28/12/17 - Lifeforms LP pre-order on Amazon

The Lifeforms LP repress is now available to pre-order on Amazon UK here. It's been a while in coming, but it's finally just around the corner.

20/12/17 - 2017 Calendar Album now complete

2017's Calendar Album is now complete, with the track 'The Listening Room' arriving in everybody's inboxes this morning (note that the first email had an incorrect link, which was fixed by a second email shortly afterwards). The full tracklist of the album is:

01. FSOL - Shorelines
02. FSOL - Dox 2
03. Blackhill Transmitter 17th
04. Indo Tribe - Kwase
05. Humanoid - Propagate
06. FSOL - Shrinking World
07. FSOL - Riverbed
08. FSOL - Rainy Third Street
09. FSOL - Commensalism
10. FSOL - Sol7 (Mx 107)
11. Yage - AP.BAC
12. FSOL - The Listening Room

The album's running time is 56:48.

14/12/17 - SX-One preview album now available

An album of pieces showing the versatility of the FSOL/Digitana synth the SX-One is now available to download from FSOLDigital, as mp3 or FLAC, with six bonus videos. The site describes the album as:

4 tracks – 45 mins in total – live improvisations using the FSOL:DIGITANA sx-1
Also includes 4 videos – filmed at the time of recording – showing the SX-1 in the recording chain
In addition a further 2 videos as a bonus
A pitch and tempo is decided, a timeline is peppered with hits and noises
These act as que markers to move the synth settings and sequences forward
A set of sequences were created and stored for random access
The main time generator is started and the result is recorded to 1/4” 15ips tape on a Nagra IVs

TRACKS
01 – Xertz (12:19)
02 – Opotograms (11:58)
03 – Origin Flows (5:12)
04 – Minimally Conscious (15:05)


The videos - one for each track, plus the Stochastic Process and SX-1 in Berlin come as separate files to download on the FSOLDigital account page, probably to keep down the size (up to 150MB per video).

24/11/17 - Karsten Pflum - Borg Acid (Rebuilt By Humanoid)

Brian's been on remixing duties again for Touched, this time 'rebuilding' a track by Karsten Pflum for the Love Canticles album. Listen to & grab the record from the link above.

24/11/17 - FSOLDigital Black Friday sale

Many FSOLDigital items are at reduced prices for the Black Friday weekend, running through to midnight on Sunday 26th November. There's actually a 'Black Friday' category linked to from the email the band have sent out, but it just leads to a 404 error page, so your best option is just to travel over to FSOLDigital and have a browse for yourself. All reduced items - physical and downloads - are marked with a 'sale!' signifier.

23/11/17 - Guinness World Records

FSOL have (finally) been awarded Guinness World Records for 'The first world tour by a group without leaving the studio', 'The first world tour featuring live shows played down telephone wires' and, most noteworthy, 'The first internet music download', for their single Lifeforms in June 1994.

16/11/17 - Ramblings of a Madman zine Vol 1 + extras

The first volume of the Ramblings of a Madman zines, featuring stories written by Gaz as well as imagery from the band, is now available on FSOLDigital. Prices range from £8.00 to £33.00, depending on whether you want a unique art print and/or a hoodie as well (or even instead of). The tracklist for the EP runs so:

01 – Viewed From Outside
02 – The Whispering Masses
03 – Orrery
04 – Fracti
05 – Episode
All tracks written by Dougans/Cobain except track 3 by Pemberton/Dougans/Cobain
.
Grab yours here.

01/11/17 - Lifeforms LP delayed but date confirmed

The Lifeforms double LP repress will be released on 26th January 2018. This is possibly a disappointment to those hoping for an October or November release, as promised, but maybe not surprising to those of us who are used to initial FSOL release dates being not entirely accurate. Pop the date in your diaries!

28/10/17 - Calendar(s) available now.

After the success of the 2017 FSOLDigital Calendar, the band have decided to release... two. Version 1 features classic artwork (Teachings, a collage of old covers, an updated My Kingdom with the new spike/electronic brain model, Papua, Synthi A, A:E:V, Far-out Son, Accelerator, Your Body Robotic, Lifeforms, Archives and Environment 6+). Version 2 features 12 new and very recent images. Three options are available for each calendar: Calendar only, Music only, Music & calendar. The music will be in the form of a track-a-month download, as with the 2017 version, and the same music is available with each calendar (so no need to buy both for music reasons). Prices are between £6 and £16, exclusively available from FSOLDigital.

