2007 was a monumental year in FSOL history, with the first proper new releases under the name in a decade. It was a hugely exciting time to be a fan, and although a lot of the music went under the radar of the general public, due to the largely DIY approach of release, Greece’s Freeze Magazine conducted one of the most in-depth interviews in the band’s career in promotion of the new FSOLDigital site. The issue came with a covermount CD entitled FSOL Digital Mix, a 40 minute mix including 17 tracks: 12 previously released, and five previewing upcoming releases. 16 of the tracks only exist as snippets, running between one and three minutes, but the mix does an excellent job at previewing the then-current FSOLDigital catalogue, with highlights from the first four From the Archives albums, A Gigantic Globular Burst of Anti-Static, ‘A Tiny Point of Light‘, The San Monta Tapes, Your Body Robotic, By Any Other Name and Hand-Made Devices. The tracks are linked by environments, including snippets of released tracks (‘Globular’ opens the mix), as well as some exclusive material, such as a a beautiful haunting piano section at the end of ‘Globular’.
“The Future Sound of London. You are listening to a mix from FSOLDigital, The Future Sound of London’s online store. FSOLDigital.com.” This is the first appearance of a sting announcing FSOLDigital.
The most exciting thing at the time was the amount of exclusive material on the disc. Having a year’s worth of electronic music was a bit of a palette cleanser, and the upcoming Amorphous album The Peppermint Tree was greeted with enthusiasm, and the appearance of a track from another forthcoming Amorphous record, Amorphic Archives, was more to be excited about. Of even more note, the tracklist was the first announcement for an upcoming FSOL release: Environments 2. Nobody was quite expecting that. The disc is now quite rare, being from a limited run of magazines, but thankfully the full mix was later released as a download on FSOLDigital, with the complete interview in Flash format as a nice bonus. It remains the only place to get the snippet of ‘KattaPilla’ and the full ‘Five Six Five’, the Environments 2 track that ended up not appearing on the album. As a listening experience, the mix is fairly inessential, not having any real singular atmosphere throughout, with Amorphous, electro-house remixes of Humanoid and FSOL ambience all jostling for pride of place. Collectors will want to track it down, however, for the two exclusives and the brief exclusive environments between some of the tracks.
The cover features Sheuneen’s face, obscured by lightning and the splatter effect seen in a couple of previous FSOLDigital booklet images; the band name is once again in mixed case. The rear features a shot of what looks like a temple in a field. EBV and FSOLDigital exploding head logos are present. The disc art is the same photograph as the rear cover, and states the title as FSOLDigital Mix. Many of the titles in the tracklist are truncated – The Archive Vol. 1, Peppermint Tree and Seeds and so on – and intriguingly, the alias tracks are credited to both Brian and Gaz, despite Polemical clearly being Brian’s solo project.
Release date: 13th February 2008.
Tracklist
1. The Future Sound of London – Lizard Crawl
2. The Future Sound of London – Long Shadow
3. The Future Sound of London – Brujo
4. The Future Sound of London – Globular
5. The Amorphous Androgynous – Tiny Space Birds
6. The Amorphous Androgynous / FSOL / Dianne Harris – A Tiny Point of Light
7. The Amorphous Androgynous – Oblivion
8. Heads of Agreement – La Veshter Au Ombre
9. Mental Cube – Sightings
10. Humanoid – Stakker Humanoid (Feadz 2007 Mix)
11. Humanoid – Stakker Humanoid (PRM Mix)
12. The Future Sound of London – Plazmatic
13. Polemical – Mos Son
14. Polemical – Iseum
15. The Amorphous Androgynous – Peppermint Tree
16. The Amorphous Androgynous – Katta Pilla
17. The Future Sound of London – Five Six Five
Credits
Written by Dougans / Cobain.
‘Stakker Humanoid’ mixes written by Dougans.
Artwork & photography – Buggy G Riphead.
Published by Westbury Music Publishing Ltd.
Fractional Difference 