07/04/08 - Two new/old releases come to CD

Unfortunately there's no word on the Environments CD yet, but we do have two CDs coming out in the next month, one of which is a bit of a surprise. Even those of us who saw the Pulse EPs at the bottom of FSOLDigital weren't expecting a CD release of all four. It's the next FSOL compilation and comes out on 5th May 2008.
The tracklist matches the original EPs and runs a little like this:
01. Indo Tribe - Bring In The Pulse
02. Indo Tribe - In The Mind Of A Child
03. The Future Sound Of London - Hardhead
04. The Future Sound Of London - Pulse State
05. The Future Sound Of London - Stolen Documents
06. Smart Systems - Zip Code
07. The Future Sound Of London - 1 In 8
08. Indo Tribe - I've Become What You Were
09. Smart Systems - Tingler
10. Indo Tribe - Owl
11. Indo Tribe - Bite The Bullet Baby
12. Yage - Calcium
13. Mental Cube - I'm Not Gonna Let You Do It
14. Smart Systems - Creator
15. Indo Tribe - Shrink
16. Smart Systems - Space Virus
This makes it highly unlikely that a rerelease of Earthbeat will ever appear, but there are tracks here which have never been issued on CD, so it's a mixed blessing. The CD is released on Jumpin' & Pumpin' (CDTOT57). Secondly, a date for From The Archives Vol. 4 has been announced: 12th May 2008, on Jumpin' & Pumpin' (CDTOT58). Tracklist matches the online release as:
01. Hidden Sign
02. Plasmatik
03. West Path
04. 100 Baby Spiders
05. Absent With Concept
06. Wookii
07. Shingles
08. 5 Months 5 Acres
09. Mango Tree (Original)
10. Golden Burnt
11. Climbing
12. Speed Ball


Here's another surprise release for you all. Tingler is getting a re-release with new remixes. J&P are putting the 12" out (12TOT48) on 21st April 2008. Side one features remixes from Kouncil House and 30Hz, side two features the Smart Systems 'Remix' and the original version. No, we have no idea why this is being re-released. Maybe the new versions are excellent. Maybe not.

09/03/08 - even more new releases! (and a very old one)

That's right, after years of nothing, they're continuing to pile on the new music. Remember the Five Six Five track from the Freeze CD, which claimed to be from Environments II? Well, that wasn't a typing error. Here's the cover. It's described as "Where Environments 1 left off, the journey continues through dark head storms to green grass valleys future and past", covering "3 parts 59 minutes". Coming soon, this'll probably be a digital download. We know nothing of release dates, CD releases, tracklist or even whether this is old or new material. But it's pretty exciting, no? And that cover's a lot better than the awful Environments 1 cover, which we're still hoping will get an update before its CD release. Even more interesting, is a new Yage album. Yes, that alias which gave us jazzy house and minimal techno in 1992 is back. And sounds nothing like it used to. The title track to "The Woodlands Of Old" is available on the band's MySpace, and sounds much like The Amorphous Androgynous with less of an eastern influence. The band describe the album as a "New collection of tracks from FSOL's engineer/producer Yage. 19 songs 1hr 5mins". Another unexpected release. There's also a nice, professional looking cover for From The Archives Volume 4 on the page now, leading us to believe a CD release can't be that far off. This time just showing the Electronic Brain, without Shauneen Ta, it fits in stylistically with the rest of the series.

Now, in fitting with current trends, for every hundred new releases, we seem to stumble across an old Humanoid release. This Japanese import from 1988 features the same tracks as the UK version, but entirely exclusive artwork, on a special 3" CD. Thanks to (RONTXO) for finding this and for the images!

And that's about it for the minute. We're working on a nice big discography/lyrics & song info update soon to get all this information in order!

04/03/08 - ExtremeMusic tracks

It's been discussed on the forums for a while, but it's finally time to make the information known. If you check out http://www.extrememusic.com/ you'll find a heap of apparently unreleased FSOL material. Under 'X Series', in the 'Composers' section, there are a number of pieces by Dougans/Cobain. These tracks are pieces the band have hired out for commercial use, and are not available for sale, but the full tracks can all be streamed on the site. Not is all as it seems (typically), as many of the tracks are available on the Archive series anyway. Here's a brief description of what's there...

