Following the success of a number of excellent digital download charity compilations, Martin Boulton took a bolder step in 2019, and organised the physical equivalent, resulting in an 11 CD boxset called Touched by Silence, including albums by Scanner, Drøn, Mick Chillage, Locust, Anders Ilar, Joel Tammik, Autumn of Communion, Eric “The” Taylor and, of course, FSOL. The final two discs are various artists compilations, including the debut track by Apertures, my musical project with Brian (more on that later).
There’s been some debate about quite what FSOLDigital Presents A Controlled Vista actually is. Is it a new album? A mix? A compilation? I suppose it’s something of a blend of the three. With tracks by FSOL, Yage, Humanoid and Synthi A, it’s certainly not a conventional album, and presented as a single 49 minute track, with numerous answerphone messages appearing throughout, it feels quite a lot like a radio transmission. Only released as a CD, and later, an LP. It was only when working on this blog that I spotted that several passages from the mix originate on the Touched Music FSOL Night 3 exclusive mix, making it seem like a development of that. Ultimately, I tend to consider the Controlled Vista releases – and their successors in the Mind Maps series – as mixes rather than albums, and thus I’ll be treating them as such. So no actual track-by-tracks, but a rundown in the description, followed by a tracklist.
The mix opens quite jarringly, with percussion and flute, feeling very much like we’ve just tuned in halfway through a mix. ‘I Can’t Find You’ fades in, with acoustic drums and gurgling synth noises, overlaid with classic transmission style answerphone messages over the top (including someone stating the title, and the “how come you’re never around anymore?” sample from ‘The Galaxial Pharmaceutical‘). After the track closes, there’s a lengthy environment with sounds from ‘Life Form Ends‘, windscreen wipers, scraping metal, guitar chords and some of the ‘Glacier‘ woodwind. “You are entering audio copyright zone three,” announces the Earthbeat Central Computer, reminding us that this is indeed a mix. A jazzy piece by FSOL and Dan Pemberton follows, first heard on the 15 minute mix created for Touched Music FSOL Night 2. Further answerphone messages appear in the second half, including one warning the band not to tell anyone about a couple of deals on the cards at the time. Several “Future Sound of London” stings appear, along with samples from ‘Papua New Guinea‘ and ‘Hidden Sign‘. ‘Closure’, a minimal glitchy percussive piece is up next, with sounds from ‘You’re Creeping Me Out‘ played over the top. This fades into an environment of quiet chanting and barking dogs, with an “FSOLDigital” ident over the top. This gradually continues into the textural ambient of ‘You Will Forget About Me’. It’s all pretty dark, in line with the development of the band’s sound, although extended environment sections like this are a welcome change after some very conventionally structured tracks of late. Another environment, with some EMS sounds, as well as synths from ‘Globular‘, follows, having been also heard on the Planet Earth mix from the same time.
“Man has been created as the ultimate organic weapon,” a movie quote from The Guyver, heard regularly in the early ’90s, announces a chunky IDM track called ‘Organic Weapon’. Then there’s a reworked version of the ‘Vit‘ opening environment to take us further back into the ’90s. The first non-FSOL track of the mix is Yage’s ‘Subtle Cause’, although the name is unusual as it shares little in common with other Yage tracks of the 21st century, with analogue synths, digital percussion and a warm, major key feel. These two Yage pieces were first heard together on the Touched Music FSOL Night 3. ‘Vit’ environments continue over the top, and Deepak Chopra speech adds a touch of Amorphous to proceedings; the following environment’s car sample is a further Amorphous moment. ‘Across 82’, the second Yage piece, is a dark ambient piece with bagpipes and lo-fi synths, once again seemingly at odds with the project’s usual sound; further use of the ‘Life Form Ends’ whooshes keep the Lifeforms mood present. A woman asks questions, backed by disembodied laughter, and suddenly the atmosphere brightens a lot with Humanoid’s ‘Tiny Machine Birth’, a bouncy piece of glitchy IDM with playful, innocent synths, and a long way from any previous Humanoid track. Chopped up spoken word overlays the track, with bagpipes and synth bubbles; these then continue throughout FSOL’s ‘Optical Overspill’, an unusually structured piece of thick ambient textures and occasional jazzy drum fills.
