15/10/08 - FSOL to play 'live' at Bloc Weekend next year

Yes, the band's first live show since the Essential Festival some ten years ago,
The Future Sound of London will be broadcasting a live performance to BLOC, a weekend festival on the west coast of England, 13th-15th March 2009. Check out more information here.

This is all very exciting news, not only because of the performance, but what it suggests. As this appears to be a live show rather than a DJ set, is there new material round the corner for them to play? Either way, with several months away, there's a lot of speculating time.

14/10/08 - Amorphous on Donovan film, Psych Bubble snippets

Mr. Cobain writes...

Always a pleasure indeed (!) to hear from the Sunshine Superman himself, 'Donovan'... so last week when the Amorphous were invited to the Hampstead premiere of a new film celebrating the life and career of said psychedelic minstrel of course we duly attended... we were regaled with over 2 hrs of stories charting this man's amazing journey. Initially hailed as 'the British Dylan', Donovan justifiably carved out his own VERY special place in the musical lexicon (and rightly so!)... with his own unique brand of zen beat psych jazz funk bohemia and that's before you get onto mystical rockfolk and excursions into eastern promise! This man's music is as vast as the cosmos he is clearly tuned to! From the Maharishi to teaching John Lennon the Dear Prudence finger picking guitar style to drug busts and forays into transcendental states to American No1s to Led Zep being his backing band its quite a story! We didn't want to ask if we were in it (cos we vaguely remember a camera ghosting around when we worked together) so we were pleasantly surprised and honored when our faces duly popped out at us from the silver screen...
So here's a snippet where we hang with THE MaaaaaaN himself and work on a new rendition of a track that had previously appeared on the Isness called 'Divinity'!!

After the film Don's wife hugged Gaz and thanked him for the burdock root he had thrust into Don's hand as he climbed into a black cab leaving the Galaxial Pharmaceutical (our studio of the time). Don had looked bemused at the sight of the muddy root vegetable in his hand and so Gaz had said '"your wife will know what to do with it!". Well it seems she did... as she told him last week she dried it and put it on the altar and has been munching a small amount DAILY ever since and as you'll see she looks wonderful... (Now could that be the burdock root we wonder ha ha!)

Incidentally we have licensed a couple of Donovan trax for the upcoming 'A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind Vol 1- Cosmic Space Music' album which is a DJ journey that we have compiled and mixed that will be released on Nov 24th on Platipus Records. This has taken well over a year to bring together... such is the complexity (and insanity) and (did anyone mention) bureauocracy of licensing departments and record companies.
Anyway TIS DONE and tis sounding grande and charts over 40 years of psychedelic cosmic space music and IN THE PROCESS reclaims the psychedelic word from the annuls of history and the lingo of marketing men to return it to its original and grander original transformative origins to show how the spirit is truly vibrant and alive NOW NOW!! HOW could it not be with the triple helix in development an all!!
From Mahavishnu Orchestra to Miles Davis to Can to Devendra Banhart to Lord Sitar to the maaAN Donovan to Amorphous and too many others to mention (over 40 tracks) tis truly a sonic feast!! We are currently in talks to host events on the Monstrous Bubble theme so keep it locked in an incredibly loose way!!

Multidimensional love

the Automobile Association

08/10/08 - Monstrous press release

Lots more news on the Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble release for you all!

From http://www.electricroulette.com/2008/10/amorphous-andro.html

"Are you aware of Amorphous Androgynous? You should be for two reasons. One - We've spoke about 'em before and, Two - It's the mighty Future Sound of London doing stuff under a different name. Now, if that's all news to you, don't worry, we ain't gonna get all Record Shop on you. It's cool. If you're interested, pull up a chair and we'll fill you in. Do what we do and borrow the information and pass it on like you knew about it all along.

Anyway. Amorphous Androgynous are Gaz Cobain and Brian Douglas of FSOL, moving away from the electronics and into psychedelic cosmic prog rock. Of course, it's not that clear cut as the two bands cross over... I mean, it's not like FSOL never used live instruments and AA certainly stick their sitars through the circuits... but FSOL don't feel as 'live' as Amorphous. And it's 'live' where we're at...

Amorphous Andorgynous are releasing the brilliantly titled ‘A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind’, which for my money, sounds as tripped out as any Gong release! I like it! Well, the LP is an ISDN show that Amorphous Androgynous broadcast on XFM and KISS FM, has become something of a legend between fans and it extremely hard to come by these days even on the web.

Now, it's set for release as a double mix CD on December 1st (via Platipus Records) and the mix is set to re-generate the excitement around the Cosmic Space Music concept and finally make the music available to the fans while aiming to re-create the essence of the mix... essentially, a DJ trip spanning over 4 decades of genre-busting music featuring artists such as Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, Donovan, Devendra Banhart, Tim Buckley, Hawkwind, Magic Carpet, Can, Emperor Machine, Pop Levi, The Earlies, The Psychonauts, Betty Davis and more. Whaddalineup!

‘Mostrous Psychedelic Bubble’ will form a series of mix albums with the next one compiled and mixed by FSOL (Future Sound of London). Get that!"


No news on a tracklist - will this match a previous mix or will it be exclusive? - but it's definitely out on November 24th and the press is spreading.

