The Future Sound of London - From the Archives, Vol. 1

The first of a three volume collection of songs spanning the band's 25 year recording career including singles, album tracks, remixes and previously unreleased recordings from FSOL's archives. 17 tracks including 'Lizzard Crawl', 'Field Of Flowers', 'Environments', 'Wet Pavement' and many more. Jumpin' Pumpin'. 2007. Album Description

!fsolid!

Wow, impressive stuff here, and why shouldn't it be? This is FSOL after all, but after some lackluster reviews for the previously unreleased "Environments" lp, I was skeptical this could be just a hodgepodge of rough sketches. Instead we have a very strong, solid release, not quite as lush and airy as Life Forms, yet not as sad and dark as "Dead Cities". I wouldn't call this ambient music, or IDM for that matter. There are plenty of samples and beats and layers of exotic, electronic and organic sound, composed and produced expertly.

This is indeed a long-player, great for long drives. I wouldn't mind some tracks be shortened some however, but this stuff comes from a time, not so long ago, when it was okay to be a bit more indulgent and let the groove go on a while.

I'm amazed at how prolific this duo was and still is, and I can see why they've moved on to explore a more "organic", psych-rock sound, since they truly exhausted much of what was possible with this type of music, leaving no stone unturned. This first volume could be a lost FSOL lp, fitting nicely between ISDN and Cities perhaps. After this, I indeed look forward to tracking down and listening to the other three volumes. July 31, 2008

finally a good "from the vaults...."

Wow! for true FSOL fans, this is a must have. there are LOTS of nuggets on all these Archives series. This is mostly ISDN/Lifeforms era stuff, not the lame psychedelic late era junk.
I bought all three, and I can't tell which one is the best, but a day later at least a third of the entire trilogy was on my mp3 player. With very limited space, I had no qualms making space for it.
Enjoy! September 27, 2007

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