21/10/17 - International Debris - Seltrac cassettes on sale at FSOLDigital

Copies of the International Debris (aka Second Thought / Ross Baker / me) cassette Seltrac are now available to purchase from FSOLDigital for £5.00. "Lo-fi synths, drum machines and fuzz boxes recorded to 4-track inspired by journeys on the Docklands Light Railway."
Grab it here.

19/10/17 - October Calendar Track

Reliably late, October's calendar track is 'Sol 7 (Mx 107)' - a variant mix of the track from Environment Six. Check your inboxes...

11/10/17 - Music-only 2017 Calendar available

Seems this one slipped us by - by the tracks from the 2017 FSOLDigital Calendar are now available as downloads without the calendar itself. A purchase will include a download of all tracks to date, plus each new track as it comes along on roughly the 17th of the month.

Select 'Music only' from the menu options on the page to purchase what will be a full twelve track album for only £6.00.

07/10/17 - 2018 calendar and zines on their way

It seems the 2017 FSOLDigital calendar was deemed successful enough for the band to work on a follow-up, which is due to go on sale in the not-too-distant future.

Also, the first of the Ramblings of a Madman zines should be along soon...

News soon...

02/10/17 - Lifeforms repress due in November

All has been quiet on the Lifeforms repress front, but the band posted on Facebook today that test pressings have been approved and they're shooting for a November release date

20/09/17 - September's Calendar track

Check your inboxes, calendar purchasers, 'Commensalism' awaits you. This FSOL track is apparently taken from 'The 2012 Tapes'.

19/08/17 - August calendar track

2017 Calendar track 8, FSOL's 'Rainy Third St.', should be in your inboxes now. The track is a bleak bit of lo-fi funeral jazz.

25/07/17 - New FSOL zines in the works

A series of FSOL 'zines' is due to be published later in the year. There will be ten volumes of 'Ramblings of a Madman', set to feature original text and imagery - likely new material and some from the archives.

18/07/17 - July calendar track

This month's calendar track should be in the inbox of everybody waiting. A beautiful guitar-based ambient FSOL track called Riverbed awaits...

20/06/17 - June calendar track from Archive 9

A few days later than normal, but this month's calendar track is finally here. Back to being FSOL again, the track is called 'Shrinking World', and is also acting as a preview for (and confirmation of) Archive 9, on which it will also feature.

18/05/17 - new Dougans/Cobain/Appleton/White collab album due

In what's turning out to be an absurdly busy month for news, we have news of a new collaboration between Dougans and Cobain, Robin Appleton of Cranium Pie, and Will White, regular FSOL/Amorphous collaborator and ex-Propellerhead. Info:

artist: Ai (stands for Audio intelligence)

album: Paradigmension

release date: will drop digitally on June 23 via Blurred Recordings

people on this project: Robin Appleton, Will White, Brian Dougans, Garry Cobain

The brainchild of Robin Appleton — founder of underground cult psych/prog band Cranium Pie and Tronsonic, unique tape-sampled virtual synthesizers — Ai (standing for Audio intelligence) is a collective of friends and collaborators, including Will White of Propellerheads, who contributed ideas and new mixes to Paradigmension, a 17-track album of electronic soul. The hard-to-define release was originally conceived as a soundtrack project for TV and film and was built around Appleton's home-made Tronsonic samples.

Ahead of the release, you can download 1 track, the LP cut of "So High - I Can Reach The Sun" here.

17/05/17 - Uncovered: SickOnes / Yage - Violition EP (Yage Remix)

It appears this was posted as a free downloaded last July, but went considerably under the radar (it's currently had 73 plays...). Frome-based hardcore punk band SickOnes had their debut EP 'Torn apart by YAGE', creating 'a unique blend of hardcore punk and experimental electronic music.'

If you ever wanted to hear hardcore screams to the backing of glitched drums, 303 squelches and birdsong, here's your opportunity. Grab it for free from the SickOnes Soundcloud.

17/05/17 - Calendar track 5: Humanoid - Propagate

This month's calendar track comes from Humanoid, with a piece called Propagate. Check your inboxes, everyone!

09/05/17 - Lifeforms 2LP repress coming in October

Rob Cagni has been running the Lifeforms repress group over on Facebook, and Brian has revealed to him the news that the vinyl edition will be repressed by Virgin EMI, due for a release in October. No news whether there will be a deluxe CD reissue alongside it, but either way, this interest in FSOL's back catalogue from the label is a very good sign, as the band's music hasn't seemed to be much of a priority in the past. Here's hoping this is the start of a proper reissue campaign!

07/05/17 - A:E:V CD now available from FSOLDigital

Grab your Archived : Environmental : Views CD from FSOLDigital now. Handily the tracklist given on the website doesn't include the two extra tracks revealed yesterday.

