Released on:
Dead Cities
Teachings from the Electronic Brain (The Best of FSOL)
Runtime: 5:44 (Dead Cities), 4:15 (Teachings)
After a run of breakbeat and modern classical pieces, ‘Antique Toy’ returns to the IDM sound of ‘Dead Cities‘, only with much punchier beats. It’s another track where a hell of a lot of time was spent on intricately programming the drums, with layers of drum machines and samples, triggered at speed in a vaguely drill & bass kind of manner. The sound fits the title pretty well, clicking away like an old clockwork toy. Melodically, it’s quite a spooky sounding track, the playing opening plucked melody contrasting with much darker chords, and a saturated synth line that bears an Aphex Twin influence. Again, the rigid programming gives the piece a more streamlined sound, the samplers working away on the drums and allowing no room for reverbed squelches and disembodied voices for fill up the mix with a psychedelic soundbed. A stark, spiky track that is probably the coldest sounding piece on the album, and yet still hugely melodic.
The closing environment takes things into darker territory, with a voice singing “and, um, he thinks he’s very funny”, credited to being “sourced from ‘Childhood memories of Pin’ from the Philip Pin archives courtesy of PA PIN.” What does this mean?! Is it a childhood recording of Garry – usually the face behind the Pin name – talking about someone at school? I love the idea of the Philip Pin archives. PA PIN – what does the ‘A’ stand for? An otherwise unheard middle name? Bizarrely this section is described as being part of the ‘Quagmire environment’ in the credits, despite it very much being part of ‘Antique Toy’ on both the CD and LP editions. Some water splashes follow – bodies being thrown into the river? – and then there’s a doom-laden percussive piece to end; this full track, ‘War Machines’, would not be released until the From the Archives series, although it appeared on numerous ISDN transmissions; here it just exists as part of an environment. It closes side two of the LP version, and fades directly into ‘Quagmire’ on the CD edition.
Credits
Written and produced by The Future Sound of London.
Recorded at Earthbeat Studios ’96.
Engineered by Yage.
Quagmire environment ‘He thinks he’s very funny’ sourced from ‘Childhood memories of Pin’ from the Philip Pin archives courtesy of PA PIN.
Fractional Difference 