FSOL article on Rockerilla mag.

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Rob
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FSOL article on Rockerilla mag.

Post by Rob »

Found my old copy today while i was looking for something else ....forgot about it so, surprised to read it again after almost 24 years!! :)
Rockerilla magazine, December 1996.
Article by Alessandro Calovolo (RIP)

There are not images or texts of this article online so decided to take pics and publish them on fb and here (hope you can translate the text).
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Ross
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Re: FSOL article on Rockerilla mag.

Post by Ross »

Rob wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 7:26 pm(hope you can translate the text).
Any chance you can give it a go?
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Rob
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Re: FSOL article on Rockerilla mag.

Post by Rob »

Ross wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 8:05 pm
Rob wrote: Sun Jan 05, 2020 7:26 pm(hope you can translate the text).
Any chance you can give it a go?
Ok Ross, starting the text translation (hope to keep it faithful to the original).
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Rob
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Re: FSOL article on Rockerilla mag.

Post by Rob »

Here it is.... hope you enjoy this document :)

Rockerilla #196 December 1996
Article & interview by Alessandro Calovolo
Future Sound Of London - Highly sensitive or free.


What really happens in the recording studio of a band? Usually it has a romantic image, idealized and force of things approximate (even the freshiest websites, specially prepared to document in nearly real time all the creative progress of some musicians, at least they propagate selected and mediated visions of it). While considering fundamental the alchemical reaction that associates human and technological variables in these circumstances, and recognizing the importance of its implementation in terms of relative intimacy (excitements, jokes, drags, crises, passions that the world will know in sublimated form, since they accompany any disc unknown to ‘what is it' passing through the mysterious ‘how' it became), there are projects that accentuate the natural curiosity of the listeners towards the ways of their becoming. This is certainly the case with the british Future Sound Of London, formed in 1988 from the friendship between Gary Cobain and Brian Dougans. After a series of recordings attributed to various pseudonyms (Stakker, Yage, Art Science Technology, Mental Cube, Indo Tribe, Smart Systems and Amorphous Androgynous – cf. “Tales Of Ephidrina”, great ambient album signed by the latter in 1993), the FSOL gained great fame with their first album “Accelerator” (1992) and especially thanks to the legendary single “Papua New Guinea” extracted from it. Salient stages in their evolution were therefore the mighty mutant canvas of “Lifeforms” (94), the most rude “ISDN" for climates and rhythms (95), and the current phantasmagoric “Dead Cities". Practically hermits compared to the big London electronic ‘tour’, the FSOL for a couple of years already love to broadcast radio of their own concerts (how it happened last November 15th during italian transmission Planet Rock, on Radio 2). From the heart of the Earthbeat (this is the name of their cave, that you imagine full of synths, samplers and videotapes of Godfrey Reggio's movies, and maybe pictures of okapis, narwhals, Sirius and Cuzco) the FSOL favor a mixture of harmonic majesty and acute visionary sensitivity with absolute suggestive potential. Sublime.