06/05/17 - Two bonus tracks on A:E:V CD?

Mr. Dougans left me a cryptic message about two extra tracks on the CD version of A:E:V, and having had a bit of a squint at the tiny back cover image on Boomkat, it definitely looks like there are two more tracks after 'Viewed from Little Boats' that haven't been listed in the press release. So... that's odd.

Edit: tracks 23 and 24 are 'Half Light' and 'Perpendicular'.

02/05/17 - It's back in stock again

Get your skates on people, the last remaining copies of the AEV vinyl are in stock on FSOLdigital

02/05/17 - A:E:V vinyl restock soon

Anybody who was after a 3LP copy of A:E:V from FSOLDigital but missed the limited stock made available at the weekend is advised to keep an eye on the site over the coming 24 hours, as more are expected to be on sale...

29/04/17 - A:E:V vinyl + digital now on FSOLDigital

A limited number of physical copies, as well as mp3 and FLAC versions of the full 48 track Archived : Environmental : Views are now available to purchase from FSOLDigital.

27/04/17 - New music library album discovered

Now obviously with the triple album Archived : Environmental : Views, double album Environment Six plus, and the first third of the Calendar Album all released in the last six months, what you're all obviously begging for is 23 new FSOL tracks. And now you can have them! Another album of library music has been uncovered. This album, The Research Remixed, features 23 remixes of material from Robin Appleton's original The Research album created by the trio of Brian Dougans, Will White and Gaz Cobain, operating under the name Bugbeats.

As with all the library music, it is unavailable to purchase unless for professional purposes, but you can listen to all of the remixes here.

17/04/17 - Calendar track 4

Calendar purchasers should check their inboxes for the latest instalment. This track, 'Kwase', surprisingly, comes from Indo Tribe, and appears to be a very early version of 'Just a Fuckin' Idiot'.

12/04/07 - A:E:V CD on its way

Those of you who will doubtless miss the 3LP version of Archived : Environmental : Views on Record Store Day, not to mention people without a turntable: you can now rejoice, knowing that you'll at least be able to own 22 of the 35 exclusive tracks on CD. A single disc compilation of two thirds of the new material is coming on 5th May. Tracklist below:

1. Persistence of Vision
2. Normality Returns
3. Hapn
4. Semi Detached
5. Unforth
6. Its Very Existence
7. Fallin Through
8. Sea Pig
9. Opposite of Thought
10. Looking out a Narrow Window
11. Drifting In and Out
12. Silence in her Eyes
13. Boulton
14. Intermodulation Distortion
15. Everyone who is not here
16. A Place in the Wilderness
17. Where you Going
18. Late October
19. The House in the Woods
20. Viewed from Pushkinova 7
21. In a way, they do..
22. Viewed from Little Boats

06/04/17 - Digitana exhibiting SX-1 at Superbooth '17

This year's Superbooth exhibit in Berlin will have the SX-1 on display at the Digitana stand, Booth 0300. The show runs from 20th to 22nd April. Read more on the Superbooth website.

22/03/17 - Press release & tracklist for Archived Environmental Views

"This Triple album brings together the two main strands of FSOL's current output, namely the "From the Archives" series and the "Environments" albums. Comprising a total 48 tracks, 35 of them are new or previously unreleased:

Vinyl 1 is the Archives album which pulls 8 previously released tracks from the series but in some cases new mixes of these tracks have been created specially for this release. The other 9 tracks are unreleased Archive tracks from the vast vaults of FSOL. The "From the Archives" series is no exercise in barrel scraping, FSOL are well known for their prodigious output regularly going through periods of creating several tracks a day. Many of these tracks would be 'lost' only for not fitting current projects, created only for special live events and broadcasts or would change so drastically during the recording process that the original version would bear little resemblance to the released track. From the Archives seeks to give light to these tracks that are as good as anything released on their 'official' albums.

Vinyl 2 is the Environments album, 16 brand new tracks which continues the journey along the ambient environmental path. As the title suggests, each Environments album is a journey through a specific mood, place or environment.

Vinyl 3 brings together much of the piano work FSOL have done over the years and also includes 2 new cover versions of tracks by Brian Eno and his brother Roger Eno. The piano is mainly played by Grammy Nominated / Ivor Novello Winner DANIEL PEMBERTON - well known for his film score work - (Gold, Steve Jobs, King Arthur). Views contains 10 previously unreleased tracks - 15 tracks in total"


Outer Heaven (2017 Version)
Mouth Muse
Culture Of Individuality
Fault Line
5 Months 5 Acres
Light Forming ( 2017 Edit )
Meanwhile
Mango Tree
Where You Going
Lizard Crawl
Woodland
This Day Before Me
Gas Mask 13
Numbers And Colours
Contraband
Loudoun Hill
She Fell Backwards

Persistence Of Vision
Normality Returns
Hapn
Semi Detached
Unforth
Its Very Existence
Fallin
Through
Sea Pig
Opposite Of Thought
Looking Out A Narrow Window
Drifting In And Out
Silence In Her Eyes
Boulton
Intermodulation Distortion
Everyone Who Is Not Here
In A Way, They Do..

