Pande-reviews: 2009.0 (FSOL - EBS Vol.4)

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Ross
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by Ross »

Not quite the image Gaz was putting across on Facebook, though - saying how it's harder and harder to make money from music as time goes on. Apparently they make most of their money from licensing of tracks & library music.
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by Pandemonium »

They ARE doing fine, I'm sure of it. (making small sums from a dozen different ways, fills the pond for now)

The thing is, with the Internet in general, places like Spotify, torrents, 2nd hand online shops, pirating in general - the music industry is going into oblivion a few % more each and every year - while musicians becoming independent need to worry about new models of sales and dozens of other shitty stuff that have nothing to do with the music as art, and in the same time they have a lot to do with it...

- It might just turn out that the music industry was working fine in the first 50 years (1955-2005) despite being a disgusting entertainment model, quality stuff did found their way up. What we have NOW obviously doesn't work, so either we go back to the old model (quite unlikely but possible) or we let the industry die all the way, and see what happens with micromanagement - which also seem to not work today as it is. I hate to admit it, but without professional marketing (not massive, not global, but still professional in the field) it looks like nothing works fine without it...

That being said, the artist today has to worry about future-proofing against bad modeled markets, inflation and all sorts of shit (as we all do with almost every kind of profession). From this point of view - very few Artists do OK -- and I mean Artists, not Entertainers.
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by ronniedobbs »

While that's all true Pande, I see music breaking down into smaller communities, for the artists who deserve it. When artists let their pretention go, and engage their fans directly, we all reap the benefits, fans and artists alike. Look how we've circled the wagons around Gary & Brian, we carry the torch and it does have a positive effect. The exact opposite of twats like Taylor Swift, who bites the hand that feeds her, because her manager thinks she isn't rich enough yet. Look at the model Aleski Perala and Jodie Kendrick have adopted, emailing their fans directly, and basically crowd funding their albums with a promised return on their investment. Bandcamp is also having an effect, although I know they take a cut as well. I think as internet technology evolves, we'll see new forms of distribution we can't even imagine yet.
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Re: Pande-reviews: 1992.7 (Kiss Test 1, Peel Session)

Post by Pandemonium »

LooseLink wrote:Very informative reviews Pande, cheers!
Ross wrote:Yage and Cyberface are both Gaz - I pitch shifted them in the past and it revealed the same voice.
Really? I always though Yage was Brian, sounded abit Scottish to me, care to share the audio if you still have them?

- Not that there was any doubt, but Gaz confirmed that: Yage and Cyberface are both Gaz
Gaz wrote:Was a series of KISS FM radio shows we did in the run up to Lifeforms Alan [ he talks to Brian's brother ]
...2 characters YAGE and Cyberface ( me pitched up / me pitched down - Mr Techno manning the FX )
[ Mr Techno is obviously Brian :) ]
Segues between records in the mix were 'sonic environments' with narratives ...
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by Ross »

Gaz is very much in FSOL mode today it seems... little story about the naming of Papua (fascinating bit about Dumb Child of Q)
Gaz wrote: PAPUA had about as much to do with the actual place as it did 'spaghetti on toast '
It was 2 guys creating exotic sound to escape the drudgery of being skint in London and realizing that traveling to exotic worlds was possible even if not physically then via sampling and imagination . PAPUA New Guinea Was a chance name suggesting this quest for exoticism ... We had 10 minutes to rename it before it was pressed , the label owner objected to its original name ' dumb child of Q ' ( first version had elements of an older track we'd done MENTAL CUBE -Q ) .... Brian was on phone and we fired suggestions back and forth - I looked in my record collection and quoted AIKEA NEW GUINEA by the Cocteau Twins as something suitably exotic to which Brian promptly responded PAPUA NEW GUINEA .. The rest is history ... Don't think it would have been successful without the exoticism of its final choice of name NOR without the ( perceived to be ) bold arrogance of the band name - all happy marriages
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by darktrain »

great story ross..thanks for that....have to say the dumb child of q mix is a firm favourite
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by Ross »

More!
Gaz wrote: I don't listen that much to old music of ours to be honest ... All very haphazard ....I'll always have soft spot for MAX on DEAD Cities .... Little known fact BRETT ANDERSON ( suede ) Did demos ( we never heard them ) vocally to that ... He heard the track as pure Scott Walker .. Rather embarrassingly when he said that at the time I'd never heard of Scott which BRETT clearly wasn't very impressed with ! Suedes drug dealer was our A & R mans dealer too which was the original connection .. .... Would like to have heard what Brett tried that's for sure and YEH he was right it's made for Scott !
Big fan of the first two Suede albums, would love to hear that.
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Re: Pande-reviews: 1992.7 (Kiss Test 1, Peel Session)

Post by ronniedobbs »

Pandemonium wrote:
LooseLink wrote:Very informative reviews Pande, cheers!
Ross wrote:Yage and Cyberface are both Gaz - I pitch shifted them in the past and it revealed the same voice.
Really? I always though Yage was Brian, sounded abit Scottish to me, care to share the audio if you still have them?

