This is probably the one you’ve not heard of. I’d go so far as to say it’s the most overlooked record in the band’s entire catalogue. The project began with a library music album by Cranium Pie’s Robin Appleton, working under the name Tripletone. The album, The Researched Remix, contains 23 remixes of Appleton’s tracks by Brian, Gaz and Will White. The four then continued with the project, working together as Ai – standing for Audio Intelligence – to create an original album. This is that album.
At least one bio suggests that it’s just Robin, Brian and Will, suggesting Gaz’s contributions are minimal and possibly more on the curatorial end of things, but he’s credited as a songwriting on all 17 tracks. The sound is somewhat reminiscent of ’90s downtempo music, with mellow breakbeat loops and plenty of synth pads and arpeggios; there are occasional moments which are reminiscent of Environmental, but on the whole it’s fairly smooth sounding, without the textures or atmospheres one would expect from a FSOL album. There are some excellent tracks on the album, but it sounds strangely anonymous a lot of the time, and is not an album I return to regularly. Given the project’s library music origins, it’s not hard to imagine a lot of these tracks being used as incidental music in TV and film.
The album was released on Blurred Recordings, a label specialising in music for licensing, so although not technically a library music album in the strictest sense, it operates in a similar area. Despite the album’s low-key nature, it actually garnered more press attention than FSOLDigital releases, with articles previewing tracks in XLR8R and Clash.
Release date: 23rd June 2017.
Tracklist
1. A Cyclic Experience
2. Tripeezer
3. Orkney Heights
4. Bakterial
5. Primal Recurrence
6. Elders of Tokthe
7. CCCP Street
8. Opiate Technician
9. Tonto Equation
10. Wurld of Change
11. So High I Can Reach the Sky
12. Quartz Machines
13. Paradigmension
14. Silicon Repose
15. Organic Circuit
16. Resist Not
17. Cyclyptic
Fractional Difference 