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If you are, or ever have been, a fan of
'electronica', then it's pretty likely that you own a
record by Future Sound Of London. Their 1992
album, Accelerator, bridged the gap between
breakbeat hardcore and techno, and spawned the
timeless classic, Papua New Guinea - remixed and
re-released countless times.
The totally ambient
Lifeforms followed, taking in otherworldly textures
and digitally processed classical music. Their last
release, the post-apocalyptic, pre-millennial Dead
Cities, was less successful despite yielding a top 40
hit with the harsh electro of We Have Explosive.
With The Isness, FSOL (recording under
their Amorphous Androgynous alias) have taken
yet another unpredictable turn, this time looking back
to '60s psychedelia, incorporating such influences as
The Beatles, David Bowie and ELO.
But it seems as though this isn't going to find them
many fans in today's dance climate, which, at present,
doesn't go back further than 1980.
The album is very
organic, Gary Cobain (one half of FSOL)
acquiring a newfound love of the acoustic guitar and
writing "meaninglessly significant gobbledegook
lyrics". The record could be perceived as a
'chill-out' album but it doesn't really work that way.
Nowadays 'ambient' means Royksopp, Zero
7 and Ibizan "blissed out moods", not wailing
women, sitars and nose flutes.
First track The Lovers is pure old-school
FSOL. Featuring a familiar breakbeat, it sounds
like a more relaxed moment from Dead Cities. The art
of songwriting is explored on Mellow Hippo Disco
Show and Divinity, the former alluding to Lucy In
The Sky With Diamonds with its processed vocals.
Elysian Feels is the most psychedelic song here,
featuring an organ solo straight out of Light My
Fire and spacious, reverberated guitar.
However, it's not all acoustic psychedelia and
Indian ragas, there are some moments of innovative
electronic music here too, the sampled and
reconstructed music box on Go Tell It To The Trees
Egghead, which sounds more like Aphex Twin
than The Doors and the DJ Shadow on
heroin of Meadows being prime examples.
The emotional, filmatic strings of Her Tongue Is
Like A Jellyfish are a real treat, but just like the
digitally processed version of Pachabell's Cannon on
Lifeforms, at only 30 seconds it's over way too soon
and only hints at their strong composing skills. It
makes the five minute long High Tide On A Sea Of Flesh
seem like an unforgivable waste of time and
effort.
There are some extremely interesting aspects to
this album, and if you can grasp the fact that it's
supposed to be an organic album with world-music
influences, then it's quite passable. But to me it
sounds more than too often too much like the Tee-Pee
field at Glastonbury.
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