From 'Acid Breaks':
Jaw Breaker (04.32) - actually an edit of 'Speed Ball' from Archive 4
Roid Rage (03.26) - electric guitars and funky breaks
Big Max (04.20) - acoustic guitars and breakbeats
Fly & Mash (04.52) - pre-Accelerator acid
Skunk Junk (03.25) - '5 Months 5 Acres' from Archive 4
Touching Bass (04.13) - 'G Eletro' from Dead Cities era ISDN show
Swelter Skelter (04.42) - we can only think this is a very old track, hip hop brass stabs, wah guitar and squelchy breakbeats

From 'Deep Chill':
Bubble & Peak (05.22) - 'Lizzard Crawl' from Archive 1
Ice Stage (03.44) - edit of 'Cellular Control' from Archive 2
Unreality Control (04.20) - dark, minimal trip-hop
Acid Drop (04.45) - strange guitar/FX/sax soundscape

From 'Dark Trance':
Sable Empire (03.26) - sounds like an Intelligent Communication era piece
Dearth Control (04.03) - 'Plasmatik' from Archive 4
Airless Whisper (04.20) - minimal techno
Blindside Bizarro (03.50) - breaks/trance

From 'Psychedelic Air':
Eerie Query (02.46) - dark ambient drones
Polar Rinse (03.41) - strings and sub-bass rumbles
Tinted Love (02.07) - piano piece, can't work out where it's from despite its familiarity
Stark Tower (04.55) - synth ambience
Dead Ringer (01.58) - dramatic orchestral piece

There are some very interesting pieces here - Airless Whisper, Polar Rinse, Dead Ringer and Swelter Skelter aren't anything like the FSOL we know, and it's nice to hear a full studio version of G Eletro. And they're available to listen to for free on the site, and to license out for use on films &c. - keep your ears open, you might hear one on a documentary or trailer today!

21/02/08 - Crystals promo uncovered

With all of the new material appearing, we suddenly come across one of the oldest releases in the band's catalogue. The fifth single from Humanoid's Global album was Crystals, but only appeared on US label Chicago Trax. Another 12", with two 'different' versions of Crystals, has been on the discography forever, but nothing has ever been seen of it.

Until now.

Labelled as PROMO HUMT3 - putting it as a release after The Deep, not in 1988 like we prevoiusly thought - the single was never commercially released, but a DJ promo exists. Containing Crystals (Extended Version) on both sides (although not actually extended, as it is 30 seconds shorter than the album version), the 12" appeared online in mp3 form recently. Thanks to Pandemonium on the forums for uncovering this one. Once we hear it, we'll let you know the differences between this and the album version.

Time to update the discography properly...

19/02/08 - Peppermint Tree released

The Peppermint Tree & The Seeds Of Superconsciousness
"A Collection Of Psychedelic Relics From The Amorphous Androgynous 1967-2007"
In the shop now! Not the interpretations of Peppermint Tree & a couple of bonus tracks we were originally promised, this is an entirely new album, recently completed from more strong tracks from the Alice/Isness sessions.
A few snippets - those of you who've been following for a while may recognise "Drifter" and "Marylebone Road" after being revealed on the official site seven years ago. "Marylebone Road" itself now makes sense of the mention in the "Goodbye Sky" credits - they both feature the same brass section (we can also finally confirm "Guru Song" was spawned from the same sessions as this collection's title track).
"Opus" - a title from the Alice sessions - may well now be "Opus Of The Black Sun".
"Oblivion" from the Freeze sampler has a full title "I Have Loved You Into Oblivion" (and features vocals from Gaz as well as that Shirley Bassey-alike). There are some superbly ridiculous titles in there too...

01. The Peppermint Tree
02. Given That We've Given
03. I Have Loved You Into Oblivion
04. Light Beyond Sound
05. In Fear Of The Electromagnetic Machine (Part 1)
06. Nowhere At The Edge Of Somewhere
07. Riders (On Circadian Rhythm)
08. Carousel
09. Yantra
10. Opus Of The Black Sun
11. Marylebone Road
12. Tiny Space Birds
13. Drifter
14. Rocket Fuel
15. Listen Little Man
16. Man Is A Virus In Shoes
17. Mr. Sponge's Groovy Oscilations
18. It's A Sunshine Day (Yeah! Yeah!)
19. An Absurd Consequence Of Living In Absurd Times (bonus track)

"Drifter" may seem familiar to some of you - the acoustic loop featured as the backing track to the Isness section of futuresoundoflondon.com mk2 back in 2002. It also features in a remixed form as the album's bonus track. Otherwise, it all sounds fairly standard Amorphous fare (at least as standard as you can get for a band who shift from Indian ragas to progressive rock and psychedelic funk quicker than you can say A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind). It resembles Alice more than Isness, with ambient interludes, densely layered tracks and emphasis more on funk and odd electronics than tablas and banjos. The first half is nicely mixed together with shorter, interlude tracks, but it becomes more song-by-song nearer to the end. The mix of instrumentals and vocals remains similar to previous releases - here, "The Peppermint Tree", "I Have Loved You Into Oblivion", "Marylebone Road", "Rocket Fuel", "Listen Little Man" and, to an extent, "It's A Sunshine Day" are all 'songs', the rest are pretty much instrumental. There's no Galaxial/Plankton style epic, although Max Richter's orchestration on "...Oblivion" leaves it sounding as epic as the intro to "Her Tongue Is Like A Jellyfish" promised six years ago.
All in all, it's a consistently good record, and will certainly satisfy fans of The Isness and Alice In Ultraland after more "PSYCHEDLIC PROG-ROCKTRONICA SAMPLERDELICA with a dash of FOLKfunkRAGA COSMIC SPACE MUSIC" (their words, not mine)

FSOLDigital.com happily informs us "cd coming soon". Hurrah!

