The Future Sound of London
The Future Sound of London (often abbreviated FSOL) is a British electronic music duo composed of Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans. They have been described as a "boundary-pushing" electronic act,[1] covering techno, ambient, house music, trip hop, psychedelia, and dub.[2]
The Future Sound of London
Manchester, England
1988–present
Jumpin' & Pumpin', Astralwerks, Rephlex, Virgin, Quigley, Hypnotic, Future Sound of London Recordings, FSOLDigital, Electronic Brain Violence
While keeping an enigmatic image and releasing music under many aliases, the band found commercial success with singles "Papua New Guinea" (1991) and "Cascade" (1993), and albums Lifeforms (1994), ISDN (1995) and Dead Cities (1996). In recent years, the duo has become more candid with their fanbase online. Their later work include their series of experimental Environments and Archives albums.
History[edit]
Formation[edit]
Garry Cobain and Brian Dougans met in the mid-1980s while studying electronics at university in Manchester. Dougans had already been making electronic music, working between Glasgow and Manchester, when the pair first began working together in local clubs. In 1988, Dougans embarked on a project for a graphic studio Stakker, which resulted with a single "Stakker Humanoid" that reached number 17 in the UK charts, introducing acid house to mainstream audience.[3] Cobain contributed to the accompanying album Global. In the following years the pair produced music under a variety of aliases, releasing a number of singles and EPs, including "Q" and "Metropolis", later featured on the 1992 compilation Earthbeat. They were initially signed to the British sub-label of Passion Music, Jumpin' & Pumpin'.[4]
In 1991, Cobain and Dougans released their breakthrough single, "Papua New Guinea" on Jumpin' & Pumpin'. The song was based upon a sample from "Dawn of the Iconoclast" by Dead Can Dance and a bassline from "Radio Babylon" by Meat Beat Manifesto. It enjoyed great success, charting at #22 for seven weeks in 1992.[5] The single was followed by their debut album, Accelerator, which included "Papua New Guinea" among other new tracks. After a few other releases on Jumpin' & Pumpin', they were signed by Virgin Records, with the free reign to experiment.[6]
In 1993, the duo released an ambient album Tales of Ephidrina, the first under the alias Amorphous Androgynous. The focus on texture and mood, while retaining dance beats, was well received. The album was released on Quigley, the band's own short-lived offshoot of Virgin. The band begun experimenting with radio performance, broadcasting three-hour radio shows to Manchester's Kiss FM from their studio.
Lifeforms and the ISDN tour[edit]
In 1993, the band released "Cascade," a nearly 40 minutes single which made the UK top 30. It was followed in 1994 by the album Lifeforms, released to critical acclaim and a top 10 hit on the UK album chart. The eponymous single featured Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins on vocals. The record introduced an array of exotic, tropical sound samples. Dougans' father's involvement in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop had a heavy influence on Lifeforms. Often asked whether Brian Eno was an influence, Cobain and Dougans said they were about looking to the future not the past. To them, Lifeforms was a new work not just another Eno-type ambient album.[7]
That year, the Future Sound of London released a limited-edition album ISDN, which featured live broadcasts made over ISDN lines to various radio stations worldwide to promote Lifeforms, including The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space in New York, and several appearances on BBC Sessions hosted by John Peel.[8] The shows featured ambient soundscapes with previously released material performed alongside unheard tracks. One performance for BBC Radio 1 featured Robert Fripp. The tone of ISDN was darker and more rhythmic than Lifeforms. The band wanted to achieve something epic and grand, but no matter how much technological or personal support they had they never got to truly do what they envisioned. Cobain said that the 90s were a time of frustration because the technology didn't fit the band's ideas.[9] In 1995, the album was re-released with expanded artwork and a slightly altered track list.[10]
The band's interests have covered different areas including film and video, 2D and 3D computer graphics, animation in making almost all their own videos for their singles, radio broadcasting and creating electronic devices for sound making.[11][12]
Dead Cities[edit]
The 1995 edition of John Peel Sessions featured new tracks which moved away from breakbeat and the free sampling of ISDN. In 1996, the band released Dead Cities which expanded upon these early demos, in a mix of ambient textures and dance music. The new sound was introduced in the lead single "My Kingdom." The album featured the first collaboration with composer Max Richter, including on a 1997 big beat single "We Have Explosive" that featured manipulated samples of Run DMC. The track was used on popular soundtracks to Mortal Kombat Annihilation, and the video game WipE'out" 2097, the latter also including a new track "Landmass." "We Have Explosive" was the band's highest-charting single, and over the course of its five-part extended version included hints of funk.
The album was promoted by what the band described as "the fuck rock'n'roll tour" via ISDN, gaining attention as the first world tour without leaving a studio. While the 1994 tour focused on creating soundscapes and unreleased material, the 1996 and 1997 shows were more conventional, each offering a different take on music featured on Dead Cities, blending current with occasional unreleased tracks. The final performances included considerable use of live guitar and percussion. These sessions were the basis of the band's later psychedelic projects of the following decade, while others appeared on the subsequent album series From The Archives.
New millennium[edit]
After a four-year hiatus, rumours of mental illness began to spread. In an interview, Cobain revealed that he had been undertaking spiritual experimentation and had dealt with a bout of mercury poisoning, with over one hundred times the amount deemed to be safe. He gained much from his experience, realising that he could use music as a tool for psychic exploration, entertainment, and healing. [7][9] The pair returned in 2002 with "The Isness", a record heavily influenced by 1960s and 1970s psychedelia and released under their alias Amorphous Androgynous. It was preceded by Papua New Guinea Translations, a mini album which contained a mixture of remixes of FSOL's track as well as new material from The Isness sessions. The album received mixed press due to the drastic change in sound which was inspired by Cobain's and Dougan's (separate) travels to India and immersion in spiritualism, nevertheless the majority was positive with Muzik magazine offering the album a 6/5 mark and dubbing it "...a white beam of light from heaven..." and other British publications such as The Times, The Guardian and MOJO praising the album and the band's ability to do something so completely different from what they had done before.[13][14]
Three years on, they followed the album with a continuation of the Amorphous Androgynous project, Alice in Ultraland. Rumoured to be accompanied by a film of the same title, the album took The Isness' psychedelic experimentation and toned it down, giving the album a singular theme and sound, and replacing the more bizarre moments with funk and ambient interludes. The album was ignored by the press, but was received more favourably among fans than its predecessor. Unlike The Isness, which featured almost 100 musicians over the course of it and the various alternative versions and remix albums, Alice in Ultraland featured a fairly solid band lineup throughout, which extended to live shows which the band had undertaken away from the ISDN cables from 2005 onwards.