Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

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Rob
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

Post by Rob »

@ 20:33 - Forest Trails – Mokguxtlk (FSOL Calendar 21)
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mcbpete
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

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The CD just arrived here - Wasn't expecting it till the 2Gth (which I presume is actually 26th!)
Yikes - still haven't opened/heard the first one yet !
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Ross
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

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26th was the original release date, it was brought forward by a fortnight.

Nice spot Rob!
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

Post by nanio tine »

mcbpete wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 12:20 am Maybe a chance for us to hear some unheard remakes and outtakes ;)
I suppose I'm just a quality over quantity kinda person. there's some ok stuff on this album but can you honestly say its as good as isdn or environments 4 or their other best albums?? not enjoying the fsol production line approach, lets have properly curated albums with a theme again please.
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Ross
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

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Honestly, I'm treating the Controlled Vistas, Mind Maps etc. more like transmissions than albums (which I suppose they kind of are), so they're interesting diversions and asides rather than the core releases. I do sort of get what you mean, though. While I am musically obviously inspired by FSOL, I do take a very, very different approach to releasing, in that I generally don't like having a load of aliases (I've tried it and it didn't sit right). If I were FSOL, I would scrap the Archives, Yage, Blackhill Transmitter, all the other side projects, Mind Maps, Calendars, the non-acid Humanoid stuff, etc. and just combine all the best tracks that fit together into a 150 minute double album every year. A big slab of FSOL once every 12 months, with a year to fully absorb it before the next comes along.
But then, I'm not FSOL. The aliases and oddities approach seems to be the adopted one, for whatever creative reasons deemed necessary.
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

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Ross wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 3:18 pmobviously
lol bloody hell mate did you buy a handbook called how to sound like fsol?? some good tunes there but its dangerously copycat!
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Ross
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

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sigESANg5 wrote: Sat Nov 13, 2021 2:19 am bummer!!! I missed most of this one. I was only able to record 10 minutes into the 25 min. bonus mix I believe, right after the Future Sound of London voice, followed by 'moving further into the future'. The track playing right after sounds like a Synthi A piece. I have 15 minutes of the mix, sounds lush as usual.
Do you still have these 15 minutes? Just realised I didn't reply at the time, would be nice to have them for archive purposes...

nanio tine wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 4:57 pm
Ross wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 3:18 pmobviously
lol bloody hell mate did you buy a handbook called how to sound like fsol?? some good tunes there but its dangerously copycat!
Ha, didn't see this at the time. I actually recorded an album in 2018 as a sort of experiment to see if I could create something that sounds a bit like FSOL by attempting the same sampling techniques as they used in the '90s. Turns out it's actually a really fun way of working, so I've done a couple more albums in the style. Very happily wearing the influence on my sleeve there, but the majority of my releases don't sound like this at all. ;)
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moxlox
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

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Ross wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 3:18 pm Honestly, I'm treating the Controlled Vistas, Mind Maps etc. more like transmissions than albums (which I suppose they kind of are), so they're interesting diversions and asides rather than the core releases. I do sort of get what you mean, though. While I am musically obviously inspired by FSOL, I do take a very, very different approach to releasing, in that I generally don't like having a load of aliases (I've tried it and it didn't sit right). If I were FSOL, I would scrap the Archives, Yage, Blackhill Transmitter, all the other side projects, Mind Maps, Calendars, the non-acid Humanoid stuff, etc. and just combine all the best tracks that fit together into a 150 minute double album every year. A big slab of FSOL once every 12 months, with a year to fully absorb it before the next comes along.
But then, I'm not FSOL. The aliases and oddities approach seems to be the adopted one, for whatever creative reasons deemed necessary.
Interesting. I like all the aliases and the diversity; especially the Blackhill Transmitter material. So I’d say keep going as they are, but I would love a new pure Future Sound of London album. Hoping Environments 7 trilogy gives us that.

Also interesting as nanio tine mentioned Environments 4 as a stand out in modern era FSOL. For me it was ok, but the standout was Environment 5 which I think is their best, and most original, material since Dead Cities, and still is today. So the diversity must be giving us all something.

….and how I wish Environment 5 had been given a standalone album title!
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Ross
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

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I do like the Blackhill Transmitter album a lot, to be fair. I do like the diversity a lot, although in some ways I think it would work better all in one place rather than scattered over different aliases. FSOL is already an exceptionally diverse project, to the extent that I think almost all the alias tracks would work under the name anyway. And there's obviously some flexibility between the projects, hence 'Propagate' being released as Humanoid and FSOL, 'Mokguxtlk' as Forest Trails and FSOL, 'Control Vista' as Filter & Pulses and FSOL:Digitana, 'Loko Motive' as Superheads and Blackhill Transmitter, 'Open Window' as FSOL and The Jazz Mags, 'Voyeur' as Zeebox and FSOL, etc.