--- I have read two of your statements that have impressed me greatly. The first, more or less, is saying: “the musical experience corresponds to a type of dispersion”. The second, instead, claim: “we try to maintain a historical perspective towards the objectives we try to achieve”. How do you manage to reconcile such dissimilar methodological tendencies?
<<The contradiction is only apparent. With the term ‘dispersion’ we intended to refer to the characteristics of intensity and totality with which our every musical project takes over our lives. It is not a passive or frightened bewilderment in the face of the imponderable, but it is a set of curiosities, enthusiasm and decision that lead us to a dimension far from everyday life. This however does not mean leaving aside experiences or memories, not even cancel them: the very wide use we make of the samples it is our way of preserving the historical perspective you mentioned. Come to define sonic hypotheses of the future, using samples of pieces composed and performed in the past, corresponds a little to mitigating the gap between the two temporal situations, in our opinion much more apparent than real. The brain of humans can experience directly causes and effects in the present time only, and this is the dimension in which we act. We would like to be able to sample sounds from records from the future, but at the moment it is impossible.>>
--- Is it true that you are dissatisfied with the name Future Sound Of London and you are going to change it?
<<In a sense, yes. We feel the need to return to expressive freedom resulting from the use of many different names. Furthermore Future Sound Of London is a badge which has generated many misunderstandings; has placed too much emphasis on the ‘future', on the easily technological side that can be evoked by the term. We are not so interested in the progress in itself, we have other priorities, we do not care to personify in such a prosaic way the futuristic longings of anyone.>>
--- Do you like collaborating with other musicians? How do you remember the voice contribution from Elizabeth Frazer in your “Lifeforms“ single? Do you plan to repeat the experience?
<<Yes, we are always very happy to be able to play and record material with the most varied collaborators. Several instrumentalists our friends took part in “Dead Cities”, for example the drummer Richie Thomas (already with The Jesus And Mary Chain), and the excellent feeling derived from it made us seriously consider the possibility of forming a complete band. The collaborative experience lived alongside of Liz it was splendid: we would really need a such talented vocalist. Unofficially we could tell you that she is our optimal choice, and that we will try to convince her. But it is still early to announce something more. We'll see.>>
--- What’s the importance of Earthbeat Studio for the expressive balance of Future Sound Of London?
<<A crucial importance, certainly. There our musical ideas are born, develop and spread. It is surrounded by other studios and rehearsal rooms, frequented mostly by very wild hard-rock groups that besiege us from every side with red-hot roars and guitars. It is an exciting situation, all things considered, very strange>>.
--- Is it your decision to use the studio as a personal stage?
<<Meanwhile, we specify that we do not consider the Earthbeat a stage, because we don't like imposed situations of the traditional rock concerts (like the audience here and the Artist up there, or down there...). Let's say the radio broadcast of our concerts by ISDN system (that is, through telephone cables) has allowed us to reach hundreds of thousands of people with a speed and precision that no tour could have guaranteed>>.
--- Do you regularly follow electronic music production, both british and planetary?
<<Uhm... we say yes, although it was precisely this attention towards the projects of others, and especially in the past two years, to lead us with increasing intensity towards ourselves. We realized the need to reconsider the nature of our aspirations and our potential. To know and assimilate a large amount of foreign musical material, albeit vaguely related, pushed us to introspection>>.
--- Is it for this reason that, although playing live, do you prefer to do it from within your studio? To implement a communication that is not conditioned by components outside the group?
<<This is partly the case. In the way of presenting their creations to the world, the FSOL constantly seek a balance between the desire to preserve the intensity of their expression and the alterations it undergoes by the mere fact of being diffused, acknowledged, discussed. Perhaps this balance is unobtainable, and perhaps the fact of not communicating in the traditional way, while reaching thousands of people all over the world, it is a paradox of the evolutionary phase we are experiencing. The idea to expand the training staff could transform this state of affairs, in the future>>.
--- Your status, in the british electronic sector, it has as terms of comparison only the Orb, Orbital and the Underworld. Impressions?
<<These are groups that have a way of understanding and practicing musical activity very different from ours. They are stars, they love to perform concerts with grandiose scenic apparatus. In truth, we should open a discussion about how electronic music (in its live dimension) is often adopting procedures similar to those standardized by rock. If so it must be, we find the Prodigy very funny>>.
--- Let's talk about “Dead Cities”: how much is true in the fact that its content you were inspired to find decay wherever you looked?
<<It is better to understand each other on the meaning to be attributed to the word ‘decadence', since in this case for us it does not necessarily have negative values: rather indicates a phase of passage in the perpetuation of the vital essence in ever new forms. It is the human mind that seems to grasp only its immediate as dramatic aspects, since these indicate very clearly how illusory are the claims and conventions with which it is customary to consider existence to be unchangeable. We did not devise the idea that life consists in a continuous transformation. It's a fact, found by anyone even in the most remote corner of our planet. What interested us deeply, when we have given shape and substance to the album, it was to suggest that transience contains an absolutely positive form of energy. This is the strongest statement of “Dead Cities”. All the gloomy and desolate images that we associated with the sound of the disc they are nothing but symbols, and maybe they are a little conditioning to immediately grasp the positivity intimately connected with the circumstances of this perennial transformation. We could tell you that the substance of the LP has been distinguished by our very hard personal experiences, like the solitude, the illness, the incommunicability, blah blah blah. But this would not be particularly significant (if not for us), because they are steady turn-outs in the life of other millions human beings. What we have seen in such vicissitudes it is the possibility that the individual has to overcome its impact through a concrete approach to one's essence. Fear and pain can be overcome, they must be. It's not about avoiding them, but to face them in full, whether the circumstances of life imply that one must measure oneself against them. This is an extraordinary force that each individual carries within himself just because he exists, it can be controlled by will and it is directly related to the laws that govern the universe>>.
--- Therefore, despite the title of the album and its various tracks, and therefore the disturbing charm of the images that Buggy G Riphead helped you select to illustrate it, is “Dead Cities” a resolute and constructive work?
<<Absolutely yes. It represents the continuity, the permanence, the renewal of the positive energy potential that life always expresses, even (or mostly) in its darkest and most difficult situations>>.
--- How you compose?
<<We can record a very strong musical idea, and concentrate by elaborating various developments in a coherent system, during a continuous and very intense effort that can take weeks. Or, having accumulated material perhaps very dissimilar at least in a year, we decide to sift it checking which and how many of its parts are related to a concept or theme that acts as a common denominator for that particular project. But these are only general indications: in reality we do not follow any fixed and pre-established procedure. Much depends on the case>>.
--- Since your way of composing is strongly characterized by the use of samples, and that you often sample the work of famous musicians (Ennio Morricone, Run DMC, Vangelis, for example), is it easy for you to obtain the necessary permits from those directly involved?
<<Today it is easier than it used to be, because we have achieved a certain notoriety and this disconcerting mechanism is in force, according to which to be sampled by a famous group it is an honor, from an unknown band not. It is difficult to make it clear that sampling itself is important, not the person ‘who’ implements it. So, we meet generous hearts like Ozric Tentacles (who gave us what we needed, without asking for anything in return) and musicians, so to speak, a little greedy. However, in all sincerity, unauthorized sampling is much more numerous on our records>>.
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Ross
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Re: FSOL article on Rockerilla mag.

Post by Ross »

Fascinating - you can really hear the initial traces of Amorphous already by this point, the talk of disliking the 'future' aspect of FSOL, changing names, forming a band, inspiration from the past, etc.
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Re: FSOL article on Rockerilla mag.

Post by mcbpete »

Thanks for huge effort in the translation Rob - very much appreciated :)
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Re: FSOL article on Rockerilla mag.

Post by Trigga Bo »

Thanks Rob & FSOL!
I would add a third disc "Tales of Ephidrina" to the "Lifeforms" album
The FSOL = Lifeforms, Part1 (cd#1) / Lifeforms, Part2 (cd#2) / Tales of Ephidrina (cd#3)
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