looooool pande....i really should be more sensitive you are correct. you are like "dead man walking" right now
ok my lips are now zipped until i can scream some congrats to you
After the "Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind" mix in (August?) 1997, the legendary Dougans/Cobain duo went off the map for 4 full years. Just like that... Bam!... Gone... no word of getting back, no word of the next project, no word of the next big album... just silence... a 4 year long silence...
At this time (early 1998), some rumors appeared. Some fans said that the new old-skool psychedelic direction broke up the band. Other reporters whispered that Garry went mad and ran off somewhere. But even the rumors were rare and generally there was just silence. I didn't paid much attention to the silence back then as I was sure (deep down inside) that FSOL will emerge one day with some kind of super-sonic old-new mix style that no-one has thought of. I also didn't paid much attention because I was a young fan (4 years in late 2000) and there was tons of material that I haven't listen properly yet - and I don't remember when (somewhere in 1999) I found out about the Disenchanted FTP website and suddenly I was in heaven! I had a few ISDN transmissions before this, but Disenchanted had ALL of them - for free! Bootleg heaven... I also don't remember when Disenchanted stopped working, somewhere in 2007 I guess, and probably FSOL asked them to stop because FSOLDigital started selling some of the transmissions.
The real story of the 4 year silence was nothing that dramatic. (As we can read more extensively on the Ross Baker site, a reliable well of information) the simple truth was they needed the break. The soullessness of the technology and the digital world consumed them and they pushed the digital too far, at least in their minds - because seeing today what they mixed and what they sampled, it's obvious they are analogue people in the digital world. Also, Garry's been poisoned by the mercury fillings in his teeth - so maybe that got the rumors going about the madness and all that crap.
Gaz was traveling in late 1997 / early 1998 to USA with another bandless traveler Ian Astbury (he reunited with The Cult in 1999). Astbury thought Gaz to write songs on the guitar. Then Gaz continued his travels to South America, Mexico and finally ended in India. His body and spirit were healing and his travels were spawning new sketches for new songs.
Back in the UK, Brian spent time experimenting with new hardware and software, also began to play with pinhole photography, as we will later see in the Isness booklet. In the 1997-1999 period Brian did some production / data manipulation work for Riz Maslen (aka Neotropic aka Small Fish With Spine). As we mentioned in the Dead Cities review - Brian was in some kind of relationship with Riz - and we'll leave it at that.
Riz Maslen has been part of the electronic scene since 1990 and is one of the few female producers around to have gained much acclaim for her work. Riz started her career fronting many indie bands whilst growing up in the West Country. She moved to London during the acid house / rave scene, eventually meeting and working with FSOL. She featured on some of their albums and sang on Top of the Pops with their top 10 hit Papua New Guinea, as we can see in this video (the quality is horrible, but the proof is there):
FSOL - PNG 1991 (Top of The Pops)
She signed to Ninja Tune's sister label Ntone in 1996 and released 3 critically acclaimed albums. '15 Levels of Magnification', 'Mr Brubakers Strawberry Alarm Clock' and 'La Prochaine Fois'.
01 - Ultra Freaky Orange (Album Version) | 6:54 [Computer / Data Manipulation – Bin Dogs]
- noisy breaks with some cool synths...
06 - Ultra Freaky Orange (Bin Dogs Remix) | 2:11
- Brian's mix has almost nothing to do with the original. It's a short wonderful ambient piece with occasional bursts of noise.
Small Fish With Spine – Ultimate Sushi // OMW (Oxygen Music Works) – OMW CD 5 (1999)
06 - High Fibre | 3:53 [Computer / Data Manipulation – Bin Dogs]
- Wonderful ambient tune. It has FSOL style. The whole Ultimate Sushi album is a very cool record.
Bin Dogs is another alias of Brian Dougans, and his e-mail on FSOLDigital is still connected to this alias.
Incorrectly credited as Ferry Corsten remix, very little is know about this version of PNG. Released on a white 12" promo only for EBV.
It doesn't sound like Brian at all... (Well, at least not Brian in 1999). Maybe some friend/DJ mixed this and Brian/EBV pressed it for the clubs... I don't know, maybe Ross will shed more light on this one...
Brian was keeping a track on Gaz's movements through his credit card, though I remember an interview where he said he was worried about Gaz ever coming back, but he was strongly convincing himself that his best friend will return soon. Brian planned a studio move to an up-market penthouse flat, when mysterious tapes of songs appeared in the post. The work on the next album had recommenced.