Viewed From Pushkinova 7
A The Wilderness
Viewed From Below The Surface (2017 Version)
Viewed From Little Boats
Late October
The Oldest Lady
Viewed Through Apertures
Viewed From An Obscure Angle
Viewed From Far Hills
Viewed From Across The Room
Viewed From Rosey's Perspective
Viewed From Under Leaves
Source Of Uncertainty (Original Long Mix )
The House In The Woods
Viewed From Above

17/03/17 - Blackhill Transmitter provide the third calendar track

An amusingly worded message comes with the new calendar track, which should be in your inbox now if you're a calendar purchaser:
"This time Blackhill Transmitter have kindly donated a track from their latest studio sessions. If you click HERE you can download the track "17th".

Blackhill Transmitter's new EP will be available soon."

10/03/17 - Archived : Environmental : Views - Record Store Day release.

Every vinyl tout's favourite day is underway and lined up for 22nd April 2017. This year, FSOL break with tradition and instead of providing an updated version of an old release, come up with a new triple LP release. Yes, just in case you thought a double album late last year was enough to keep us fans going, we now have a new three album set to look forward to.

Released as three vinyl albums, the album - or compilation, really - is called Archived : Environmental : Views. Not much imagination is required to guess that the first LP will be a selection of tracks from the archives, the second LP will be new or updated-old material recorded as part of the Environments series, and the third LP will be tracks in the 'Viewed From' modern classical vein. The tracklist for Views is below, no news on the tracklists for the other just yet...

Viewed from Pushkinova 7
A Place in the Wilderness
Viewed from Below the Surface (2017 Version)
Viewed from Little Boats
Late October
The Oldest Lady
Viewed Through Apertures
Viewed from an Obscure Angle
Viewed from Fer Hills
Viewed from Across the Room
Viewed from Rosey's Perspective
Viewed from Under Leaves
Source of Uncertainty (Original Long Mix)
The House in the Woods
Viewed from Above


More news on this soon!

21/02/17 - New track on Unboxed Brain 12"

Following the recent vinyl box set compilation on Detuned, an EP of remixes is being released. The 12" includes remixes of tracks by B12 and Scanner - originally from the compilation - as well as a new FSOL piece, entitled Monolith. Have a listen over at Juno. It's out on 17th March, the same day as the next FSOLDigital Calendar track. Which, incidentally, will follow track 2, which came out a couple of days ago, and was called Dox 2.

02/02/17 - FSOL/Digitana mailing list

Digitana and FSOL have set up a mailing list for anybody keen to hear updates on one or both of the synths they have been developing together, the HALia and SX-1. You can join the mailing list here.

29/01/17 - Covert II & Digitana projects

FSOL have contributed a track to the second 'Covert' release on Touched Music. Although the aim of the release is to provide tracks with no signifier of artist and contributors, a photograph of the record in front of Brian's EMS gear, along with the fact that 'Sol A r Skies' sounds like it was taken from Environment Six, sort of let the cat out of the bag. There's a limited edition 12" EP version of the record available to pre-order from the Touched Bandcamp now, and a full 15-track CD edition will be available in March.

In other news, details about the FSOL synths have been released. The band have been working with developers Digitana on two synthesisers. Digitana make EMS-inspired gear, so it's no surprise that they've been working together. The budget model, the 'pocket sized' HALia (which can be heard as the sole instrument on E6's 'Symphony for Halia'), can be seen here, whilst the bigger, more in-depth, and undoubtedly more expensive, SX-1 Stand Alone Explorer - based on the original Synthi AKS KS Explorer - can be found here.

The HALia page features audio from the aforementioned 'Symphony...' and a brief description, whilst the SX-1 page features detailed specs but no audio. Release dates and prices are yet to be revealed, but they look and sound interesting - so click above and explore more.

18/01/17 - First calendar track released.

The first track from the FSOL 2017 Calendar album was released yesterday, entitled 'Shorelines'. In typical FSOL form, a version at 160kbps was accidentally sent out, but a 320kbps version has been sent to everyone on the mailing list as of this afternoon. It's a dark, jazz-tinged piece. Check your email everyone...