Alan Dougans photographies

[Pandemonium]

OK, am I the only one who asks himself this:
- Why da fuck are FSOL not using Alan's photos for their cover art, booklets and stuff like that???

I mean, his photos are just AWESOME... so why don't they use them?
...is Alan under some kind of contract with Futuresight Photography (or he IS Futuresight Photography?)

I really can't see any reason...

so here are some of his photos that he published on FB lately...

[dell1972]

Yeah, he is a fantastic photographer, but then so is Brian to be honest. Their Dad's no slouch either.

[Pandemonium]

I get that Dell, Brian is good too, he uses his own photos most of the time,
but then - why do they still use old Riphead photos...

and he could use some of Alan's work, just once FFS...

[tryptych]

Riphead is/was a genius.. his style is very unique and it's almost impossible to imitate.

They were also doing photomanipulation pretty much before anyone else, and once again, they were way ahead of their time. The marriage between the Astralwerks design and Buggy G. Riphead is just unreal.

IMO the artwork is inimitable and such a big part of the whole FSOL thing, just so out there and weird.

[Ross]

I believe Alan is Futuresight (also, I think, DXU:555).

I suppose they have their reasons for using Buggy still - probably the continuing creative partnership after all these years. The artwork on the Environments releases (and the last couple of Archives) has all been new Buggy stuff rather than recycled, so they're obviously still working together. Doesn't bother me, I love his images and think they fit the music nicely (although I do wonder if they ever do a 'proper' FSOL album again whether it'll just contain photography, a la Environments, or whether there'll be more computer treated stuff again).

[darktrain]

sigh...if only they would do an official new future sound of london album.It would have to be a double..with buggy artwork,brian's photos and of course a couple of pages in the booklet from gary and his ramblings of a madman!

[Pandemonium]

darktrain - I stopped wishing that a long time ago...

mostly because they are in a whole different mode of releasing music (a better one for these times... I think)
they don't have the means or the marketing to release that kind of album - and they probably want it that way.

PS
- an interesting article about how the music industry works in 2013/2014 can be found here:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20939_7- ... ustry.html

[Ross]

I still think they're waiting on Gaz to get back into 100% FSOL mode so he can rant about the album when it comes out. Who knows. Brian mentioned a "holding pattern" once, which suggests that to me.

[epitome]

As much as I love the Environments albums (and the Archives), I wouldn't mind a new double album, or 70+ minute album. But that's just because I'm greedy.

[billybatts]

PS
- an interesting article about how the music industry works in 2013/2014 can be found here:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20939_7- ... ustry.html

Thanks for the link. I remember on the old futuresoundoflondon.com site they had an area where they listed some random stuff, including books they liked or were influenced by. One of the was by Luke Goss, called I owe You Nothing, about how his band, Bros, was royally shafted by their manager. It's an expose of the music industry. I had a scramble around on the site just now using the wayback machine but couldn't find it.

By the way, I'm definitely in the 'holding out for the next FSOL album' camp, in case anyone was interested

[Ross]

So it turns out this is one of Alan's...

[Pandemonium]

Yeah - that one is 100% Alan

They should change that black background on the black text though ...

[Pandemonium]

Listing the booklets of Environments 1/2/3/4 and Archives 1-to-7,
looking at all those architectural photos...
I'd bet real money a good number of them were taken by Alan

[Ross]

As far as I know, all of the artwork on the Environments CDs is by Buggy. But I'm willing to be corrected.

[Concept]

I love the first and the third photographs.