Hi, FSOL fans. I read this forum regularly for two years, But I had no profile. Today it's done.
I was wondering if anyone knew the french book "Global Techno", published in 1999 and written by Jean-Yves Leloup, Jean-Philippe Renoult and Pierre-Emmanuel Rastoin. Four pages are devoted to The Future Sound Of London. The content of the interview is interesting, and there is a beautiful picture of Pierre-Emmanuel Rastoin which illustrates this part, I'd like to share it with you.
I would also like to translate the words into English so that everyone here can have access to this little piece of history. And more generally, to participate in the collective archive. If this is interesting, do not hesitate to let me know.
Finally, I would like to thank your community, I learned a lot here ! I'm french (my english is very bad) and I'm a fan since 1995. FSOL/AA is an important part of my musical life.
Cheers
PS: I have the picture in HQ if someone cares.
Last edited by DeadCitiesEverywhere on Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I've always wondered about their activities in 1998/1999. They seemed to be up to a little bit more than what most people have said. With the mysterious German Wuppertal broadcast in 1998 (my most wanted "podcast" now, if the Pod Room returns), the 1999 EP, and now this. Translate it for us man it might lift some mystery! Thanks for sharing.
I myself had an very early edition of a german progrock magazin in which the isness made it album of the month and there was an interview, I guess it must have been around 2002/03, too bad I threw it away. it was mostly gary talking about AA and FSOL being two different ongoing projects, something like that.
Sounds like it could be very interesting. I'd love to hear what they actually say they're doing at the time in the late nineties as they were doing it, as opposed to a retrospective evaluation from the time of the Isness release. Welcome to the forum!
That picture is weird, I can't say I've ever seen Gaz with hair like that, he looks like he's just stepped off the set of Blakes 7!
dell1972 wrote:That picture is weird, I can't say I've ever seen Gaz with hair like that
Was about to post the same thing, he looks very different
It's weird how fashions come around - the combination of the haircuts, what they're wearing and the cross processed colour grading makes it look like it was taken this year and not over 10 years ago.
LooseLink: This is a period that fascinates me too. I have a French live from 97 (I do not think it is on fsoldigital) recorded on tape absolutely wonderful. Someone uploded it on Youtube, I'd love to buy a good quality version of this live.
(The content is posterior to Dead Cities, with among other things, Popadom, Private Psyche And Inner Life,
Trying To Make Impermanent Things Permanent, and an incredible version of We Have Explosive)
I do not pretend that this is a new material or anything, I'm sure everyone here sees what it is.
dell1972: There are interesting things, this really is a point of view from that time. I guess the interview took place in 1998.
I just finished a first draft of the translation. I warn you, this is the first time I do it, and my English is not so good.
There are probably some blunders and perhaps misinterpretations. If someone have the courage and the will to correct it, it would be great, and of course I'm here, I could check if something seems to fit in case of errors on my part.
I have a question: If someone wants to help me finish the translation, I post the interview not finished on this topic,
or I send it by mail to someone ?
@Pande>you rules man!,
I will can to try read and traslate on english, i read ok more or less France,no speak or written but i stdudied something times ago on university(as foreign languages teacher,but never ends studies)and you know spanish is a bastad child of Latin -France-Italy-and some Germanism Anglicism ...well im not great speaker but can try understand the text ,Mr DeadCitiesEverywhere if you like send me PM with text and maybe with all our forces can translate the magnifient text
And Welcome to the Fsol Abandon Places and life transgenicous forms forum ,Awesome presentation!!!!
Hi Tito Lozano, and thanks for your kind words !
In fact, I completely translated the text into English, but some turns of phrase or some words must be Wrong.
I send the text, thank you for your help !
Hi again,sorry i have now a slow poor connection,well i take the text and see in general,i think that your translation is in global ok ,i will check some things that see that maybe will be correction but i think that you can put on post for the people now
I will say something soon thanks for share this treasure keeps on time
FSOL, it's the digital group "par excellence", working almost exclusively with a battery of samplers, recluse in their Earthbeat studio, located in the desolate suburbs of North London. From his laboratory, the duo made a significant number of performance and lives via ISDN telephone lines, broadcast on dozens of radio stations around the world. Better, they are now in control of a real audiovisual studio, from which they flood the world with their digital visions.