Rich from Platipus adds these snippets:

"It's actually still 24th Nov for physcial CD release ...... Dec 1st - that was just a press thing. CD should be available a couple of weeks before this exclusively from our site www.platipus.com, and hopefully as digital from http://stores.d-igital.eu/platipus/. As of 25th Nov it should be available digitally from Itunes and the usual digital sites."

And RE: the second mix in the series: "well I'm yet to get a tracklist from Brian, the AA mix took 2 years to license the tracks, I'm hoping the FSOL one will be out before the summer 2009"

So there you go!

29/09/08 - Psych Bubble release date.

Thanks for RONTXO for the exciting news of finally having a release date for A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble vol. 1, mixed by The Amorphous Androgynous: 24th November 2008, on Platipus records. No word on a tracklist yet, but at two months away we shouldn't have to wait too long to find out what's in store, hopefully.

26/09/08 - Frisky Radio show

This afternoon it was the turn of Frisky Radio to host a FSOL show, which we are tentatively calling The Electric Brainstorm Volume II (unconfirmed). Similar in style to the first volume, it's more of a mix set than an ISDN tour-era FSOL broadcast. There's some interesting stuff in there, as you will see...

To Rococo Rot - Freitag
Legaic - Mings Feaner
Onstrance - Chaingang
Chris Carter - Slomo
Marne Nordheim - Colorazione
Max Richter - Cathodes
Jonny Greenwood - Clockwork Tin Soldiers
Max Ritcher - This Picture Of Us
The Future Sound of London - Summers Dream
Elite Barbarian - Soft Remind
Cassette Boy - ?
The Advisory Circle - The Old Schoolhouse
Implog - Holland Tunnel Drive
The Future Sound of London - Open Window (Taken From The Jazz Mags)
Zakir Hussian - Jan Garbarck
Can - ?
Stephen Mallinder - Del Sol
The Future Sound of London - Viewed From Above

So, new FSOL material in there. Summers Dream has no 'taken from' credit, unike the others, so we're unsure. Maybe new, maybe Archive 6, maybe 2" Tape Reels.
Open Window bares the Jazz Mags parentheses. Whether this is part of the title or a forthcoming release is unknown. And of course Viewed From Above, for those of you who don't have Environments II yet.

Nice, as ever, to see FSOL collaborators and friends in there (Max Richter and Legaic this time around), and some interesting choices - there's some psych rock choices from Amorphous popping in there, and some beautifully obscure tracks like the Implog piece to go along with.

At only 45 minutes it's not the three hour show we're desperate to hear, but it's an interesting an enjoyable set and contains a couple of exciting mystery tracks. MP3s are already doing their rounds...

22/09/08 - Frisky Radio, Film Remix and Psych Bubble updates.

A quick run through what we've got at the moment:

1.

Yeah, don't forget about this on Friday, 2PM GMT. Brian informs us about a subscription service, as far as we can tell from friskyradio.com this is for on demand and download and it may be available to listen live for free. If it's missed, the show will be on The Pod Room once it opens.

2. Thanks to Ceeg for the endless research and help, this time he's come up with some interesting facts about the Sh film project. From http://www.breakthrufilms.co.uk/uk/films/sh/

Future Sound of London will takes us deeper, beyond the realm of rationale and reason, with their Sh “remix”, a 45-60 minute set featuring FSOL’s Audio-Visual Remix of the Film with an Extended Soundscape. The Sh remix is the centrepiece of a range of Music Based Audio-Visual Content that form a part of the Sh Experience (distributed on–line, in-stores and performed live as part of the theatrical premiere and music festivals, where we will seed the Sh Pod: Experience the Disease).

A very, very interesting sounding project and good to see the guys heading off into strange, unknown lands once again!

3. The last thing we read, A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble... Exploding In Your Mind volume 1, compiled and mixed by The Amorphous Androgynous was out in October on Platipus. That's still all we know, and with the release deadline nearing it might be another setback. Who knows! In the meantime, here's a jolly nice cover shot in larger detail for you...


Yes, that is a person morphing into a tree. Yes, we are scared too.

19/09/08 - Cobain, Amorphous, Live, Not Live

Yes, once again we've only found out about a live performance at the last minute - in this case, Gaz Cobain performing (no idea, probably a DJ set) at Reworks 2008 in Greece. Tomorrow. 20th September.
Read about it here if you wish.
Secondly, a gentleman by the name of Virgil Howe, who you may remember from the current Amorphous lineup, is playing in London soon. His promoters have billed it as The Future Sound of London. It is not. Amorphous obsessives may wish to note Dave Sanderson, AA's second vocalist, will be perfoming on some of his songs. This is all happening on 4th October at 93 ft East on Brick Lane in London.

More excitingly, he also informs me 'Hopefully we'll be doing a London show soon as the group'. This is likely to be the long rumoured Amorphous UK show this year. Keep your fingers crossed we find out a little sonner than that Greek performance!

Oh, and By Any Other Name/The Woodlands Of Old CDs are being shipped from FSOLDigital now, so get buying. BAON's artwork interestingly mentions something under the name 'Yage: The Movie' from 1993. This may ring bells with longtime fans. No information about it, mind.