- Not that there was any doubt, but Gaz confirmed that: Yage and Cyberface are both Gaz
Gaz wrote:Was a series of KISS FM radio shows we did in the run up to Lifeforms Alan [ he talks to Brian's brother ]
...2 characters YAGE and Cyberface ( me pitched up / me pitched down - Mr Techno manning the FX )
[ Mr Techno is obviously Brian :) ]
Segues between records in the mix were 'sonic environments' with narratives ...
Which shows exactly have yage & cyberface?
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by Ross »

Kiss Test Transmission 1 & 2. There are also occasional clips on a couple of other Kiss transmissions, but they're just recycled bits replayed.
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by Ross »

Kiss Transmission 6, part 3:

26:45 Dead Can Dance - Fortune Presents Gifts According to the Book (1990)
27:21 Unknown
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by Pandemonium »

Nice spotting Ross :)
The same bit was in Kiss Transmission 1 but I missed it in 6.
I think Codringer noticed it in the first place, so I missed it both times :)
One of those songs that don't stay in my mind-archive I guess...
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by Ross »

Also, it's Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the Book. I missed the 'Not' out in the post above!
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.5 (FSOL - Environments II)

Post by Pandemonium »

It's cool, I actually didn't miss the Not, because I was editing/copying from the Kiss 1 tracklist :)
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Pande-reviews: 2008.6 (FSOL - From The Archives Vol.5)

Post by Pandemonium »

The Future Sound of London - From The Archives Vol.5 (29.08.2008)
fsoldigital.com - CD TOT 63 (MP3 @ FSOLDigital.com on 29th Aug 2008 / CD on 05th Jan 2009)

Image

While Environments II surprised me, I waited for this one to come out, ready and steady. What surprised me here is how much of these tracks we heard before in the ISDN transmissions. If Archives 4 had only a couple of known tracks, here we have only 4 tracks that were never heard before. And most of the tracks are from the post-Dead Cities sessions, segued into a beautiful flowing album. With so many memorable and legendary b-sides emerging, this is definitely the strongest in the series up to this point.

The front cover is priceless - Vit Drowning, from the 1995 video sessions when he almost drowned for real. The rest of the usual suspects are also here, the witch girl and the electronic brain. The inlay of the CD has awesome stencil FSOL logo sprayed on the black background. The last double picture of the booklet has some Indian buildings - I'd bet real money this is a photo taken by Alan Dougans. Or maybe Gaz, he's been there more than once too.

So, everybody on-line..? Looking good... Headphones on, and lets see what we can... see...

01. Sendero Luminoso (5:53) (1997)
- For more than 10 years we were wondering when will this legendary track be released. This version was first heard on the ISDN Transmission 9, London (BBC Radio 3, Mixing It) (25.03.1997). Named in Spanish in this official version, The Shining Path (Original Demo) remains unreleased, being different (a bit crazier) from the Sendero Luminoso version we have here. The Shining Path (Original Demo) can be heard on the yet unreleased Peel Session from 1997.
- It's impressive how this gem is almost entirely recycled effects and beats from Papua New Guinea, flutes in the Yage / Cascade style, while the guitar/bass moments add a whole new direction making it an entirely new track. It very well should've ended up on the Papua New Guinea Translations release.

02. A Sweltering Heat (1:56) (1997)
- Heard on the same ISDN session as Sendero Luminoso (25.03.1997), it's a natural segue/expansion of the previous track, using the same background. On the ISDN transmission there were some vocals too, but they are removed here. Always wondered about the source of those vocals...

03. Exploded Funk (3:13) (1997)
- And one more track from that same session (25.03.1997), and again, a recycled track with new elements. The drums are the same ones from the Herd Killing / We Have Explosive sessions, but the funky bassline is entirely new. One of my all time favorite tracks!

04. Private Psyche And Inner Life (5:40) (1997)
- This one is from the Peel Session (08.05.1997). I think it was originally called She Does As If He Is, and John Peel referred to this one as Thinking About Thinking About Thinking (maybe Peel named it like that?). Anyway, the final title is Private Psyche And Inner Life, fitting, for this repetitive beat that somehow seems different, loop after loop after loop. Crazy track.

05. The Exhibtion (4:22) (1996)
- First heard on the ISDN Transmission 8, Los Angeles (Groove Radio) (22.01.1997), this one actually sounds very little like FSOL... It has 'happy' melodies in a very uncharacteristic FSOL way. I'd say this track comes from the very very first sketch sessions for new tracks that begun post-Dead Cities. Very weird track indeed.

06. Yashica (4:19) (1996)
- First heard on the ISDN Transmission 3, Edinburgh (Forth FM) (28.10.1996) as G Electro, as it was more widely known for a long time on the ISDN Show promo CD. It also appeared the previous year on the ExtremeMusic library series as Touching Bass.
- Obviously some kind of a variation of Quagmire, and probably made in the same session with Antique Toy and Glass. Intense Dead Cities leftover with hints of some Smart Systems sound structure. I can see this one ending up on the Yage single that never came to life...