FSOL music is unique, but it has long since passed beyond the limits of experimental ghettos. And they have known a real popular success (especially in England) with their incredible talent for sound designs. Noisy jungles lush, expressionist atmospheres... Dougans and Cobain have become masters in the field of audio excursions. However, The Future Sound Of London are not just simple sound genius hackers. Let us rather say they represent a new breed of mutant artists, true multimedia guerrillas for whom digital and computer technology has no more secret. Made famous for their ISDN lives, they embody perfectly this resolutely contemporary race of studios madmen. Brian and Gary tinker crazy images for years and are among the first authors of techno-videotapes. To the menu, ultra-fast graphics, futurisco-organic landscapes, fusion of 3D computer generated and realistic video that give a strange character to this audio visual broth.
Brian Dougans and Gary Cobain met in 1986 at a club in Manchester, while both were students in electronics, practicing a kind of industrial white funk in the tradition of A Certain Ratio and Cabaret Voltaire, two pioneers in this field. Soon the duo went to work supported by the emerging wave of acid house. Gary brings the melodies, riffs and synthetic sound collages, Brian the rhythm, the beat and the groove, and signed their first success in 88, a piece of whirring acid "Stakker Humanoid". Thereafter They write a multitude of tracks under many iconoclasts aliases. Still later, in 1992, the success of "Papua New Guinea" will bring them to sign a historic contract in the amount of 200,000 pounds with Virgin. Such amount will allow them to abandon their, let us say... bread and butter techno productions, to devote themselves entirely to experiment and invest in an expensive audiovisual studio, Heartbeat. Follow four albums to date under the FSOL name of course, but also the misunderstood "Tales Of Ephidrina" by Amorphous Androgynous, parallel project just as successful.
When you visit them, you have to cross a small murky ground-floor somewhere in the north-west London. Earthbeat, their studio laboratory, is far from rich Trafalguar Square facades. Brian is introspective, silent, Gary is anxious, but talkative. It's tense, it's tenuous, but gradually the links are made and guide Gary's words are visions.
You are involved in many artistic activities... Is there one or several FSOL concepts ?
We're just two guys who want to do their thing... We could have done it for large structures and earn money like this. But if there is a concept, it is about the control of the creativity. Not only with music, but also video, graphics, radio programs. This is a whole. We are not musicians ! We are collage artists. We do not just collect sounds with samplers, we take the information over digital networks, television, wherever it is located.
This is the exact philosophy of sample...
Exactly. But it is not to plunder other people's ideas. If you keep this philosophy intact, and very few succeed today, you can go very far to the bottom of things. The sampler is a microscope of modern life. If you get into the philosophy of the machine, and you do not cheat, it will bring you much. This philosophy is the true reflection of our time, along with a big question... Video art, media, Internet, sampler, it is finally that. But the fact that we sample hither and yon, shamelessly, causes us many problems. If you want to work legally, you must clear the samples. This problem is mainly with the major companies, because they now know that we are popular. The older generation fuck us ! The new generation of artists do not need these companies because independent networks are sufficiently developed so that individuals can express themselves. There is more to go through the dictates of majors, although, paradoxically, this is our case.
There are some community, especially in the United States, advocating for the protection of artists who, like you, practice sample and sound collage. You feel close to them ?
Not quite. Did they get any success ? I doubt it. I suggest them not to tell anyone and work in their corner, regardless of the legal consequences of their artistic practice. For my part, I feel like a pickpocket, probably the best in town ! There are thousands of samples on our albums, I would lose maybe one day my studio or my career, but I strongly believe in our work. It is a kind of reassessment of all that was done a few years ago, all that society and the media have left lying around and we recycled. This is why the "sampler music" is the most eminently contemporary today. Because it simply reflects the way people live.
Finally you work on a single medium. The digital technology, the visual and sound information, malleable almost indefinitely in the virtual space of the computer. This is something which you are aware ?
(He marks a time of pause and reflection). Yeah, you're probably right. Say that, more prosaically, the group's ambition is to simply use the most routine and domestic medias. We continue to broadcast from our studio all around the world, in ISDN (digital transmission line), live sessions, as well as a series of "sonic" radio pieces, which incorporate voice, music and cut-up experiments. Radio is one of our favorite media. I can still see me as a kid listening to suspense dramas, completely freaked out, hiding behind the sofa. This is a tool that has great power, completely unexploited by the artists.
We have the impression that your last three albums form a sort of trilogy. Firstly "Lifeforms" which, as its name suggests, refers to the life, humanity and organic; then "ISDN", technology and networks; and finally "Dead Cities", the urban and daily environment, seen in a rather pessimistic and gloomy day...
