The structure of the Environments
Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2019 3:41 pm
Something that's been discussed a little is how many of the Environments albums feature the titular 'environment' sections as separate tracks - it began on 3, and was taken to the extreme on 6 & 6.5, with 23 tracks each. It's an unusual creative decision to take - although the sections were generally given titles (see the tracklist on the inner sleeve of Ephidrina), they were mostly bolted on to the start or end of more traditional tracks. Whether it's a successful decision or not depends on the listener, but for me I think I prefer the older approach, if only because it makes it easier to remember track titles! Of the 46 tracks on those 2016 releases, I could still probably only name 15 without checking the sleeve.
And yet, for all the cosmetic difference, those albums are structured very similarly to the '90s works. I was just listening to 6, and started thinking how the albums might have been structured if the environments had been attached to longer tracks, so I thought I'd rip the disc to my laptop and have a play around. This is what I came up with (proposed titles in bold):
01. Polarize (03:56)
02. Mountain Path (03:54)
03. Thought Pattern (04:14)
04. Motioned (01:58)
05. Lichaen / Forest Soundbed (04:54)
06. Sol 7 / Hurt (04:49)
07. Wild Weather (01:30)
08. Unclear Vape / Voyeur / Seq/-9 (03:48)
09. Exerting Force or Influence / Symphony for HALia / Imagined Friends (06:52)
10. Electric Pastrol (01:57)
11. Plausibility (03:13)
12. Yut Moik / Beyond the Field of Vision (05:08)
13. Leak Stereo 70 (06:11)
14. Pipe Dream / Meanders (05:30)
15. Solace (05:15)
With fifteen tracks, and more than half around or over the five minute mark, it feels much more like a 'traditional' FSOL album. Most of the joins are literally just adding a brief environment section to the start or end of the track, although occasionally they do combine to make a coherent sounding piece in their own right (Pipe Dream / Meanders being the most obvious example).
Very similar results come about from doing the same to 6.5. Axis of Rotation / Solid Earth and Dark Seed / Tunnel North 5 in particular make a lot more sense as combined tracks.
01. Axis of Rotation / Solid Earth (04:12)
02. Anacro Rhythm / Some Degree of Sanctuary (06:30)
03. Opal Light (04:20)
04. Something Approaching Happiness (02:43)
05. Dark Seed / Tunnel North 5 (03:43)
06. Hollow Earth (06:12)
07. I Dream in Viral Blue (04:52)
08. This Place (01:30)
09. Ain't Gonna Lie / Next Town (04:41)
10. Amplification of Intelligence (02:49)
11. The Day the Poles Shifted / Somewhere Near (05:00)
12. Halodule (03:23)
13. Gradual but Not Continuous / Magnox (05:18)
14. Emissions of Light / Harbour (04:19)
15. Bright Skies / Strange Allure (04:41)
Approaching them as new albums, these 15 track versions definitely seem a lot less intimidating, and despite the content being identical, they just seem tidier like this. Or maybe I'm just stuck in the old ways of doing things.
2 and Five don't benefit from any cleaning up as they're much more traditional in their structures, and the first is obviously the actual opposite of this. 3 and 4 are where this format seems to have begun: No Man's Land, River Delta and Supercontinents make a lot more sense combined into a seven minute track, and Photosynthesis works as a coda to Sunsets, but otherwise that album is structurally more conventional. 3 could easily be a 14 track album, in line with the others:
01. Viewed From an Obscure Angle (03:10)
02. Summer's Dream (04:16)
03. Sunken Ships (03:40)
04. The Empty Land (05:40)
05. A Glitch in Cellular Memory / Recollection (06:42)
06. Accompaniment for Melodious Expression (03:05)
07. Absolution (03:39)
08. The Oldest Lady (01:19)
09. A Diversionary Tactic (03:07)
10. The Silent Place (02:52)
11. Out of Sync Child / Hall of Mirrors (03:33)
12. End of the World / Sense of Being (06:24)
13. Surface Water (03:42)
14. Heart Sick Chord / Repetition is a form of Change (09:55)
What's intriguing about 3 is that A Diversionary Tactic and Surface Water have significant outro environments in themselves, which would probably have had their own indexing had they been on Six or 6.5.
