The Future Sound Of London - Environments 3

Lifeforms, Dead Cities and Environments 2 are pretty much perfect. Tales Of Ephidrina and From The Archives Vol. 5 are almost as good.

Environments 3 is the nearest we've got to a 'new album' since Dead Cities, there are going to be quite a few new tracks on there alongside remixed older pieces. A Glitch In Cellular Memory from those videos in the first post is one I'm really looking forward to.

I just got the Earthbeat compilation, not their most original release but if you want to hear their dancier roots I'd say it's more fun than Accelerator.

Serengeti is from Environments 2. I don't think the title means the flute was from there. I'm sure the birds sampled on Glacier weren't recorded at a glacier...

Two more clips from this have appeared, both new material. Sunken Ships is a really beautiful sounding strings/synths piece and Heart Sick Chord is very pretty.

I would like them to hurry up and release this.

they really need to work on the old "quality not quantity" ethos like they did during the 90s.

i mean, they wouldn't have achieved anywhere near their level of recognition if they had released 8 albums of pretty good material in 1997, as opposed to DEAD FUCKING CITIES.

in my humblest of opinions, they should have carefully picked recordings out of their archives to release onto one supreme album, instead of releasing everything they ever recorded.

argh. fuck. new page fail.

  On 4/30/2010 at 1:48 PM, margaret thatcher said:

in my humblest of opinions, they should have carefully picked recordings out of their archives to release onto one supreme album, instead of releasing everything they ever recorded.

I completely agree. I mean it's cool and all as an idea, and it's cool to know that they obviously jammed out that much material, goes to show why their 90's releases were of such quality.. but out of the four archive volumes i've heard so far (haven't heard #5), you could maybe get one passably listenable CD. most of the material just isn't developed enough/interesting enough to listen to again.

Archives 1-3 are pretty patchy, some great stuff and some that was left off for obvious reasons. 4 was a step up and 5 was pretty consistent in quality.

The Environments albums are much better in general, they seem to be very focused. Volume 2 is mostly 90s 'archive' material but fits together as an album brilliantly and only has maybe two tracks which aren't of the highest quality. Environments 3 is going to be heavily based on new material and older tracks remixed and enhanced to fit that.

i didn't think you'd agree with me

but i know you know deep down that i'm right.

I'm in partial agreement. I think the first three Archive albums were rushed out and really needed some fine tuning, a lot of dull tracks which seem to be little more than some drum loops. I enjoy more than one album's worth of material from the whole series though, definitely (if I could be arsed I'd make a list, but I can't). I do think they should have been more themed as albums, too. Environments 2 is much stronger than any of the five From The Archives releases because it's so cohesive. If they'd done a 'Lifeforms era' archive, an 'ISDN era' archive and a 'Dead Cities era' archive I think that'd have been enough and worked very well.

It's staggering to think how much they actually recorded in the 1990s, there are still at least 60 tracks I'm aware of that aren't officially released and probably more waiting in the wings.

Did no one hear the Archives vinyl set? It was pulled from the first several CDs and works very well IMO. Not too much filler there.

[youtubehd]ugTDilDhHWY[/youtubehd]

always thought this was the best and most underrated piece they did in the psychedelic phase.

[youtubehd]6LGYJPWgdm4[/youtubehd]

they dropped some awesome oldskool dance musics...loook em all up, some are unbearably cheesy, but this for example, i still love this one

you gotta give it up for the drop at 1:35

sr4 is bang on. i saw james murphy from lcd soundsystem djing a while ago, and he dropped "q" by mental cube. the place erupted.

yesss q!!

i honestly think their concepts for dance music were way ahead of their time, but they didnt execute as well as some others

[youtubehd]uwVP2Zj2ivY[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]KaQifM9_0w4[/youtubehd]

[youtubehd]VoCWPHgxJk4[/youtubehd]

sorry for continually bumping...but you gotta give it up

you can tell they were working on landmass when they did this remix....awesome pump up jams.

[youtubehd]PWevlGKCsLE[/youtubehd]

This is my favourite early FSOL stuff:

[youtubehd]sjkg_VRN3CU[/youtubehd]

Environments 3 is out on 7th June.

1. Viewed From An Obscure Angle

2. Summer's Dream

3. Sunken Ships

4. The Empty Land

5. A Glitch In Cellular Memory

6. Recollection

7. Accompaniment For Melodious Expression

8. Absolution

9. The Oldest Lady

10. A Diversionary Tactic

11. The Silent Place

12. Out of Sync Child

13. Hall of Mirrors

14. End Of The World

15. Sense of Being

16. Surface Water

17. Heart Sick Chord

18. Repetition Is A Form Of Change

  On 4/17/2010 at 2:27 PM, azatoth said:

they're churning out new old material at such a pace it's impossible to keep up and i wonder if there is even any quality control.

Probably not, but I've bought every single thing they've put out on FSOLdigital since Archives 1 and the hit/miss ratio is easily enough to keep me coming back.

Environments 2 was freaking fantastic... Can't wait for E3!

  On 5/4/2010 at 5:06 AM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

yesss q!!

 

i honestly think their concepts for dance music were way ahead of their time, but they didnt execute as well as some others

 

 

[youtubehd]uwVP2Zj2ivY[/youtubehd]

 

 

[youtubehd]KaQifM9_0w4[/youtubehd]

 

 

[youtubehd]VoCWPHgxJk4[/youtubehd]

I think Godflesh sampled this for Slavestate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iFsZ_79i-4

I can't find enough info on E3. Those youtube clips you posted are actually tracks from it?

Yep, what more info did you need than what's already in this topic ?

The clips on the first page are from Brian Dougans's YouTube page, and there are clips featured on their official MySpace further into the thread. The tracklist on the last page was given to me by the band, and Play and Amazon are listing it for release on June 7th. All the info we have.

Oh, and a larger cover:

  On 5/10/2010 at 8:27 PM, purlieu said:

The clips on the first page are from Brian Dougans's YouTube page, and there are clips featured on their official MySpace further into the thread. The tracklist on the last page was given to me by the band, and Play and Amazon are listing it for release on June 7th. All the info we have.

 

Oh, and a larger cover:

Thanks ;)

  On 4/18/2010 at 5:03 PM, halisray said:

  On 4/18/2010 at 5:04 AM, azatoth said:

  On 4/18/2010 at 4:24 AM, halisray said:

are they like an ambient group? never heard of them...

 

lol

 

you must be joking, right?

 

no I'm not joking, I've not heard of them.. the electronic scene here in Montreal is pretty much nonexistant and I only joined this forum a few months ago which is the only source of electronic news and info that I have -

you should watch this then

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3YcE0jENwA

thinking this might be my album of the summer, although the new Jack Dangers project is fucking amazing as well.

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/Environments-Volume-3/391468-01/

Clips of all 18 tracks, artwork scans. Shipping Monday, apparently!