But mostly I think I just miss the build-up to a new album and then getting lost in it for a while, which doesn't really happen now. Clearly the Environments are given a certain amount of importance, hence 7 taking so long to come out, but it is a little harder to be excited about it when we had five albums and two EPs worth of material last year. It's quite likely to come out within a month or two of this year's Record Store Day release as well, and whatever else comes along in the first half of the year, which just gives it a lot less impact. The past few years have given me a kind of FSOL fatigue, where I'm still feeling overwhelmed by the amount of material put out a couple of years ago, let alone more recent stuff. So, as a listener, I would prefer one two-and-a-half hour slab of FSOL every year and then spent months getting lost in it, rather four hours spread over six or seven releases and aliases.

I always champion people doing new things with releases - I love the idea of the calendar albums, the same as Underworld's similar Drift series - but when it comes to listening, I'm actually pretty conservative, and struggle with anything that isn't an album or a reasonable length (30 minute) EP.

As I say, this is just from a listening perspective. I don't know the creative reasoning behind the way things are released, why one alias is chosen over another, why the calendar albums, Controlled Vistas, Mind Maps etc. are chosen over the tracks being part of conventional albums, etc. Clearly a lot of people are really enjoying the approach, from the responses on here and the Facebook group. And I'm still finding a lot to enjoy in recent releases, but I'm definitely finding them overwhelming.

As for the titling, that's another mystery really. From 4 onwards they could easily have had 'standalone' titles, especially as there's not much in the way of stylistic crossover linking them (Five and Environmental are totally different, for example), and they would probably get wider attention, because I still see people saying the Environments are just archived material, or not 'proper' albums. But since Five, I've come to accept them as the new albums and enjoy them for that. And I think they're generally the strongest of the FSOLDigital era releases, along with Music for 3 Books, Life in Moments and the re-recordings.
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

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Ross wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 5:45 pm Ha, didn't see this at the time. I actually recorded an album in 2018 as a sort of experiment to see if I could create something that sounds a bit like FSOL by attempting the same sampling techniques as they used in the '90s. Turns out it's actually a really fun way of working, so I've done a couple more albums in the style. Very happily wearing the influence on my sleeve there, but the majority of my releases don't sound like this at all. ;)
Fair enough mate just listened to Arboretum, great stuff, nice ambient sound there and very different to fsol so all cool, sorry if I offended!
moxlox wrote: Sat Jan 29, 2022 10:54 am Also interesting as nanio tine mentioned Environments 4 as a stand out in modern era FSOL. For me it was ok, but the standout was Environment 5 which I think is their best, and most original, material since Dead Cities, and still is today. So the diversity must be giving us all something.
just an example really, like isdn. Dead Cities is my favourite, but I think lifeforms, isdn, environments 1-6.5 are all really similar quality. favourite environments are 4, 5, 6, hard to pick between them. 5 is the most unique so I get you there.i don't have a problem with all the aliases, just the lower quality recently that feels like they've been spreading themselves very thin. not sure a 150 minute album would even be that great, but a proper fsol album and an alias album every year would be enough for me to be honest. honestly some of the recent releases other than the record store day eps have just felt like the same quality as a lot of fairly generic unoriginal artists who fill their albums with whatever they have lying around. Ive seen a lot of ambient artists online who put out 7 or 8 albums a year and you know they're never going to be remembered as classics because they're not consistent enough. I don't understand why you'd release a bunch of ok albums when you could get all the best tracks and make one amazing album out of them. but I'm not a musician so who knows!!
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

Post by nanio tine »

and yes id love them to do proper album names again but I don't think they ever will. its even stupider if each 7 has a title already. rituals is first, right? why not just call the album rituals? it feels like they're constantly trying to downplay the albums or something.
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

Post by moxlox »

Ross I think you're right; they'd get more attention and kudos if the albums, particularly the Environment ones, had standalone titles. Perhaps they don't crave that - but I wouldn't believe that even if they said it!
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

Post by throughyourgills »

Interesting discussion. I like the Environments but recently the music doesn’t sound like FSOL anymore, just anonymous electronica. I’ve recently discovered the Fractional Difference blog throughout Facebook and it made me get back into them after a few years of disappointment. Glad there’s another Environments coming along and I hope it’s as good as the others, but I’m worried. Glad to know I’m not the only one who found the last few releases underwhelming. I missed the Mind Maps CD when it came out and bought a second hand copy for £50 and thought it was pretty poor, I didn’t end up buying thr second one. Worried that they’ve gone the same way as The Orb just making boring stuff that sounds like any other washed up group.
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

Post by Reamonnt »

FSOL now taking the piss out of fans releasing tiny amounts of physical product and a big two fingers to you if you are not hovering like a wanker at the keyboard to press buy. Same thing again today. Think ye are being smart guys but its going to lose you fans.
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Re: Mind Maps 2 - 12th November on Touched

Post by Reamonnt »

A bit strong I know but ive been following the band since early 1990's cant understand why fans have to be treated so shabbily.
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