Library Music

Since 2008, alongside their main releases, Brian and Gaz, sometimes working with others, have provided a significant amount of music to music libraries for licensing. Most of this has never received an ‘official’ release, with high res files only given to companies licensing the tracks (this hasn’t stopped fans ripping the mid quality previews, of course), although a handful have since been given wider releases on streaming and digital services. I don’t consider these part of the official FSOL ‘canon’, but as they are still Dougans / Cobain compositions, thought it would be worth looking at them here. Apparently there’s at least one collection out there that fans have yet to find.

The first we heard about the band’s library music escapades was through a forum post by longtime member Rontxo in 2007, with his discovery of four X Series collections from the library music company Extreme Music Library, each containing a handful of Dougans / Cobain compositions among pieces by other artists. Several of these are alternate edits of existing tracks under different names, with a few exclusives in there.

Acid Breaks (Deep-Raved Ghetto-Tech Toxication) (XCD139)

The X Series collection with the most Dougans / Cobain tracks, and the most exclusives.

Tracks:
Jaw Breaker. A shorter alternate take of ‘Speed Ball‘
Roid Rage. Noisy distorted synths, guitar samples and breakbeats. Performed at the BLOC festival show as ‘Proggy’. Probably from the 1997 sessions.
Big Max. More psychedelic-esque breakbeat, with distorted synths and acoustic guitar chords, my guess is this is an early Isness outtake.
Fly & Mash. Acid, with rave whistles, probably recorded around the same time as ‘Hardhead‘.
Skunk Junk. An extended version of ‘5 Months 5 Acres‘.
Touching Bass. A slightly edited version of ‘Yashica‘.
Swelter Skelter. Indescribably weird, with chopped up breaks, brass samples and bizarre synths, and a vaguely hip-hop vibe. Sounds so little like any FSOL track that it could come from any era and I’d be as equally surprised.

Deep Chill (Submerged Drippiest Trippiest Psytronica) (XCD140)

Tracks:
Bubble & Peak. ‘Lizzard Crawl‘. Because ‘Lizzard Crawl’.
Ice Stage. An edit of ‘Cellular Control‘.
Unreality Check. An extended version of ‘Out of Sync Child‘.
Acid Drop. A heavily sample-based 1997 track, giving an idea of what the ambient end of the potential psychedelic FSOL album might have sounded like. Guitar, bass, organ and lots of effects.

Psychedelic Air (Heretical Kaleidoscopic Sci-Fidelic Soundfields) (XCD141)

Tracks:
Eerie Query. An edit of ‘A Corner‘.
Polar Rise. An edit of ‘Journey to the Center‘.
Tinted Love. An edit of ‘Iseum‘.
Stark Tower. An extended, but not full-length, version of ‘She Fell Backwards‘.
Dead Ringer. A stunning two minute piece for strings, piano and harp. This was often hoped to be part of the band’s new modern classical direction around 2009, but has sadly remained elusive ever since.

Dark Trance (Sinister Electro-Slithered Guerrilla Scorefare) (XCD142)

Tracks:
Sable Empire. A 1992 track which has since been broadcast under the name ‘Eleven Hot Knives’, but remains unreleased.
Dearth Control. An alternate take of ‘Plasmatik‘.
Airless Whisper. Fast, atmospheric trance, either late Passion Music or early Virgin era but probably 1992.
Blindside Bizarro. Another 1992 track, much faster than the others, but with the same use of atmospheric synth pads and dance beats.
Deja Boo. Acoustic guitar loops and breakbeat samples. The dubby samples suggest it dates from the Metropolis sessions.

The following year, two more Extreme Music compilations were released, featuring further tracks by Brian and Gaz, this time eschewing archived pieces.

Dirty Breaks (Caustic Electro-Contaminated Evil Beats) (XCD148)

Tracks:
Partial Law. A brief piece for acoustic guitar, synth distortion and breakbeats. Probably considered too electronic and jarring for an appearance on an Amorphous Androgynous album.
Seven Shades. An alternate mix of ‘Man is a Virus in Shoes‘.
Road 2 Ruin. Slow breakbeats and squeaking synth loops, with flute and guitar samples.

Chaos (XTW/006)

This set features two brief solo tracks by Brian.

Tracks:
Karakatoa. Breakbeats, acid synths, further distorted synths.
Ecstatic Interference. Abstraction, chopped up sounds, reversed beats, acid synths.

In 2009, Pete Fowler’s Monsterism project got involved with library music on the Lo Editions label. Brian and Gaz provided tracks to two releases.

