 2010, and will be more electronic, mixed by The Future Sound of London.Further mixes in the series are expected up to 6 now available on line (Pod Room) Aswell as 6 Kiss 100FM transmissions from theearly nineties.

Between 2008 and 2010, the band showcased a series of radio broadcasts and podcasts called The Electric Brain Storms. Proton Radio hosted the first on 16 June 2008, PBS radio in Australia were due to showcase the second, and Frisky Radio broadcast the third. The remaining shows appeared on the band's official site.The shows featured electronic, krautrock, experimental and psychedelic favourites of the band mixed in with known and unknown FSOL material, including newly recorded tracks, archived pieces, and new alias recordings such as EMS:Piano. Many of the new tracks featured on Environments 3, but some pieces remain unreleased and are planned for the next Future Sound of London album. They keep up a fascinating The Future Sound Of London YouTube Channel under the guise of the electronic brain.

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While webcast concerts and performances swiftly became commonplace by the end of the 1990s, there had to be pioneers somewhere in earlier years, and FSOL was among them. Instead of touring for the Lifeforms album in 1994, they instead set up a series of appearances on a variety of radio stations, as well as concert dates involving broadcasting to specific venues. ISDN, named after the high-speed connection that made these ventures possible, compiles a variety of cuts from four different sessions, including one with Robert Fripp. All four were live performances, with only new material appearing on ISDN itself, making it a fine standalone collection of intrinsic value beyond its gee-whiz factor. All are edited together to provide a reasonable enough simulation of a standalone performance. Beware though some find the darkness and aural pandemonium contained on this album disturbing but then some freak out from a spliff so maybe not advisable for schizophrenia sufferors


The Future Sound Of London - ISDN (flac  374mb)

01 Just A Fuckin Idiot 5:39
02 The Far Out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of A Madman 4:29
03 Appendage 2:25
04 Slider 7:22
05 Smokin Japanese Babe 4:59
06 You're Creeping Me Out 6:31
07 Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead 3:45
08 It's My Mind That Works 3:24
09 Dirty Shadows 6:15
10 Tired 6:31
11 Egypt 4:11
12 Kai 4:24
13 Amoeba 5:20
14 A Study Of Six Guitars 4:12
15 Snake Hips 5:51

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Originally, Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins was going to appear on this song, a highlight of the similarly titled album, but record company hoo-hah meant it turned up as an instrumental. For the single release, Fraser was able to take a proper vocal bow, along with Talvin Singh, who had contributed tablatronics to the "Life Form Ends" snippet that also appeared on the album. Consisting of seven different mixes, or paths, of the song, the Lifeforms EP experiments with radically redesigned versions of the original song, substituting the straightforward beats with a variety of alternate rhythms. Other melodic or textural parts from the album take get similarly revamped -- groans, whistles, and echoes suddenly played up or mixed down and out, synth parts or samples turned into new central beats, and more. All seven takes are well worth hearing (the third is essentially the original album mix), but the standouts include the second, which builds up in intensity without ever quite going over the top, and the vocal-heavy, slow funk loop fourth.



The Future Sound Of London - Lifeforms (flac 478mb)

01 Cascade 6:00
02 Ill Flower 3:25
03 Flak 4:53
04 Bird Wings 1:30
05 Dead Skin Cells 6:51
06 Lifeforms 5:18
07 Eggshell 6:46
08 Among Myselves 5:53
09 Domain 2:48
10 Spineless Jelly 4:42
11 Interstat 0:55
12 Vertical Pig 6:45
13 Cerebral 3:31
14 Life Form Ends 5:03
15 Vit 6:48
16 Omnipresence 6:39
17 Room 208 6:13
18 Elaborate Burn 3:15
19 Little Brother 5:13


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FSOL's sense of atmosphere and melody are stunning, and even on the unused and unreleased tracks on _From the Archives, Vol. 1 have a delicacy that are beautifully realized. "Lizzard Crawl," for instance, drifts forth as if you're gliding on glass, while "Hallucination" shows what they can do with sonic density. So while many of the samples that appear here can be found in other works of theirs, the different arrangements and contexts recreate these sounds anew. It's a welcome return to the heyday of the Future Sound of London, even if it's only cast-offs and fragments.


The Future Sound Of London - Archives Vol 1 (flac 386mb)

01 Lizzard Crawl 5:19
02 Hallucination 7:42
03 Field Of Flowers 5:20
04 Enviroments - Birds 0:17
05 Still Flowers 5:16
06 Enviroments - Gong 0:36
07 Woodland 4:48
08 UU 0:51
09 Turn Around 7:23
10 Is This Real 1:48
11 Mouth Muse 2:29
12 Hazey Day Girl 4:20
13 Wt Pavement 0:38
14 Head Hunter 7:04
15 Arrived 3:04
16 Pale Moon 4:16
17 Nuru Device Send 5:22

The Future Sound Of London - Archives Vol 1 (ogg 127mb)

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previously

Future Sound Of London - Lifeforms (94 ^ 98mb)
Future Sound Of London - Lifeforms II ( 94 ^ 99mb)

Amorphous Androgynous - Alice In Ultraland (05 175mb)

The Amorphous Androgynous - A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Vol 1 - Cosmic Space Music 1 (153mb)
The Amorphous Androgynous - A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Vol 1 - Cosmic Space Music 2 (154mb)

The Amorphous Androgynous - A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Vol 2 - Pagan Love Vibrations 1 (148mb)
The Amorphous Androgynous - A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Vol 2 - Pagan Love Vibrations 2 (148mb)

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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any chance for a reup of The Future Sound Of London - Lifeforms?

That would be great!!

Rho said...

Sure Anon already back up N'Joy

Josh said...

Hello Rho - as I mentioned, I would absolutely love a reupload of ISDN, a true gem. Hard to find and the one album I would play to aliens if they were to visit.

In fact, I have a feeling ISDN may eventually be the reason aliens invade... it is quite a dark and twisted album. It's just my theory, anyway.

Thanks once again and hope you are well.

Rho said...

Well Josh this page just got an early re-up, it will be official posted in re-up 132 next week.

Josh said...

Thanks Rho, much appreciated as always.

Anonymous said...

Thx for the FSOL Re-up, Rho.
E

Anonymous said...

Would you please re-upload ISDN and Archives Vol. 1?

Anonymous said...

Could you re-up the US ISDN. Have the UK but would love the adjusted tracks. Thanks!

Rho said...

Hello Anon i'm afraid i can't help you with the adjusted tracks, and really i wouldn't loose any sleep over it, snippets from their discovery.

Malphas said...

Lifeforms links are dead