07. Tif Feetal (2:52) (1996)
- While the structure sounds somewhere between the shared darkness of ISDN and Dead Cities, the drum-break is so fucking garage old-skool I can't even begin to describe how good it is. And then someone (Ross probably) mentioned it's a sped up version of the Dope Module track by Mental Cube (from 1990!). Seems like Mental Cube chunks found a way to appear in different forms in all FSOL albums. Insane...

08. Distant Memories (4:05) (1994)
- This one would actually be a hard one to place if we didn't knew for a fact that it appeared on the Kiss FM '94 Transmission. Wonderful piano sections. I wonder about their source. At the very end you can hear some Room 208 samples.

09. Dream One (aka Darkness at Noon) (3:25) (1996)
- It opens with the very same sound that opens the Dead Cities title track, so no confusion here about the session. Lots of other familiar effects and bits. The drum work is amazing. I can see why this one didn't end up on Dead Cities, but at the same time I kinda wish it did.

10. Vacuum (0:57) (1993)
- This little segue of connecting environments is actually beautiful. With all the water sounds and echoed voices I'd say it's from the Lifeforms sessions.

11. Fat Spat (2:42) (1995)
- Either this sounds so familiar it's making my head hurt, or I've listened to this Archive more than a few dozen times. I don't really know where to place it - the 1995 weird sessions maybe? It's a great tune with awesome bassline.

12. Tokyo Travel (8:28) (1992)
- A warm flashback to another legendary track, finally officially released. First heard on the Kiss 100 FM Test Transmission 2 (Oct.1992). A strange hint on that radio mix - at the end of the track a voice says Dead Skin Cells. Apparently Tokyo Travel is an early pre-Lifeforms version of Dead Skin Cells, according to Yage himself...

13. Water Hole (5:41) (1996)
- Another hard one to place. The glitchyness says Dead Cities sessions, but a lot of the elements sound older, pre-Lifeforms even. It's also one of those tracks that contain a whole other track in the last minute (like some Dead Cities tracks) but the ending environment has water which always reminds me of Lifeforms. Maybe some other fan will place it better. A very interesting track either way.


- The sample library:

- The Exhibition (at 0:19) samples the opening of John Baker - Festival Time (album: BBC Radiophonic Music, 1968)


- Also, the opening of The Exhibition samples John Baker - P.I.G.S. (album: BBC Radiophonic Music, 1968)

- Tokyo Travel (at 0:50 and a few more times later) samples Tangerine Dream - Phaedra (album: Phaedra, 1974) at about after the 12 minute mark (it's the bird-like sounds).


- Also, Tokyo Travel samples (at about 7:38) the howling effect, taken from The Awakening, a 1980 movie (at 12:22, the first entering of the tomb scene). This is (I think) the fourth track that uses this howling effect.

- An interesting thing can be heard on the original cover of Bryan Ferry - I Put a Spell on You (which FSOL remixed back in 1993), around 2:38 the background sounds will appear throughout the Tokyo Travel track.


Want to read about the other Archives series? Click away:

From The Archives Vol.1 (06.03.2007)
From The Archives Vol.2 (06.03.2007)
From The Archives Vol.3 (06.03.2007)
From The Archives Vol.4 (17.10.2007)
From The Archives Vol.5 (29.08.2008) --> It's this post.
From The Archives Vol.6 (02.09.2010)
From The Archives Vol.7 (19.11.2012)
From The Archives Vol.8 (11.09.2015)
Last edited by Pandemonium on Sat Oct 08, 2016 3:16 am, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Pande-reviews: 2008.6 (FSOL - From The Archives Vol.5)

Post by Ross »

I was just about to come in here and ask when the next update was!
Pandemonium wrote:The last double picture of the booklet has some Indian buildings - I'd bet real money this is a photo taken by Alan Dougans. Or maybe Gaz, he's been there more than once too.
Buggy. He's travelled a lot. Same place as the back page of the Environments 3 booklet.
The Shining Path (Original Demo) can only be heard on the yet unreleased Peel Session from 1997.
It's on the French Live session too. I reckon this would have been the single version and Sendoro Luminoso would have been the album version, had it all come together in the 'normal' way.
I think it was originally called She Does As If He Is
I think that's either Poppadom or East Pacifica.
09. Dream One (aka Darkness at Noon)
WHY?! This one bugs me more than any of the other strange titling from FSOLDigital!
11. Fat Spat (2:42) (1995)
- Either this sounds so familiar it's making my head hurt, or I've listened to this Archive more than a few dozen times.
EBS1?

I remember this appearing by surprise the same morning as Environments 2, what a morning. Completely upped the game of the Archives series. That run of Dead Cities material in the middle has got to be the darkest, harshest set of FSOL tracks around. Water Hole is one of my favourite FSOL tracks. To me it definitely seems earlier than Dead Cities, but I really can't place it accurately at all.
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