A Space of Partial Illumination - Water and birdsong, leading into mellow glitchy ambience with some tape hiss. Incredibly minimal. Not sure there are any real comparison points to previous FSOL tracks. Lovely, although not very direct and a strange choice for one of the streamable tracks on Bandcamp.
If That Were to Occur - Chunky drums, this is immediately reminiscent of the ISDN-leaning sound of Rituals, right down to the haunting ambient textures in the background. Some bitcrushed noises. "Where are you going?"
Intents and Purpose - IDM, slightly acidy, very Humanoid. Once more, the Rituals-style thick background layers bring it a certain sense of ambience, despite the hectic fast beats.
Embodied Cognition - Acoustic guitar, midtempo beats, very melancholic. Like a less epic 'Long Shadows'. Some familiar electronic noises in the background. Beautiful, my favourite track so far. "Something's wrong here..."
Long Green Field - Pemberton collab, from Mind Maps 2. Works really well following the last track. Some field recordings from the opening track present. Again, an odd choice for preview track as it's nothing like the bulk of the album so far.
Temporal Aliasing - Moody ambient intro, suddenly into some frantic breakbeats. Darkest track so far, begins to brighten a little with some melancholic synth pads, making it much airier. Definitely ISDN-reminiscent again. Distorted synths come in and it's all quite intense. Goes into an outro environment of rain, reversed sounds and dramatic, synth strings. Fades to almost silence, for the side-flip, but I think the digital version is technically gapless still, with a minuscule crossfade into...
In Solitude We Are Least Alone (Waltz) - Unsurprisingly the version from Mind Maps 2 and the NFT. Piano and violin from the original, given a more electronic arrangement. Female wordless vocals in the second half. I'm still not sure how I feel about versions of the same track appearing on two different albums, although this is more FSOL and less Amorphous, so I'm immediately more disposed towards it.
Frozen Light - Stuttering breakbeats, really gorgeous synth arpeggios and pads. Beautiful, immediately my favourite track now. Choral sounds. "Wait!"
Informal Horizon - Field recordings from the first track seem to still be present, recurring as a theme throughout the album. Back into IDM territory again here, this reminds me a little of early Locust records, very dark ambient techno. Reminiscent of some of the heavier Calendar Album material.
Ephemeral - Starts with some dark synth pads, but moves into Pemberton piano work around the minute mark. These E7 Pemberton tracks feel much more electronic than the previous Views collabs; this one has pulsing synths and chopped up pianos. Lovely stuff.
All This Has Happened Before - More piano chords, although these don't feel like Pemberton. Deep bass, thudding live drums, electric violin. This one has Gaz written all over it, very heavy proggy Amorphous vibes. This is really great, like a darker and more melancholic take on the Amorphousy material on Environment 6.5. Think there's a sound from 'Hallucination' in there (or something Dead Citiesy), the first '90s sound I've noticed on this album so far. I could honestly listen to an album of this kind of thing. Outro environment of gurgling sounds and hisses.
How Forests Think - Tinny drum machines, hypnotic synth arps, lots of weird noises going on in here. Voicemails! "Helicopter, £450..." An odd choice for the end of the vinyl album, but FSOL album closers have often been unusual.
Mangy Burger - The third Bandcamp preview and another that's a strange choice as it's another fairly minimal piece. Single kick drum, lots of textural sounds, some synth pads, chopped up acoustic guitar note. It's a good atmospheric piece in context of the album, but... let's say it's not exactly single material. Also that title...
A Stationary Air Mass - More ambience, reverberating glitches and hi-hats, slowly a mid-tempo acoustic drum loop and some pensive melodic stuff. EMS sweeps for the first time in a while. Chunky beats bring back that ISDN sound again, with some dubby delay. Noisy synths, some electric guitar noise, then wobbly synth pads and pianos bring in a much brighter, warmer sound. A very strange beast, but definitely a beast.
Exists to Remove Doubt - Track from 47:02 into Mind Maps 2. A hint of 2016-2019 sound here, very bleepy, some crunchy and clicky beats. A brief brighter moment as a breather just before the final track. "Can you hear us? Answer us! Follow my voice..."
Sophies Path - Track for Brian's cat. Synth pads, arps and melodies. Very dramatic, ending the album on an incredibly sad note. This is a much stronger album closer than 'How Forests Think'. Some of the synths here are heavily reminiscent of the more melodic Synthi A material, lovely old analogue sequences. Really beautiful stuff, another highlight. Closing environment of birdsong heavily reminiscent of the very start of the album, bringing things nicely full circle.
On the whole, it's not quite as different from
Rituals as I was expecting, stylistically, with a similar mix of chunky breaks, IDM and ambient textures, but the overall mood is somewhat different. It feels less claustrophobic, much airier, if still retaining a certain darkness. There's a nocturnal feel, and the closest I'm getting, atmosphere-wise, is maybe the very first
Environments album; for me that always had the feeling of being outdoors, at night, maybe on some alien planet, and that's quite similar here. Stylistically it's obviously very different, but tonally I think the two are comparable.
The main difference from Rituals, I think, is the real lack of the shorter bleepy tracks that were familiar from the E6/6.5 era. That sound feels like it's gradually been phased out, with more emphasis on Humanoid-style hectic IDM and more live sounding drums again.
I have to say, I immediately prefer it to Rituals, which I never quite got into the way some people have. This one is slightly more melodic and spacious sounding, so it's automatically going to be more my kind of thing, but I think it's very slightly more consistent, too, lacking some of the slightly jarring tonal shifts that Rituals had.
Favourite tracks: Embodied Cognition, Temporal Aliasing, All This Has Happened Before.
Least favourite: Exists to Remove Doubt.
nanio tine wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 3:29 pm
not very taken with the three preview tracks, pretty but very much on the cold minimal side. might try and track down a copy online somewhere before buying tbh.
Someone on Facebook said similar, and I'd say the preview tracks are baffling choices, the three most minimal and uncharacteristic pieces.