08/09/15 - Archived 8 videos

A couple of Archived 8 preview videos, courtesy of Brian's YouTube...


While we're here, I thought this was too nice not to share. From Gaz's Facebook:
' I've unearthed a beauty' Brian exclaimed down the phone one afternoon in May. I'd become accustomed to hearing such things over the years of course, Brian had taken on the custodianship of all the DATs and master recordings of FSOL's 90s period , ' the janitor' as he was known , and thus ' the janitor' was always searching for FSOL bounty for the ARCHIVE releases that had ensued so yes, it was a common occurrence.. Nonetheless ,It was, , always IS a pleasure to hear such an exaltation. Maybe i could finally retire with this latest find , hopefully it would be real treasure .. the excitement was palpable, Brian knew it, making me hold on before playing it . The idea that there is magic in the vaults is an enticing one. This afternoon was no different. I was struggling with a new track, perplexed by it, feeling like giving up, so to hear that there was something magic that i had been involved with at some point in my life was soothing : ). Would i remember it, would i be disappointed, would i be the person to burst the bubble by realizing it actually wasn't our track at all but actually someone elses that had slipped erroneously onto the DAT ( it has happened, believe me : ). I sat back to listen as the first bars of music began to play down the phone line.
What i love about the ARCHIVE series is its like being reconnected with oneself..This track was no different, i couldn't remember anything about it, i strained to penetrate the fog of memory, I supplanted memory of two guys in their twenties into THAT room, EARTHBEAT, an imaginary argument about the direction of the song, a pivotal breakthrough when one of us took over from the other. But no....i was merely projecting into a void, there was nothing .
Most tracks i retain a very keen knowing of who did what and when and how, but tracks we saw no future in we moved on from tirelessly, and there were literally hundreds of such tracks, Having a major label deal meant that tracks really had to have something really special beyond fast food and we worked bloody hard to arrive at such fruits in an attempt to make great albums. Tracks done in an hour here or a day there twenty years ago, meant that memory really had no chance to consolidate itself unlike the tracks that actually made it onto the albums , they acquire instant prevailing mythology.. Yet this one was familiar , no i didn't know it at all but the essence , the melodies, the directive of what it was trying to say is such a familiar part of Brian and I from that time that it returns home, returns me to home and its a lovely feeling. Brian found it on a DAT dedicated to the WE HAVE EXPLOSIVE single...part 4 of that had been the ambient foray so it was probably deemed that this wasn't suitable ( and i can see why ) but I'm glad to hear it today, and the nostalgia isn't nostalgia at all, its just a part of me that doesn't die and these ARCHIVES give me an opportunity to step outside, lose memory and then re-acquaint momentarily & quite poignantly with myself as if for the first time & I'm an old , dear friend ( or those men in black have zapped my memory meaning I can enjoy the music I make without actually experiencing the agonizing pain of making it )
So dear friend, bring me home and if anyone knows who actually wrote it then kindly get in touch and we'll sort you out ha ha.

Gaz Cobain xx

04/09/15 - Better late than never: Remixes, records, rumours.

Well, this is all very late, but hey. Brian has been on remixing duties a lot for Touched, the charity label giving to Macmillan Cancer Support, giving B12's Orbita Tolv a Humanoid rebuild and Funckarma's Emplixian Ambient a Yage workover for Touched Two Remixes, and providing a Humanoid remix for 2ndMouse's album.

In other release news, the eighth archive release, titled Archived 8 as opposed to From the Archives Vol. 8 for reasons we cannot fathom, is out next week, with a FSOLDigital release of 11th September (followed by wider distribution two weeks later on the 25th). Some tracks have been updated, Environments style, and the album features twelve pieces all together:
01 – Sorrow (3:53)
02 – Acturum Esse (4:06)
03 – Blue Green (2:53)
04 – Crawler (3:56)
05 – Forlorn (4:34)
06 – Haloi Slope (4:22)
07 – Unfurl (1:40)
08 – Still Motion (5:05)
09 – Plazmatical (3:48)
10 – Spacial Freak (4:59)
11 – Long Exposure (3:50)
12 – Standing Room (6:13)

Ordering direct from FSOLDigital also gives you a free three track EP. You can pre-order the album on 320kbps mp3, FLAC, CD and vinyl+mp3. While you're there you can grab an A3 poster of the artwork, and the long-overdue vinyl release of the first Environments.

As for rumour...