The Future Sound
Of London are Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans, one of the most
influencial and outstanding electronic acts of the last 15 years.
The band met while working in a bar in Manchester in 1985 or 1986
(it depends which interview you read). Brian had moved to
Manchester from his hometown of Glasgow to study sound
engineering. An industrial electronica fan and creator, he came
from an entirely different music perspective to Cobain, who moved
from his quiet life in Bedford to study electronics in the city
that gave the world Factory Records and The Smiths: your typical
80s Brit indie kid. A friendship formed and they began
considering making music together, working the clubs, doing
scrapped video work for The Stone Roses, introducing each other
to sounds substances.
In 1988, Brian embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics
company with his friend Mark McClean. He created a track called
'Stakker Humanoid', which was accompanied by a mad video. Garry
got involved with the project and its accompanying album,
featuring soulful vocal house and a couple more acid house cuts.
Brian's solo work as Humanoid and Zeebox at the time was
extensive but largely unreleased, the album and its accompanying
singles aside.
When the Stakker project collapsed, the two joined forces
properly and began to create music as a duo in their newly
created Earthbeat Studio in the Dollis Hill area of London. Or
many duos. Smart Systems, Yage, Indo Tribe, Mental Cube: all
sorts of names, each with its own distinctive take on then
contemporary dance styles. With 'Stakker Humanoid' re-entering
the chart in 1992, followed by the breakthrough ambient dub track
'Papua New Guinea' (the first full "Future Sound Of
London" release), they were getting more recognition. After
hearing 'Papua New Guinea', the major labels came running. A
series of bizarre interviews (rumours include getting record
company execs to sit on a soaking wet chair) whittled the list
down to Virgin Records, who became the band's new label following
their delivery of the Accelerator album to Jumpin' &
Pumpin', their original label.
Taking advantage of the larger company's less restrictive
thoughts and budget, they immediately lurched into
experimentalism with their Tales Of Ephidrina album
under the Amorphous Androgynous alias. Released on their own
Virgin spinoff Quigley, the album was a link between the techno
FSOL of old and the organic sound the band are most known for.
With ISDN technology beginning to become more widely available at
this point, the band utilised it as the best way for people to
understand their vision of being a 'broadcast system' rather than
a band. Broadcasting to Kiss FM on a regular basis, playing a
mixture of ambient and techno with spoken sections and guest DJ
spots. In 1994, the band took this to the next level,
broadcasting to a variety of radio stations, art spaces and
whatever they could get their hands on, with live visuals
streaming from their fsol.demon.co.uk website for those with
internet capabilities at home. These shows were distinctly more
abstract and ambient than even Tales Of Ephidrina, and
led to the band's second full-length FSOL album, Lifeforms.
Although the title track had been recorded during the band's time
with Jumpin' & Pumpin' (and denied release due to being too
leftfield), the album was distinctly ambient. The rhythms were
placed low in the mix, bursts of environmental sound and field
recordings tied the pieces together, and the overall sound and
accompanying artwork gave the impression of lush forests and
desolate deserts. The reviewers loved it, it hit top 10 in the UK
album chart, and went down as one of the greatest
ambient/electronica albums of the 90s. Preceeded by a 40 minute
six-part single based vaguely on the album track 'Cascade', and
followed by another 40 minute EP following seven largely
unrelated 'paths' of the album's title track, the band had
finally secured their place alongside such artists as The Orb in
the world of organic ambient, and away from the clubs they had
tired of years before.
Fans eagerly awaited the follow-up album, promised in the sleeve
of Lifeforms to be Environments by Amorphous
Androgynous. What came, instead, was another FSOL album, entitled
ISDN. Containing exclusive material from the band's 1994
ISDN shows, including their Radio 1 Essential Mix and a
performance to New York's The Kitchen, the album was distinctly
darker, more claustrophobic and rhythmic than Lifeforms.
But instead of heading back into the clubs, the music was more
inspired by acid jazz, trip-hop and hip-hop. The album, housed in
a plain black digipack (as homage to The Beatles' White Album)
was limited to 10,000 copies and sold out almost immediately. An
accompanying EP, The Far-out Son Of Lung And The Ramblings Of
A Madman contained ISDN material and unreleased
tracks. These exclusive pieces were used on ISDN's
re-release in 1995, with a white sleeve and unlimited in number.
In 1996 they returned again, with a tale of urban decay and hell
on earth, Dead Cities. A mixture of the flavours they
had experimented with before before, plus drum'n'bass, modern
classical and IDM, the album was greeted with almost uniformly
glowing reviews. One of the album's standout tracks, My
Kingdom, received the 40 minute single treatment on possibly
the band's most successful EP, and the band began what they
described as the "fuck rock'n'roll tour" - a world tour
without leaving their studio. Each night one or two radio
stations would receive an ISDN transmission as the band would
perform a unique take on the album, providing a different 'dead
city' each time. By mid 1997, the tour was coming to a close, and
the band's final three shows to Fun Radio, BBC Radio 3's Mixing
It show and a John Peel Session contained entirely new material.
These tracks were a little funkier, a little groovier and very
un-Dead Cities in their approach. Not entirely
surprising if compared to the freeform funky breaks both Oil and
Headstone Lane had performed on their respective EP's for FSOL's
short lived label EBV. But nothing could quite prepare listeners
for their next move.