We can also retroactively apply the 'environments' approach to older albums, to show that, musically, the albums are still structured the same. Dead Cities is the most clear-cut case of this.
01. Herd Killing (02:38)
02. Dead Cities (04:59)
03. Dead Cities outro / poetry environment (01:38)
04. Her Face Forms in Summertime (04:13)
05. Her Face outro environment (01:25)
06. We Have Explosive (05:38)
07. Pig environment (00:40)
08. Everyone in the World is Doing Something Without Me (04:10)
09. My Kingdom (05:47)
10. Max (02:49)
11. Antique Toy (03:58)
12. 'He thinks he's very funny' environment (01:44)
13. Quagmire (05:11)
14. In a State of Permanent Abyss (01:45)
15. Glass (04:32)
16. Girl crying in park environment (01:05)
17. Yage (07:33)
18. Vit Drowning (04:47)
19. Through Your Gills I Breathe (00:44)
20. First Death in the Family (02:18)
21. Dead Cities Reprise (01:30)
And going backwards through time:
01. Just a Fuckin Idiot (05:40)
02. The Far-out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman (04:29)
03. Appendage (02:26)
04. Slider (06:05)
05. Slider outro environment (01:16)
06. Smokin' Japanese Babe (04:59)
07. You're Creeping Me Out (06:31)
08. Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead (02:38)
09. Eyes Pop outro environment (01:07)
10. It's My Mind That Works (03:25)
11. 'Come fly the teeth of the wind' environment (01:28)
12. Dirty Shadows (04:49)
13. Tired (beat section) (01:48)
14. Tired (Little Brother / horses section) (02:11)
15. Tired (synth outro) (02:31)
16. Egypt (04:11)
17. Kai (04:25)
18. Amoeba (04:22)
19. Amoeba outro (aka 'How did that happen?') environment (00:58)
20. A Study of Six Guitars (03:21)
21. A Study of Six Guitars outro environment (00:52)
22. Snake Hips (05:51)
With Bird Wings and Interstat as separate tracks, Lifeforms features a slightly lower increase in total tracks:
01. Disc 1 intro environment (01:05)
02. Cascade (04:55)
03. 'You will awake now' environment (00:41)
04. Ill Flower (02:43)
05. Flak (04:54)
06. Bird Wings (01:30)
07. Dead Skin Cells (05:00)
08. Dead Skin Cells outro environment (01:51)
09. Lifeforms (05:19)
10. Eggshell (06:24)
11. 'I can hear myself' environment (02:02)
12. Among Myselves (03:28)
13. Disc 1 outro environment (00:45)
14. Domain (02:48)
15. Spineless Jelly (04:42)
16. Interstat (00:55)
17. Vertical Pig intro environment (00:58)
18. Vertical Pig (05:45)
19. Cerebral (03:13)
20. Life Form Ends pt.1 (03:16)
21. Life Form Ends pt. 2 (02:03)
22. Vit intro environment (01:41)
23. Vit (05:07)
24. Omnipresence intro environment (01:09)
25. Omnipresence (05:3)
26. Room 208 intro environment (01:20)
27. Room 208 (04:53)
28. Elaborate Burn (03:16)
29. Little Brother (04:00)
30. Little Brother outro environment (01:13)
Using the Tales booklet I think I've worked out the full tracklist here:
01. 13th Century Kitichi (01:26)
02. Liquid Insects (05:20)
03. Arizona (01:02)
04. Swab (03:51)
05. Mountain Goat (04:39)
06. In Mind (04:15)
07. Mid Point (01:23)
08. Slow Blow (00:39)
09. Ephidrena (07.33)
10. It's Him (00:32)
11. Auto Pimp (06:56)
12. Offspring (00:17)
13. Fat Cat (03:50)
14. Tall Buildings (00:38)
15. Pod Room (03:49)
16. Cactus (01:00)
Unsurprisingly, Accelerator doesn't bear so well under the same scrutiny, nor does Environmental, which bizarrely only has a couple of brief environments and is mostly standalone tracks.