With the duo reunited (somewhere in mid-to-late 2000), they settled into their new studio - christened The Galaxial Pharmaceutical - and began to deck it out with lush furnishings, Brian's newly acquired music equipment, and various musical instruments. The studio's live space allowed the arrival of various musicians - long time friends and famous acquaintances - to jam around Gaz's tapes. Hundreds of pieces of music were recorded over this time...
In March 2001 Stakker Humanoid got re-released, and in August Gaz was mixing live on the Big Chill 2001 festival, confusing the audience with another 60s/70s psychedelic mix. In September 2001 PNG was re-released once again, and the ball started rolling... At the time of this writing (just a few days left of 2013), FSOL have released just a little bit more material in the 2001-2013 period than they have in the 1989-1999 period.
Last edited by Pandemonium on Sat Apr 16, 2016 1:29 am, edited 2 times in total.
I remember around 2000/2001, the rumours about new material, little snippets leaked to Nick Woodfine who ran what was basically the precursor to my site: http://web.archive.org/web/200101240031 ... lnews.html
People discussing what 'acid rock' was and how it related to FSOL's new style, due to the new album being supposedly in the style was a fun one. At one point back in 1998 I believe the album was believed to be near completion, with a lead single of 'Little Miss Divinity' planned for the end of the year with the album following early in '99.
The 1999 remix has nothing to do with the band, just a bootleg, probably samples sourced from the Dumb Child of Q mix like I did a few years ago (also how Hybrid made their rather clunky version).
There were a few different sites online with ISDN bootlegs, Disenchanted didn't appear until 2001/2002 though.
Yes I know, there were dozens of PNG bootleg / fan remixes, but this one caught my eye because it was pressed with the EBV logo...
Maybe the logo was a hoax press too...
I don't plan to review bootlegs / fan-mixes in this thread... but the d'n'b ones from 2003 (High Contrast & Nu:Tone) are sure worth mentioning...
Maybe you're right about Disenchanted... I was hunting down ISDN transmissions on Soulseek (those were the days!)...
But somehow I'm almost positive I found out and used Disenchanted in 2000... or maybe it was early 2001... I remember 2000 because in mid-2001 I moved to the capital 'cos of my studies and I already used Disenchanted before that...
I am pretty sure I downloaded shows off Disenchanted in 2000 too. I remember having an awful internet connection that year so it took forever to download those files
______________________________________________
- Off Land
I frequented Disenchanted back in the day, waiting eagerly on "new" ISDNs to finish downloading on my old arsed connection, been excited in seeing new discoveries surfacing and uploading onto there, ah the memories...
Ross wrote:I remember around 2000/2001, the rumours about new material, little snippets leaked to Nick Woodfine who ran what was basically the precursor to my site: http://web.archive.org/web/200101240031 ... lnews.html
People discussing what 'acid rock' was and how it related to FSOL's new style, due to the new album being supposedly in the style was a fun one. At one point back in 1998 I believe the album was believed to be near completion, with a lead single of 'Little Miss Divinity' planned for the end of the year with the album following early in '99.
That website's been around since 1995?!!!!! Holy shit! I would imagine follow that back in '96 when Dead Cities was forming.
Anybody know what became of Big Mind Explosion? Interesting hearing about what was planned for EBV back in the day.
Also, Pande, according to Ross' site at least. There was one other live transmission to Germany in 1998. Probably was only Brian behind that, anybody have anymore info on that?:
Always worth checking the Galaxial Pharmaceutical section of the forum. Both Pande and I have agreed that it probably didn't exist. No idea where it came from.
There was a pre-Disenchanted FTP, although I cannot remember the name of it.
All that I could gather (not much) from some German fans is that the 1998 transmission was not live,
but a re-run of some version of the ISDN Show / Kiss FM / Fun Radio France...
Big Mind Explosion is this guy, I mentioned him in the My Kingdom / Dead Cities reviews:
He's the drummer of My Kingdom and plays other instruments too,
so Big Mind Explosion was probably the third EBV release that never saw the light of the day because of the big break that followed...
"In March 2001 .... in August Gaz was mixing live on the Big Chill 2001 festival, confusing the audience with another 60s/70s psychedelic mix."
I remember going down to London to a Big Chill night and expecting to hear FSOL material but instead getting 60s and 70s psychedelic stuff.I was probably fairly confused by that point in the night anyway but also absolutely gutted that it wasn't what I had expected.
(ps the mailing list mention at the end (around 7:55) - the interviewer (is that anyone here ?) mentions about the Yage mailing list, but Gary thinks he's talking about another one - anyone know what that is ?)