Late in 1997 the duo reappeared briefly for a DJ set on Kiss FM
entitled A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your
Mind. When the station heard it for the first time, during
the live transmission, they were surprised and shocked. A mix of
psychedelic sounds and acid rock was coming from Earthbeat
Studios.
And then... nothing. Were they embarrased by the Monstrous
Psychedelic Bubble show, and had gone into hiding and split up?
Not exactly. After Dead Cities, the band decided they
had begun to move into the wrong direction, with their music
becoming more masculine and noisey, and their true selves had
begun to hide behind these sounds. Garry (now Gaz) began to feel
ill, and decided to get away and travel, first to the United
States with ex-Cult singer Ian Astbury, who helped him to start
writing songs on his guitar again, and then to South America,
Mexico and finally India. On these travels, his health problems
had been identified to mercury in his fillings slowly poisoning
his blody. A spiritual journey followed, completely rebuilding
his life and his body. Many influences came from this
intercontinental journey, which began to contribute to his music
when he made it back to the UK. Meeting back up with Brian after
many months without contact, they began to make music again.
And once again, the studio doors shut. Except this time it's for
the last time. Earthbeat was no longer. They moved to the new
studio, named The Galaxial Pharmaceutical after some lyrics Gaz
had written. Hours, days, months, years are spent in the studio
with musicians, both friends and famous, coming by to jam and
record. Hundreds of pieces of music were recorded or mixed over a
five year period, culminating in the band's sudden reappearance
onto the music scene.
Fans who had all but given up on the chance of future material
weren't quite ready for the bombardment of new material between
2002 and 2004. 'Papua New Guinea' and 'Stakker Humanoid' were
remixed and re-released, with 'Papua New Guinea' receiving its
own longform single format, Translations, ten years
after it deserved it. Critics noted the very distinctive change
of sound for the release, though, with backwards guitars, sitars,
tablas, vocals, pianos and other psychedelic sounds in the mix
alongside FSOL's trademark electronica. 2002 witnessed one of the
most album releases of all time, with the band's new album -
under the old alias Amorphous Androgynous - The Isness being
recalled and re-released with a different tracklist, a vinyl-only
exclusive song, the band's US label releasing the record under
the FSOL name (much to the band's anger). Most confusing,
however, was the style, with pieces in the style of Indian
classical music, psychedelic instrumentals, prog rock epics and
skewed pop songs. The album received mixed reviews, with some
claming the album to be an embarrassment, and others believing it
to be a modern classic (Muzik Magazine famously rewarding it 6/5,
only to revoke this rating when the album was recalled and placed
with what is largely seen as an inferior mix). The album's most
infamously silly piece, 'The Mello Hippo Disco Show', received
the extended single treatment, and reworkings from the scrapped Divinity
EP turned up on 2003's The Otherness bonus disc,
alongside some lost songs and mixes from the recalled 'Abbey
Road' mix of the album, and exclusive new tracks. Fans of the
band's more electronic side were still kept entertained with
Rephlex records releasing two discs of sessions and soundtrack
work by Brian from the Zeebox and Stakker Humanoid days.
It was almost two years until the band were heard of again, late
in 2005, with a new album, Alice In Ultraland, by the
now definite article-boasting The Amorphous Androgynous. With
tracks previewed on a 'Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble' mix for BBC
6Music, the album took the sound of The Isness and took it
further, with elements of funk and blues, and a more
traditionally FSOL feel of tracks merged together with ambience,
synths and effects. Uniformly ignored in the press but largely
more favourable with fans than The Isness, Alice In
Ultraland was a brief diversion in an otherwise obvious
silence in the FSOL camp. It was not until the end of 2006 that
things began to pick up again.
After a brief tour with The Amorphous Androgynous, the band came
back home and began working on new music again. Virgin Records,
long out of contract with the band, decided it was finally time
for a "best of" release to push to punters. At the same
time, some of the band's hard discs were damaged, and while
rooting through the rest for backups and material for the best of
- titled Teachings From The Electronic Brain - they
discovered a wealth of material worth hearing. This material,
alongside solo work Brian had been composing using his own
circuit-bent synthesisers and new home studio at his church in
Somerset, was uploaded to the internet in early 2007. Also online
was the mini-album A Gigantic Globular Burst Of Anti-Static,
an experiment in 5.1 surround sound the band had conducted as a
soundtrack for a piece entitled 'Life Forms' at Kinetica, the
UK's first museum dedicated to moving art. The site was
FSOLDigital.com, and became the band's official voice. Old CDs,
vinyl and tapes turned up online, with more archives culminating
in two exciting releases: the first, a new album by The Amorphous
Androgynous, The Peppermint Tree & The Seeds Of
Superconsciousness, and secondly, fourteen years late, Environments
- now credited to The Future Sound of London, to avoid confusing
with later day Amorphous material. Reminiscent of 1994's ISDN
shows, it turned out to be the first in a series of three
Environments releases, with related material promised to be from
'past and present'. Other FSOLDigital releases included a new
album under the Yage alias featuring ex-Propellerheads drummer
Will White, an archive of pre-Accelerator material and a mix
originally designed for Greek magazine Freeze.
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