Anyway, that's mostly all a brief thought that got very much out of control and turned into a couple of hours dicking around with tracklists, but I found it intriguing nevertheless.
And yet, for all the cosmetic difference, those albums are structured very similarly to the '90s works. I was just listening to 6, and started thinking how the albums might have been structured if the environments had been attached to longer tracks, so I thought I'd rip the disc to my laptop and have a play around. This is what I came up with (proposed titles in bold):
01. Polarize (03:56)
02. Mountain Path (03:54)
03. Thought Pattern (04:14)
04. Motioned (01:58)
05. Lichaen / Forest Soundbed (04:54)
06. Sol 7 / Hurt (04:49)
07. Wild Weather (01:30)
08. Unclear Vape / Voyeur / Seq/-9 (03:48)
09. Exerting Force or Influence / Symphony for HALia / Imagined Friends (06:52)
10. Electric Pastrol (01:57)
11. Plausibility (03:13)
12. Yut Moik / Beyond the Field of Vision (05:08)
13. Leak Stereo 70 (06:11)
14. Pipe Dream / Meanders (05:30)
15. Solace (05:15)
With fifteen tracks, and more than half around or over the five minute mark, it feels much more like a 'traditional' FSOL album. Most of the joins are literally just adding a brief environment section to the start or end of the track, although occasionally they do combine to make a coherent sounding piece in their own right (Pipe Dream / Meanders being the most obvious example).
Very similar results come about from doing the same to 6.5. Axis of Rotation / Solid Earth and Dark Seed / Tunnel North 5 in particular make a lot more sense as combined tracks.
01. Axis of Rotation / Solid Earth (04:12)
02. Anacro Rhythm / Some Degree of Sanctuary (06:30)
03. Opal Light (04:20)
04. Something Approaching Happiness (02:43)
05. Dark Seed / Tunnel North 5 (03:43)
06. Hollow Earth (06:12)
07. I Dream in Viral Blue (04:52)
08. This Place (01:30)
09. Ain't Gonna Lie / Next Town (04:41)
10. Amplification of Intelligence (02:49)
11. The Day the Poles Shifted / Somewhere Near (05:00)
12. Halodule (03:23)
13. Gradual but Not Continuous / Magnox (05:18)
14. Emissions of Light / Harbour (04:19)
15. Bright Skies / Strange Allure (04:41)
Approaching them as new albums, these 15 track versions definitely seem a lot less intimidating, and despite the content being identical, they just seem tidier like this. Or maybe I'm just stuck in the old ways of doing things.
2 and Five don't benefit from any cleaning up as they're much more traditional in their structures, and the first is obviously the actual opposite of this. 3 and 4 are where this format seems to have begun: No Man's Land, River Delta and Supercontinents make a lot more sense combined into a seven minute track, and Photosynthesis works as a coda to Sunsets, but otherwise that album is structurally more conventional. 3 could easily be a 14 track album, in line with the others:
01. Viewed From an Obscure Angle (03:10)
02. Summer's Dream (04:16)
03. Sunken Ships (03:40)
04. The Empty Land (05:40)
05. A Glitch in Cellular Memory / Recollection (06:42)
06. Accompaniment for Melodious Expression (03:05)
07. Absolution (03:39)
08. The Oldest Lady (01:19)
09. A Diversionary Tactic (03:07)
10. The Silent Place (02:52)
11. Out of Sync Child / Hall of Mirrors (03:33)
12. End of the World / Sense of Being (06:24)
13. Surface Water (03:42)
14. Heart Sick Chord / Repetition is a form of Change (09:55)
What's intriguing about 3 is that A Diversionary Tactic and Surface Water have significant outro environments in themselves, which would probably have had their own indexing had they been on Six or 6.5.
We can also retroactively apply the 'environments' approach to older albums, to show that, musically, the albums are still structured the same. Dead Cities is the most clear-cut case of this.
