Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Evil twin of Lifeforms finally released, 16 Oct 2008
The long lost FSOL album finally gets released. Intended as the follow up to Lifeforms, until now it has remained merely a myth. Instead they chose a different direction - released ISDN and Dead Cities then vanished only to reappear as psychedelic rock band Amorphous Androgynous and scare off most of their following.
In recent years they began releasing archive compilations through their website and eventually on CD. The first few were of variable quality, lacking cohesion, Volume 4 onwards being much more serious offerings that have clearly had more time spent on them.
With Environments however they raised the bar. Musically it's a tough one to describe - almost like FSOL's take on the KLF's Chill Out. Less straight music and more samples than on Lifeforms. The samples are much much darker. Many of the sounds will be familiar to those who know and love Lifeforms, as well as the Lifeforms and Cascade EPs. The opening 5 to 10 minutes even samples some of the key melodies of Lifeforms amidst a barrage of weird noises.
Basically it comes on like an evil twin to Lifeforms. It's quite a wild sprawling ride but worth it for those with any nostalgia for early nineties electronic music. At the time I can only assume they thought it was a bit too out there to release.
Stylistically it sounds like what it surely is - the lost album between Lifeforms and ISDN, though perhaps not quite on the same level.
Equal to and threatening to surpass those however is the forthcoming "Environments 2" - a very cinematic and more song based combination of FSOL old and new - available as download from their website, and surely here soon on CD. I can't recommend it enough.
A third is in the pipeline, it seems these days that all systems are go in the FSOL camp.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
TAKING CARE OF THE ENVIRONMENT, 23 Nov 2008
The sonic boom boys are back with a beautifully recorded opus,that will have all fans of electronic music salivating,OK it doesn't have the depth of emotion that ,say,Tangerine Dream have,buit it does have soul and mysticism in abundance.
The use of samples is fantastic,Sitars weave in and out of electronic patterns that bring early seventies German Rock to mind.
These two tracks are lengthy explorations of what is achievable with synthesizers these days,the sound shifts and alters and creates mosaics of sound that meld well together admirably.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Worth the 14 year wait, 29 Oct 2008
It is important to remember that Environments was originally planned as an Amorphous Androgynous album (at the time, AA was the outlet for the band's stranger experiments), which is why Environments may initially seem slightly underwhelming in light of its most obvious comparison, Lifeforms. Most of the music here is pure ambient, with rhythmic elements only appearing for a few minutes at the end of each 'side' of the album. After the album was scrapped in the early '90s, many of the musical elements were reworked, so fans may notice melodies and moments from such favourites as Ill Flower, An End Of Sorts and Tired. It is really enjoyable to hear them in differing forms in entirely different contexts, however, fading in and out of the mire that is the rest of the album.
I use the word mire positively - this is a deeply disturbing record. Bizarre sounds, disembodied vocals, dark, uneartly synths and a range of other effects fade in and out of the mix, making the record sound a little like one of the band's 1994 ISDN broadcasts, but more finely honed: everything here sounds gorgeous.
Was it worth the 14 year wait? Yes. An entirely new FSOL world finally opened up, and one to rank alongside the band's other full-lengths.
Even more excitingly, this is the first in a series of Environments albums now being put together by FSOL, with future volumes promising to be just as ambient as this. After everyone had thought the band were dead, it appears they were only taking a well deserved rest.
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