FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

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Ross
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FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by Ross »

Let's see if this one is more popular than Environments...

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Environments (1994). Wait, no, ISDN (1994)

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ISDN (1995)

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ISDN v3 was scrapped at the last minute when Gaz decided he wasn't yet truly in touch with his feminine side, and would have to wait another six years.

(Also Far-out Son EPs and Promo 500)

ISDN and I have a bit of a chequered history. I stole the money to buy it from my parents; they found out, I got grounded for a month. In the process, my best friend's mother found out and barred me from seeing him. The latter in particular was a lifechanging moment. Also, I was a relatively naive 12 year old at the time, so the title of the first track and the swearing and references to blow jobs in the liner notes made me a bit uneasy. And I didn't 'get' the artwork (despite my obsession with "Revolution 9", I didn't get the White Album reference at all) - where was the cover shot depicting the kind of landscape reflected in the music? It's possible that this initial response shaped my feeling towards the album and explains why it fares so poorly in my album listings in comparison to the others.

The ISDN transmissions that spawned the album shed a lot of light on why it feels very much like an album of two halves. Other than two Lifeforms outtakes - 'Dirty Shadows' and the middle section of 'Kai' - the recording sessions seem to be roughly split in two. Early '94 transmissions showcase, unsurprisingly, the more ambient end of the album - 'Just a Fuckin' Idiot', 'Appendage', the run of tracks from 'You're Creeping Me Out' through to 'Egypt'. The later '94 sessions introduce the rhythmic tracks, the jazz and hip-hop influences, the stuff Gaz spoke about in the 1994 phone interview when he was talking about getting back into beats. I suppose with the album not being a 'proper' album, this split isn't such a big deal, but it does give the record an unevenness.
This then effects the overall 'mood'. Everyone hears the albums differently. For me, Lifeforms, Dead Cities, Environments 2 and 3 have very distinct locations and, in a particularly imaginative mood, stories, with identifiable locations, matched by the artwork and field recordings. ISDN's variety makes this more vague. The use of very strange field recordings and run of surreal photos in the booklet left a very deep impression on my mind at the young age of listening to it that I still find it a harrowing album to date. Visually, the album does not exist in this world. It's alien, and it's not welcoming. I have to be in a very, very specific mood to want to listen to the album.

Which is not, of course, to say that it is bad. I am very keen to point out here that it is my own experiences and expectations that make it my least listened to record. On a track-by-track basis, I think it's good and often brilliant. 'Slider' is an absolute monster of a track, that squelchy synth that comes in around the 5 minute mark is a career highlight; 'Eyes Pop - Skin Explodes - Everybody Dead' is wonderful; 'Dirty Shadows' is definitely in my top 5 FSOL tracks; 'Smokin' Japanese Babe', dodgy title aside, is brilliant; 'Egypt' should have been on Lifeforms; 'Kai' has a groove that I never want to end; and while I'll never forgive them for cutting 'It's My Mind That Works' down to three minutes, at least we have the full length version on the New York show.

White vs. Black? Much as I usually side with initial impressions on these kinds of matters, and much as I love 'Kai' (and am not a particular fan of 'Are They Fightin' Us'), 'An End of Sorts' is just light years ahead of 'Snake Hips', so the black edition is a winner for me - despite skipping to track 4 being nowhere near as satisfying as on the white edition.

Despite my reservations, ISDN is still a high quality record. What astounds me the most is that this came out THE SAME YEAR AS LIFEFORMS. Just in case everybody forgets that it's possible for a band to have such high quality output in such a short space of time.

This era didn't feature too many EP tracks. Part 1 of 'Snake Hips' is nice, but I prefer it as the Far-out Son of Lung track 'Cow'. 'Live in New York' I'm not too fond of (nor its semi-remix 'A Diversionary Tactic'), and the Promo 500 'Herd Killing' is very, very strange.
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Pandemonium
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by Pandemonium »

This is THE first album that I heard from FSOL, by accident :)
After hearing We Have Explosive on MTVs Amp compilation, and falling in love with that robo-beat, I wanted to find some album from these FSOL weirdos by any price!
I was 15, it was early 1997...
I was looking for a few weeks, and managed to find a old music expert in my town (small town, barely 100.000 people) and he promised me to get me Dead Cities - and he did, on a pirate CDr disc, and when I got home excited as hell from the album covers, the disc WAS EMPTY - fucking drunk probably forgot to record it ...