It is not quite that. Say that "Lifeforms" referred explicitly to the dance music and the body, to the major gatherings of the era. But the communication that took place in these raves was very disappointing for us. We wanted to leave this urban spaces crowded and we wanted to start something else. It was a way to leave the dance floor, and recreate life from our studio. it was based on a rather pessimistic observation, much more than "Dead Cities" elsewhere. "ISDN", beyond the purely technological concept, was a projection. Let me explain: We would not go longer in club or rave. We no longer believe in these timeless nirvanas. With "ISDN", it was doing exactly the opposite. Thereby accepting that our music was not suitable for the existing radio formats has led us to invent the best format that suits it. The result is that instead of getting only small passages of three minutes on the radio, we finally got hours of programming in the world, with the whole series of concerts made since our studio. It is more than ever the policy of the DIY."Dead Cities" Finally, it was instead something much more alive. The premise is that sometimes life is born of these abandoned spaces, these periods of depression, loneliness, illness. All the "Dead Cities" music drew its strength, energy and optimism from this character of desolation. But it should not see in this last album any pessimistic view. Let's just say that the models displayed by the media, networks and large companies do not attract anyone anymore. The governing companies can no longer make people dream. Inevitably, there is now a more greater awareness developed than before, suddenly, the lure does not work anymore.
Now you're away from your first tube of the early 90s, "Papua New Guinea", a track at once dreamy, exotic and enchanting. But at the same time it is thanks to it that your career is launched. What does it mean for you today ?
Before, we were nothing. We existed since 1988, we left Manchester for London to form the group, but we were nothing for the music industry. "Papua ..." came later, naturally. It was made as a child's comptine. But nobody, and I mean nobody understood what was this record at the time. We knew it was something important, that we began to chart a path. It was only a year later, when we had almost forgotten this track, that we saw all the majors rush to licensed it. Today, the situation is very different because people waiting to be sublimates immediately. As if you could instantly create a kind of futuristic flash... Bullshit ! It is not our ambition. We want to keep a sense of history. We are not "techno freaks", we are not futuristic... This might be a contradiction on my part, but in one hand we hold the future, and in the other history. This is history that keeps lucidity. This is essential. Most studios which we see this days are very "hi-tech", but they quickly become an ivory tower for the creators... Ours is quite the opposite, it is primarily a transmission center.
You are indeed often described as a futurist group. You're nothing but eminently contemporary artists...
Frankly, I'm a bit confused about the future which is reserved to us. I've never acted as a spokesman futuristic. I'm just trying to live in the present. This is the only way to exist moreover, feel the present and try to transcribe it. Our tool, sampler, as I recall, this is nothing other than a microscope. And with this microscope, we studied all the aisles and even the dustbin of history. This is where we have draw the information that we needed. I think we've always had a good sense of history. There is much to learn from the past, much more than this blissful and optimistic state, forward looking and radiant promises of new technologies.
There is a legend about the group. This would remain a duo holed up in his studio, a sort of multimedia antrum, control center from which you receive all of the sights and sounds of the world. The myth sticks to reality ?
In the field of music, the myths created around the artists are just as important as the truth. These are stories that feed them themselves and it amuses us to see just how much the myth built around us. This is of course only a part of the truth, but it is true that there is that permanent receiver side. An example, if I'm going to play football in the park with my friends, I record everything on a digital camera and use sound and images in the future. I collect sounds and images at any time. Anyway, everyone becomes today a kind of sampler, like this guy Slumped in front of his TV, which zaps all the time and let these small slices of chaos penetrate into his everyday space. therefore we are receivers, but we are not liabilities. The generation to which we belong is not passive. I can lose an hour watching a shity program on TV but I'll try to make something creative with it. Same if I buy a crappy $20 record, I try to make this all positive. This is a permanent recycling.
You talk a lot of your independence, control that you wear on your career, and even your power. Your "mission" does not make you a little megalomaniac ?
Power is a negative word. I did not talk about the power coveted by opinion leaders. I defend just the ability to do what I want. This is an old utopia, but today the technology and means of diffusion make utopia possible. Executives who currently hold the real power begin to understand this, and they are afraid. I talk about a power that lies in the unit, even if this unit is for us an electronic brain... As a human being, I can not do much. As FSOL, I can not do much either. However, with networks, that we created can become important.
What prevails is always the transmission ?
Yes... We direct all the stages, from the creation to the emission.
FSOL decodes and Earthbeat transmits.
From "Global Techno", published in 1999 and written by Jean-Yves Leloup, Jean-Philippe Renoult and Pierre-Emmanuel Rastoin.
Photo by Pierre-Emmanuel Rastoin.
it was mostly gary talking about AA and FSOL being two different ongoing projects, something like that.
