FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

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Ross
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FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by Ross »

So I thought I ought to start this up once more as we only have a few more weeks of 2011 left!

Lifeforms, Cascade and Lifeforms Paths 1-7
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Never in a million years would I have guessed that the other half of this image turned up on the Dead Cities CD art.

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I chose this cover because the font is much nicer than the Astralwerks release. One day I will own the UK release!

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I always felt this art has dated worse than most of their others.



I've been putting Lifeforms off for a while because I don't really know what to say about it. It is without a doubt, for me, the single greatest achievement in human creativity: no other album (or film, book, painting, photograph, poem, television programme, whatever) has ever come close to having the profound effect on me that Lifeforms has. It's so easy for me to sit back and drift off and be in that place I was fourteen years ago when I was a wee nipper listening to it for the first time. It was like moving to a new place, every track seemed to have a whole new set of things to discover (back in the day I'd always skip through an album before listening to it, and the amount of samples, field recordings and so on was so overwhelming it was actually very intimidating!). I always find the sounds used so utterly evocative: the jangling at the end of Ill Flower has always been some tin cans tied to a stick, marking the boundary of some primitive village in the desert (fuck knows...), and obviously the weather stuff makes it more obvious.
Key tracks, apart from 'all of them', are probably Ill Flower (haunting), Flak (uplifting, and gives the album much needed pace), Dead Skin Cells (astonishingly pretty), Eggshell (awe inspiriting), Cerebral (peaceful and genuinely relaxing) and Omnipresence (never hear this mentioned, but it's probably my favourite on the album... 'glacial' is the only word I can think of). I think Omnipresence must have been one of the last to be completed because it grows out of an 'environment' used on the 1993 ISDN transmissions, but the track itself never appears.

Cascade I like a lot, it's a nice halfway point between Tales... and Lifeforms. More rhythmic than the latter, definitely. It's amazing how different the track is to its album counterpart. It definitely feels more like an actual cascading river than the Lifeforms version. I love part 4's starkness, it's almost quite violent in its spikey sounds, and part 5 is a lovely eastern tinged version of An End of Sorts that was sampled by Photek at some point.

The Lifeforms Paths EP I was never so fond of, although I know it's a popular one. The overly acoustic sound with the samples of drums, sitars and so on, plus the vocals, made it sound a bit less polished and atmospheric than the album and I never really took to it. I do love the final path though, for some reason it always made me think of the end of the world. The whole thing also has quite a primeval feel to it, especially with the gurgling sounds and such. I'm wittering now.

What's incredible is that Lifeforms is a double album, and they also managed two 40 minute EPs from the same sessions - it's no surprise that the Archives seem to be slightly lighter on Lifeforms era tracks than they do ISDN/Dead Cities - but even then there's amazing stuff like Turn Around. The quality on show is just astonishing. While I'm glad the guys are happy doing what they're doing now, I do sometimes wonder what would happen if we locked them in a tiny studio in London for two years again. Gaz's interviews from '93 and '94 are really, really inspirational, talking about all the plans for the band, their deconstruction of the music industry, changing from being a band to broadcast system, multi-media, Yage: the Movie, just being completely different from everything else around. Even though it's regarded as a classic 'alongside 76:14, UFOrb, blah blah blah', I do think this era of the band saw them at their most original, unique and all round creative.

I wrote this Lifeforms 'story' for the old site years ago. It's mostly wank, but also shows how deep the album goes...
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Pandemonium
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by Pandemonium »

Nice read indeed :)
I've mentioned a few times, I love to read good/honest reviews in English,
mostly because they're something I couldn't write as good myself (English not being my native language and all that).

The thing that stuck me - Photek!
What was he sampling and on what track?
I like and love and respect Photek a lot :)
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Ross
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by Ross »

Now, if memory serves me correctly it's the very intro of Cascade Pt 5, I think there are some magpies making rattling noises, and it's sampled on - don't hold me to this - Rings Around Saturn? Quite a jungley track anyway, so one of his earlier ones.
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by RazorJack »

Very nice.
Ross, would you say that your love for/addiction to Lifeforms has come to the point that you need to listen to it on a regular basis? I have that for certain albums, and it's kinda scary when you think about it... (none FSOL though, but I do listen to Dead Cities very, very often)

I'm wondering if the guys are planning anything (or have already done so?) for the 20th anniversary.
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Ross
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by Ross »

I doubt there'll be anything from the band now, sadly, looks like a few FSOLDigital other artists and EBS7 is all we're getting this year!

I go through stages, sometimes I don't listen to FSOL for weeks on end, then I have a big listening session, depends really.

Come on, where's everybody else's Lifeforms thoughts?! :P
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OffLand
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by OffLand »

It's hard for me to say anything else about Lifeforms. I agree with everything you said. Everything.

All I can say is that it would be nice to get a another Lifeforms :)
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by beetles »

"All I can say is that it would be nice to get a another Lifeforms" - there couldnt be - its a one off.

The one and only reason why Ive ever wanted to make music.Herd would not exist if I hadnt seen this album in Our Price and bought it solely for its cover art. Absolute masterpiece in my eyes.If I ever make some music half as good as this I will die a happy man. Cover art, titles and every track works together perfectly.
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by Tito Lozano »

The same of Ross,Off Land and Herd.