Anyway, few weeks later I went 130km north in the capital (Skopje, nearly 1 million people, I live there today) and there I was looking for Dead Cities, but found only a strange white disc with the words FSOL ISDN, and a single called Papua New Guinea - they told me they will get Dead Cities, Lifeforms+Paths & My Kingdom next week. These records were also on CDr and had only front and back artwork (and in some rare cases some inside pictures), which means I had NO INFO about ISDN whatsoever :) This was a period in my country when hi-quality pirated CDs were common and were sold in music shops alongside with some originals. CDr were 2 euros and originals 12 and above...

Then I got home, put on some large headphones (I tried PNG and realised that I knew that track, only didn't know that is was FSOLs, and got the CD out after the first track) and then listen to the ISDN for the first time - and I didn't get it... :) where were the techno/robotic/beats from We Have Explosives?? - And also, I've never heard this kind of ambient albums at all, I knew some tracks from The Orb and some Eno stuff, but never whole albums... But, after the 3rd listen, this record changed my life - who knows how many hundreds of times I've listened to it, certainly more than Lifeforms - and by 2002 I'd listened every DISENCHANTED ISDN transmission at least 100 times :) I haven't listened Black edition until way later and White comes natural/better to me.
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RazorJack
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by RazorJack »

This one was a real grower for me, took quite a while for me to understand this album. I liked the Far Out... video and that kept returning me to this album, and eventually I ended up loving it. Of course I also have the black and white versions, and prefer the black one. Why? An End Of Sorts... 'nuff said.

Something else, I only have the LP versions, and it just so happens that my black version sounds like crap, so every time I want to listen to it, I have to use a burned pirated cd version :-( The vinyl looks okay, barely any wear or scratches etc., but what immediately occured to me is that the grooves are so closely packed together. Figures, it's over 70 minutes, squeezed on one LP, what were they thinking at Virgin :cry: The previous owner might have also abused it with several pounds of force on the needle, though.
I love the inner artwork and notes as well.
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Ross
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by Ross »

I think the white edition was a double LP, probably to make up for the issues on the black one. I'm always staggered they manage to get 70 minutes onto it.
The only albums I have on vinyl (I have most of the early 12" singles) are The Isness and Alice in Ultraland. The Isness is the worst quality vinyl I've ever bought, probably Artful being cheapskates in line with the ridiculous "stick a sticker over the previous tracklist" promo nonsense. I've never even played my Alice LP, that was after I moved out of my parents' so I've never had chance. I want to keep it mint I think, it's number 0003.
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mcbpete
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by mcbpete »

Ross wrote: Image
ISDN v3 was scrapped at the last minute when Gaz decided he wasn't yet truly in touch with his feminine side, and would have to wait another six years.
Wait - what ?! Heh, I've never even heard about this before - do you have any idea what this album was going to contain ?
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RazorJack
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by RazorJack »

Ross wrote:I think the white edition was a double LP, probably to make up for the issues on the black one.
Yep, it is. Way better to have it split on two discs, even at 33 rpm. And my copy looks and sounds near mint, apart from one of the velcro fasteners that tore a piece of the surface paper from the cover :lol:
I'm not afraid to spin my favorite LP's very often though, if you just clean them every once in a while and do maintainance on your turntable, the sound quality will not deteriorate.
mcbpete wrote:Wait - what ?! Heh, I've never even heard about this before - do you have any idea what this album was going to contain ?
I thought it was just a joke, but now I'm confused as well... never know for sure with FSOL.
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Ross
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by Ross »

C'mon Pete, it wasn't that funny, but I thought it was an obvious joke! I just liked the idea of a pink and yellow cover to an album containing 'Slider' and 'It's My Mind That Works'.
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tryptych
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by tryptych »

Ross wrote:Image
ISDN v3 was scrapped at the last minute when Gaz decided he wasn't yet truly in touch with his feminine side, and would have to wait another six years.
My god.. I'm glad this didn't surface.

ISDN is, of course, a MINDBLOWING album. Nothing short of FSOL perfection.
from the source flows the endless...
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Ross
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by Ross »

All silliness aside, I actually find ISDN to be the nearest of the FSOL albums to their Amorphous material. 'Smokin Japanese Babe' is only really a guitar solo away from an AA track I reckon.
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Dennis
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Re: FSOL @ 20 - ISDN

Post by Dennis »

What comes to my mind concerning the ISDN Album and the FSOL years from 93-95/96 in general is the baffling HUGE amount of tracks they produced in just 3 years. I mean they had this monstrous creative urge back in the nineties, and I wonder if it was something similar in the last decade with the AA project, I mean look at all those video-snippets from AA recording sessions, they really seem to record or produce constantly something. I suspect what we come to hear in form of AA albums or remixes is just the very tip of the iceberg, where there´s 90% under water (was it 90% or 70%? I don´t know.) I predict another series of at least 6 volumes of AA-archives in 2017 or so.
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