17/02/08 - forthcoming releases update, new alias?

Thanks to geobal79 on the forums for a wonderful translation of the interview in Freeze magazine. This is the first real interview they've done during this post-Alice era of the band and it's pretty enlightening (ie we're not getting the same questions/answers as every post-Isness interview seemed to contain).
The full interview will be in our press section soon, but you can read it on the forums now. A quick recap of the interesting news regarding forthcoming releases below (all penned for 'this year'):

Two DJ mix albums: one by Amorphous Androgynous (probably the Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble project), one by FSOL - this is the first thing we've heard about the FSOL one so it could be long in the future.

The Peppermint Tree & Other Seeds will be restored and newly recorded/mixed stuff, unlike the forthcoming Amorphic Archives, which will simply be untouched archived tracks.

There will be another Amorphous Androgynous album, along with another FSOL album.

Alias releases may come to FSOLDigital from time to time.


Those new tracks - Peppermint Tree is definitely related to Guru Song, to verify the Isness credits. Tiny Space Birds and KattaPilla are typical AA instrumental jam tracks, very Alice In Ultraland, similar also to Coconut and Wendover Woods (remember them?). And Oblivion... all we can say is 'James Bond film theme tune'.


A final little thing for you, this may be of interest. No real clues as to exactly what it is, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

15/02/08 - Freeze CD information

Thanks to Pandemonium on the forums for all this information regarding the Freeze magazine CD. First up, it's more of a sampler than a CD of full tracks, mixed together - not entirely unlike what you'd expect of a radio show by them, we're guessing. And, more importantly, here's the tracklist:

01 - The Future Sound of London - Lizard Crawl (2:23)
(taken from The Archive Vol.1; written by Dougans/Cobain)

02 - The Future Sound of London - Long Shadow (2:02)
(taken from The Archive Vol.3; written by Dougans/Cobain)

03 - The Future Sound of London - Brujo (1:50)
(taken from The Archive Vol.2; written by Dougans/Cobain)

04 - The Future Sound of London - Globular (2:57)
(taken from A Gigantic Globular Burst of Anti Static; written by Dougans/Cobain)

05 - The Amorphous Androgynous - Tiny Space Birds (1:50)
(taken from Peppermint Tree and Seeds; written by Dougans/Cobain)

06 - The Amorphous Androgynous/FSOL/Dianne Harris - A Tiny Point of Light (3:04)
(taken from Soundtrack to a Light Structure created by Dianne Harris; written by Dougans/Cobain)

07 - The Amorphous Androgynous - Oblivion (2:07)
(taken from Peppermint Tree and Seeds; written by Dougans/Cobain)

08 - Heads of Agreement - La Veshter Au Ombre (2:18)
(taken from The San Monta Tapes; written by Dougans/Cobain)

09 - Mental Cube - Sightings (1:52)
(taken from By Any Other Name; written by Dougans/Cobain)

10 - Stakker Humanoid - Feadz 2007 Mix (1:11)
(taken from Humanoid - Your Body Robotic; written by Dougans)

11 - Stakker Humanoid - PRM Mix (0:56)
(taken from Humanoid - Your Body Robotic; written by Dougans)

12 - The Future Sound of London - Plazmatik (2:06)
(taken from The Archive Vol.4; written by Dougans/Cobain)

13 - Polemical - Mos Son (1:10)
(taken from Hand Made Devices; written by Dougans/Cobain)

14 - Polemical - Iseum (1:40)
(taken from Hand Made Devices; written by Dougans/Cobain)

15 - The Amorphous Androgynous - Peppermint Tree (1:23)
(taken from Peppermint Tree and Seeds; written by Dougans/Cobain)

16 - The Amorphous Androgynous - Katta Pilla (1:40)
(taken from The Amorphic Archives; written by Dougans/Cobain)

17 - The Future Sound of London - Five Six Five (7:18)
(taken from Environments 2; written by Dougans/Cobain)


Of interest here - first up, it's nice to see we have some proper b-sides coming on The Peppermint Tree (not just interpretations). Also, The Amorphic Archives brings up memories of promised Isness/Alice era archives for release on FSOLDigital. Whether The Amorphic Archives will come out online, or form part of the promised Amorphous Androgynous DVD, we don't know. Yet. Also interesting to note that both Heads Of Agreement and Polemical are credited to Dougans/Cobain, even though it's been suggested they're solo projects.

As for 'Environments 2', we haven't a clue.


More news once we hear the CD!