“A new kind of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and ascend toward higher levels.” This Einstein quote accompanies strings from ‘The Wheel of Life‘. A quiet environment of looped field recordings follows, and then there’s a brief Humanoid-style slab of noise, followed by the Earthbeat Central Computer: “You are listening to a test transmission for new form of information transfer. Not only are you receiving audio, but you are also receiving image and text data. Test transmission begin. Start programme. Please stand by for visual data 1.” More answer machine messages follow, and then in comes an uncharacteristically upbeat piece Synthi A, with the bouncy, major key ‘Rivers Over Roads’. The final Yage track is another ambient piece with answer phone messages over the top. An environment of reversed guitars and field recordings continues the ambience through to ‘Slope/5/a’, a brief IDM piece by FSOL.
After a brief synth drone environment, ‘Control Vista’ begins. Clearly the piece the mix is named after, it’s curiously nothing to do with the Filter and Pulses/FSOL:Digitana track of the same name. Instead, it’s a breezy atmospheric track for airy synths, gated voice samples and an excellent drum break, falling somewhere between Environments series ambience and Blackhill Transmitter chunky percussion. Classic FSOL-style female vocal samples create an eerie – and lengthy – environment linking it to the next track, ‘Mass Made’, another Humanoid piece on the more skittery, atmospheric end of things as opposed to anything approaching acid. The mix closes on ‘The Old Coastal Path’, a cold electronic track from FSOL, containing analogue synth pads, lo-fi drum machines and reversed sounds, with a wonderfully yearning feeling throughout. It’s my favourite piece on A Controlled Vista, and a wonderful way to end.
Touched by Silence was made available to order on 13th December 2019, but with A Controlled Vista only available as a CD – ie no download – it wasn’t actually available to hear until the CDs shipped in March 2020. A digital edition appeared on FSOLDigital at the end of the month, with a 12″ picture disc LP version being released on Touched Revolutions at the end of the year. This vinyl release was launched with Touched Music FSOL Night 4. The CD edition features a tree image and tracklist by The Designers Republic; for the LP edition, an image featuring an airport runway and some out of focus, lo-fi text of the band name, titles, and, in reverse, the phrase “safety film” brings to mind the 1970s-oriented feel of the Electric Brain Storms series, with a photo of the Digitana on the B-side. This version features design contributions from Grid Pattern. The digital edition replaces most of the text with the five logos, with the band name and title overlaying each other in the top left hand corner.
For quite a while, I found this a difficult listen, and I’ve since realised that it was because I was going in expecting a traditional album. It’s absolutely not: there’s no distinct atmosphere or place conjured by the tracks, and the combination of modern tracks with 1990s environments and regular answer phone messages is a major factor. Taken as a mix, however, I’m able to enjoy it a lot more. It’s varied and contains no weak tracks, and pleasingly mixed as a single gapless experience. It does occupy a slightly strange world, a halfway house between Environmental and a 3D Headspace Tour transmission in terms of both sound and atmosphere, but it just about works, and is probably one of my favourite mixes of the FSOLDigital era.
Release date: 9th March 2020 (CD), 30th March 2020 (Download), 11th December 2020 (LP)
Tracklists
00:00 The Future Sound of London – I Can’t Find You
04:32 The Future Sound of London / Daniel Pemberton – Offers on the Table
09:57 The Future Sound of London – Closure
14:19 The Future Sound of London – You Will Forget About Me
16:30 The Future Sound of London – Organic Weapon
19:36 Yage – Subtle Cause
20:56 Yage – Across 82
22:30 Humanoid – Tiny Machine Birth
25:39 The Future Sound of London – Optical Overspill
28:27 The Future Sound of London – A Type of Thought
30:40 Synthi A – Rivers Over Roads
34:51 Yage – Tower City North
36:53 The Future Sound of London – Slope/5/a
38:24 The Future Sound of London – Control Vista
42:55 Humanoid – Mass Made
46:36 The Future Sound of London – The Old Coastal Path
49:22 Transmission end
CD (T1000)
1. A Controlled Vista
LP (TR303)
A. A Controlled Vista Side 1
B. A Controlled Vista Side 2
Digital download
1. A Controlled Vista Side 1
2. A Controlled Vista Side 2
Credits
Written by Dougans / Cobain (CD).
Written and produced by Dougans / Cobain (LP).
‘Offers On the Table’ written by Pemberton / Dougans / Cobain (LP).
Engineered by Yage (CD).
Produced by FSOL (CD)
Mixed by Yage for EbV 2019 (Digital).
Recorded at 9L West Studios (Digital).
Published by FutureSong Publishing.
Design by FSOL/Grid Pattern (LP).
MITDR (CD).
Fractional Difference 