01. Herd Killing (02:38)
02. Dead Cities (04:59)
03. Dead Cities outro / poetry environment (01:38)
04. Her Face Forms in Summertime (04:13)
05. Her Face outro environment (01:25)
06. We Have Explosive (05:38)
07. Pig environment (00:40)
08. Everyone in the World is Doing Something Without Me (04:10)
09. My Kingdom (05:47)
10. Max (02:49)
11. Antique Toy (03:58)
12. 'He thinks he's very funny' environment (01:44)
13. Quagmire (05:11)
14. In a State of Permanent Abyss (01:45)
15. Glass (04:32)
16. Girl crying in park environment (01:05)
17. Yage (07:33)
18. Vit Drowning (04:47)
19. Through Your Gills I Breathe (00:44)
20. First Death in the Family (02:18)
21. Dead Cities Reprise (01:30)
And going backwards through time:
01. Just a Fuckin Idiot (05:40)
02. The Far-out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman (04:29)
03. Appendage (02:26)
04. Slider (06:05)
05. Slider outro environment (01:16)
06. Smokin' Japanese Babe (04:59)
07. You're Creeping Me Out (06:31)
08. Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead (02:38)
09. Eyes Pop outro environment (01:07)
10. It's My Mind That Works (03:25)
11. 'Come fly the teeth of the wind' environment (01:28)
12. Dirty Shadows (04:49)
13. Tired (beat section) (01:48)
14. Tired (Little Brother / horses section) (02:11)
15. Tired (synth outro) (02:31)
16. Egypt (04:11)
17. Kai (04:25)
18. Amoeba (04:22)
19. Amoeba outro (aka 'How did that happen?') environment (00:58)
20. A Study of Six Guitars (03:21)
21. A Study of Six Guitars outro environment (00:52)
22. Snake Hips (05:51)
With Bird Wings and Interstat as separate tracks, Lifeforms features a slightly lower increase in total tracks:
01. Disc 1 intro environment (01:05)
02. Cascade (04:55)
03. 'You will awake now' environment (00:41)
04. Ill Flower (02:43)
05. Flak (04:54)
06. Bird Wings (01:30)
07. Dead Skin Cells (05:00)
08. Dead Skin Cells outro environment (01:51)
09. Lifeforms (05:19)
10. Eggshell (06:24)
11. 'I can hear myself' environment (02:02)
12. Among Myselves (03:28)
13. Disc 1 outro environment (00:45)
14. Domain (02:48)
15. Spineless Jelly (04:42)
16. Interstat (00:55)
17. Vertical Pig intro environment (00:58)
18. Vertical Pig (05:45)
19. Cerebral (03:13)
20. Life Form Ends pt.1 (03:16)
21. Life Form Ends pt. 2 (02:03)
22. Vit intro environment (01:41)
23. Vit (05:07)
24. Omnipresence intro environment (01:09)
25. Omnipresence (05:3)
26. Room 208 intro environment (01:20)
27. Room 208 (04:53)
28. Elaborate Burn (03:16)
29. Little Brother (04:00)
30. Little Brother outro environment (01:13)
Using the Tales booklet I think I've worked out the full tracklist here:
01. 13th Century Kitichi (01:26)
02. Liquid Insects (05:20)
03. Arizona (01:02)
04. Swab (03:51)
05. Mountain Goat (04:39)
06. In Mind (04:15)
07. Mid Point (01:23)
08. Slow Blow (00:39)
09. Ephidrena (07.33)
10. It's Him (00:32)
11. Auto Pimp (06:56)
12. Offspring (00:17)
13. Fat Cat (03:50)
14. Tall Buildings (00:38)
15. Pod Room (03:49)
16. Cactus (01:00)
Unsurprisingly, Accelerator doesn't bear so well under the same scrutiny, nor does Environmental, which bizarrely only has a couple of brief environments and is mostly standalone tracks.
Anyway, that's mostly all a brief thought that got very much out of control and turned into a couple of hours dicking around with tracklists, but I found it intriguing nevertheless.