The fact that they're doing everything themselves means they don't really have a press budget - they certainly don't run FSOLDigital like a 'proper' label - so they don't really send any promos out or anything, hence no reviews. It does seem a little odd. For some reason or other, Gaz's Facebook post announcing Environment Five (including a YouTube link to a track) got commented on and appeared back at the top of the news feed last November/December time, and someone commented on it saying something like "when is this coming out?". I mean, they'd released Six and 6.5 in the meantime! A:E:V, with the help of Record Store Day, does seem to have got them a bit more attention, but it does seem sad that overall the wider audience doesn't seem to have any awareness. The only reviews I've read are when the reviewer has already got the album and has taken it upon themselves to write one.
I think titling of albums is very important. Although most of us seem quite happy to take the albums as they come and simply enjoy them, in general people get a certain amount of pre-conditioning from a title which can affect how they approach the music. Even I get more excited about a forthcoming Environment than an Archive, despite the Archives series containing many of my favourite FSOL tracks. I've spoken to a couple of people, and come across quite a few more, who immediately think of the Environments albums as 'lesser' because of the vague/non-specific naming, and the supposed links to the first three volumes which were heavy on '90s material. In that sense, they immediately judge them harsher than they would if the albums were individually titled. Others just assume that the Environments material is a mix of old and new, which it clearly hasn't been for ages (I guarantee nobody would have even considered 4 contained old material if it had been named otherwise).
I certainly respect their artistic decisions, but when it's so difficult to work out why they're making them it does make it interesting to question them. I think some series work - the numbered EPs and self-titled album that Blackhill Transmitter put out all feel part of the same series. The Archives are obviously numbered for a reason (although I still maintain that they could have curated them carefully and put out some 'new' albums and nobody would have noticed! Vol 7 is a particularly good example). But I hear no stylistic or thematic link between the Environments, regardless of how often they say things like "picks up where the previous volume left off".
1 is dark and spacey kosmiche, 2 is icy classical-ambience, 3 is a subdued return to Dead Cities, 4 blends psych and new age with a tropical feel, 5 is proggy, epic and emotional. Only 6, 6.5 and Environmental really feel of one, mostly due to them being largely recorded at the same time, with a huge emphasis on analogue synths and a stark, foreboding feel. I'd say there's just as much - if not more - variety and progression in sound throughout those as you'll find between Accelerator, Ephidrina, Lifeforms, ISDN, Dead Cities and the aborted 1997 album. So quite why they're tied together as one series, to the obvious detriment of sales, is completely beyond me.
But then, when did FSOL ever do anything the 'normal' way?
Tue May 30, 2017 11:59 pm
), I mean it´s not a bad album (I really like it somehow), but it´s just so onedimensional sounding compared to the multidimensionalism of 'Environmental - Views - etc' alone, but no one seems to notice.