The reason for i start to believe in computer world, electronic music listen(in other post i tell about my first grunge condition), when i listened FLak or Lifeforms on the radio in the days when Kurt Kobain die (i was a teenage nirvana fanclub-but i sold all my vinyls from them), i always said that change to Kobain for Kobain XD

Thanks to Fsol i had change my concept about electronica , sythns and samples on music, in 1994-95
i never forget the tHE bEATLES ,punk or noise or shoegaze (you know ,Sonic Youth,Husker du,fUGAZI.THE NOISY SONGS FROM TEENAGE FANCLUB,First beastie boys,my bloody valentine,and large etc etce)but Fsol , and The Orb , for me was a explosion on my mind ,Thanks DR PATERSON, SIR DOUGANS , LORD COBAIN !
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by ronniedobbs »

I first heard LF @ Alternative Records in Tampa, FL (a store w many personal ties to Astralwerks). DJ Three was working the register and I asked which I should buy, 76:14 or Lifeforms? He tried to put me onto Spacetime Continuum who I appreciated later, but I wasn't interested at the time. I mistakenly glossed over 76:14 on headphones (now my fav LP of all time) and said give me the other one. Wow, it was a soundtrack to an alien world and blew my mind. The cover was also wicked, as was the rest of the artwork. Needless to say I played it for my friends, they bought copies, and it became a toker's soundtrack to 1994. Been a fan ever since even when some balked at the rock sound. I hope we get another proper FSOL album some day.
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by Akkya »

beetles wrote:"All I can say is that it would be nice to get a another Lifeforms" - there couldnt be - its a one off.

The one and only reason why Ive ever wanted to make music.Herd would not exist if I hadnt seen this album in Our Price and bought it solely for its cover art. Absolute masterpiece in my eyes.If I ever make some music half as good as this I will die a happy man. Cover art, titles and every track works together perfectly.
The amount of times I have listened to Lifeforms still amazes me. It never gets old.
I listened to this so many times in so many altered states and every time it was perfect. Even now after making music for 23 years, I STILL hear new things in it.

It is one of the only pieces of work where my brain DOES NOT try to disect the music into how it was made.

Lifeforms changed my life, along side LSD and certain books, Lifeforms is handsdown the biggest lifechanger prior to having children.
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by LooseLink »

I first discovered FSOL during the mp3 era (2001 - 2002) by this time my first "album" was actually collected songs from each album (including the spanking new Isness at the time), my first proper album was Dead Cities, but the next one was Lifeforms. Then I discovered the two EPs, then the 1993/3D Headspace transmissions, it was then I realized these guys didn't create albums, they created worlds, and Lifeforms was the first world I happily explored for hours and hours.

It has forever changed my view of music, probably because of Lifeforms I never listened to mainstream radio again. A fantastic and cautious journey from the forest into our modern day world, which prompted you to go back into the jungle! :)

So yeah, favorite tracks are on Cd1, Lifeforms, Dead Skin Cells, though I do like Room 208 and Vertical Pig as well, the latter being unexplainable yet so wicked!
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by darktrain »

one of my top ten albums,revisit it often and never tire of it,theres not many albums i can say that about,sounded ahead of its time back then and still does now,has a great flow to it,liquid organic audio textures,quiet in places,layered in others to the extent that it sounds confusing but makes sense and is cohesive,fantastic artwork by buggy an essential album in every sense of the word..favourite tracks? eggshell,dead skin cells,among myselves,cerebral,life form ends and room 208..
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RazorJack
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by RazorJack »

Was listening to Lifeforms last night.
A true masterpiece indeed. I'd say my favorite tracks are Cascade, Dead Skin Cells, Lifeforms, Among Myselves, Vit, and Omnipresence. It would be pretty cool if Among Myselves was the last track on the album, because it kinda ends the same way Cascade begins, so if you were to play the album on an endless loop it would appear to be more or less seamless :)

Really the only thing I don't like about this album is that during some samples, there's a clearly audible background hum/noise/hiss. Don't know if the guys left it like that on purpose or not, but judging from the massive dynamic range and low volume details there are I'd say they did, because they couldn't have possibly missed it. Sure could have used some lowpass/noise filtering imo.
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by tryptych »

RazorJack wrote:Really the only thing I don't like about this album is that during some samples, there's a clearly audible background hum/noise/hiss. Don't know if the guys left it like that on purpose or not, but judging from the massive dynamic range and low volume details there are I'd say they did, because they couldn't have possibly missed it. Sure could have used some lowpass/noise filtering imo.
Really? Haven't noticed that, ever. Actually, one of the first things that struck me with FSOL was the sound quality, which I thought was top notch (I love it how they haven't got into the loudness wars thing).

For some reason I always find myself listening to the EP (I agree with Ross on the cover art, must be the coloring) rather than the actual double.. Lifeforms as a track is defo the best track on the album.
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RazorJack
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - Lifeforms

Post by RazorJack »

Yep, well, I guess I pay a little too much attention to details when listening to music. It's best audible during the monologue at the start of "Among Myselves".

In the beginning of "Domain" I also hear a few pops/clicks. During almost all of "Interstat" there's a faint but annoyingly high frequency pitch. The sample from "Cerebral" that segues into "Life Form Ends" also has, what to my ears sound like, a background hum, and again some pops/clicks. Which is weird because I only got the cd version of Lifeforms :cry: I'm used to hearing pops and clicks when listening to dirty LP's ;-) More high frequency ear piercing noise in the second half of this track.

I could go on some more, but all in all the sound quality on FSOL albums is top notch. And I especially also love the relatively large dynamic range. Many low volume details, but also loud explosions from time to time, just like on classical music recordings.
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