Monsterism Day (LoCD-21)

Tracks:
Good Morning Islands. ‘Mr. Sponge’s Groovy Oscillations‘.

Monsterism Night (LoCD-22)

Tracks:
Locals Only. ‘The Yage Letters‘.
Rituals and You. ‘The Hunters Moon‘.
Where in the Hedges. Field recordings, acoustic guitars, moody atmosphere.

After a few years of silence, the library releases continued in 2012 with work for the Universal Music library, working with Mikey Rowe to remix tracks originally by Andrew Britton and David Goldsmith. Blues rock remixed into breakbeats, for the most part.

Live in the Studio: Remixed (ATMOS303)

Tracks:
Corrupted Souls. Atmospheric synths and slow, reverberated drum loops.
Heavy Stomper.
Slipping Away.
Twisted Blues.
Dark Minds.
Wild Bears.
Corrupted Souls (Alternate Version). A more lively, upbeat version. with hammond organ.

2013 found them moving back to the Extreme Music X Series with this Amorphous-esque set of fuzzy instrumental rock music.

Nu Psychedelia (XMT184)

Tracks:
Coma Chameleon. Some sounds from ‘Architektur‘ in the opening.
Present Sense.
What Goes Up.
Shroom Walk. Beautiful folky strumming, piano, synths and slow drums. A rare foray into acid folk.
Warm & Fuzzy.
Happy Trails.
Contact High. Wah-guitar, tribal percussion, odd synths. Possibly a Woodlands of Old outtake.
Keep it Unreal.

2015, and an album of outtakes and alternate remixes of material from the various Cartel albums, with a mixture of more dance-friendly and atmospheric pieces. A second volume was in the works (featuring my remix), but has yet to appear.

Tracks:
White, Cobain, Dougans – Billion Breaks
Cobain, Dougans – Deep in the Haze
Appleton, Cobain, Dougans – Fever Dream
Harran, Cobain, Dougans – The Bad
Lapham, Cobain, Dougans – Last Regrets
Herbert, Cobain, Dougans – Clean Getaway. This one features rapping, in a very new an unexpected twist.
Harran, Cobain, Dougans – Hack City
Cobain, Dougans – Head Shot
Appleton, Cobain, Dougans – Looking Glass
O’Connell, Cobain, Dougans – Question of Time
Cobain, Dougans – Incommunicado
Cobain, Dougans – One Step Away
Cobain, Dougans – Blood Money
Cobain, Dougans – In the Wrong Hands
Cobain, Dougans – Where Does the Evil Go

In 2016, they were back working with Extreme Music for the latest entry in the X Series for a collection of funk and jazz inspired breaks and house tracks, credited to Brian, Gaz and Will White. Unusually, this album has since been released to digital services such as iTunes, Amazon, Spotify etc., making it the first of the band’s library releases to get a commercial release. Not much here sounds like FSOL.

Jazzstep (XCD329)

Tracks:
Dark City. Authentically jazzy.
Bad Robots
Contact Heist. Will White’s influence is obvious here, with a strong Propellerheads feel.
Radar Break
Crash Test
Moon Boot
Chunky Funky. Not in a million years would I have guessed this was FSOL-related.
Gone Phishing. Nor this.
Gone Phishing (Light)
Spazz for Jazz

The last known selection is another remix album by Robin Appleton’s Tripletone project, reworked by FSOL and Will White as Bugbeats. This led to the formation of the Ai project, and the tracks are largely built around the same commercial-sounding TV music direction. All tracks are released as full versions, and stripped back ‘underscores’. As with Jazzstep above, this album has since been released through most major digital distribution sites, making it available for fans to purchase.

Bugbeats / Tripletone – The Research Remixed

Tracks:
Albertross Meditation (Bugbeats Remix)
Digitalis Dream (Bugbeats Remix)
Emota (Bugbeats Remix)
The Good Earth (Bugbeats Remix)
I Felt (Bugbeats Remix). Beautiful modern classical ambience.
I Felt (Bugbeats Remix Alt)
The Measure of Ecology (Bugbeats Remix)
Morning Mists of Obscurity (Bugbeats Remix). This first appeared on Touched Music FSOL Night 2 as ‘Morning Mist’.
Morning Mists of Obscurity (Bugbeats Remix Alt)
Pastoral Cycle (Bugbeats Remix)
River of Thought (Bugbeats Remix)
Scratching the Telltale Heart (Bugbeats Remix)
Spectral Directions (Bugbeats Remix)