A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind

After being blown away upon first-listen to Future Sound of London’s experimental ambient epic, Lifeforms from 1994, I did a bit of digging to find more exciting sounds from the artist. I quickly discovered that the same gents from FSOL also perform under the moniker, Amorphous Androgynous with quite an expansive catalog for the project. But the real shocker was the realization that FSOL was in fact the other half of the brilliant psychedelic EP I’d ordered from DJ Food earlier this year!

The Amorphous Androgynous

DJ Food & The Amorphous Androgynous collaborated on The Illectrik Hoax EP in 2012 producing a fantastic electro-psych-rock-leftfield mix that really gets inside your skull.

It sounds as good as it looks.

I wasted no time in picking up an archive of both FSOL / Amorphous Androgynous’ extended discographies as well as a complete archive of their radio broadcasts, live mixes and anthologies, anxious to learn more about the psychedelic side project.

For those who own copies of FSOL’s primary albums, there is a treasure trove of other material in the presently-circulating lossless discographic archive and its accompanying radio broadcast collection.  The content is organized chronologically into a series of categorical subfolders thusly:

The Future Sound of London Studio Discography
The Future Sound of London – Complete Radio Broadcasts
BBC Radio 1 Essential Mixes
The Collected Electric Brain Storms
The Collected ISDN Live Transmissions
The Collected Kiss FM Transmissions
The Collected Monstrous Psychedelic Broadcasts
The Amorphous Androgynous Discography

The Future Sound of London Studio Discography:
Albums
Anthologies
EPs & Singles

Albums:
(1991) Accelerator
(1994) Lifeforms
(1995) ISDN
(1996) Dead Cities
Environments Series
From the Archives Series

Environments Series:
(2008) Environments
(2008) Environments 2
(2010) Environments 3
(2012) Environments 4

From the Archives Series:
(2007) From the Archives Vol. 1
(2007) From the Archives Vol. 2
(2007) From the Archives Vol. 3
(2007) From the Archives Vol. 4
(2008) From the Archives Vol. 5
(2010) From the Archives Vol. 6
(2012) From the Archives Vol. 7

Anthologies:
(1992) Earthbeat
(2006) Teachings From The Electronic Brain (The Best of FSOL)
(2008) By Any Other Name
(2008) FSOL Digital Mix
(2013) The FSOL Remix Anthology
(2013) The Papua New Guinea Anthology

EPs & Singles
(1993) Cascade
(1994) Expander
(1994) Lifeforms EP
(1994) Promo 500
(1995) Far-Out Son of Lung and the Ramblings of a Madman
(1996) My Kingdom
(1997) We Have Explosive
(2007) A Gigantic Globular Burst of Antistatic
(2008) The Pulse EPs

The Future Sound of London – Complete Radio Broadcasts:
BBC Radio 1 Essential Mixes
The Collected Electric Brain Storms
The Collected ISDN Live Transmissions
The Collected Kiss FM Transmissions
The Collected Monstrous Psychedelic Broadcasts

BBC Radio 1 Essential Mixes:
(1993) BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix 1
(1995) BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix 2

The Collected Electric Brain Storms:
01 Vol. 1 (2008)
02 Vol. 2 (2008)
03 Vol. 3 (2008)
04.1 Vol. 4A (2009)
04.2 Vol. 4B (2009)
0.5 Vol. 0.5 (2006)
05 Vol. 5 (2009)
06.1 Vol. 6A (2010)
06.2 Vol. 6B (2010)
07 Vol. 7 (2011)

The Collected ISDN Live Transmissions:
01 Transmission 1- (1994) ISDN Tour
02 Transmission 2- New York, 11th May 1994
03 Transmission 3- Edinburgh, 28th October, 1996
04 Transmission 4- Netherlands, 9th September 1994
05 Transmission 5- Rome, 16th May 1994
06 Transmission 6- France, 17th May 1997
07 Transmission 7- Manchester, 6th November 1996
08 Transmission 8- Los Angeles, 22nd January 1996
09 Transmission 9- London, 25th March 1997
11 Transmission 11- Berlin, 12th June 1996
14.1 Transmission 14a- Barcelona 1995 – Preshow
14.2 Transmission 14b- Barcelona 1995 – Art Future Festival
16 Transmission 16- France, 1997
[1997] ISDN Show

The Collected Kiss FM Transmissions:
Test Transmission (Pts 1-6)
Test Transmission 2 (Pts 1-6)
Transmission 1 (Pts 1-6)
Transmission 2 (Pts 1-5)
Transmission 3 (Pts 1-2)
Transmission 4 (Pts 1-6)
Transmission 5 (Pts 1-6)
Transmission 6 (Pt 1-6)

The Collected Monstrous Psychedelic Broadcasts:
A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind: 13-Episode 8 Volume Library

01 AMPBEIYM Vol. 1 (Part 1)
02 AMPBEIYM Vol. 1 (Part 2)
03 AMPBEIYM Vol. 2 (Part 1 – Paul Thomas Mix)
04 AMPBEIYM Vol. 2 (Part 2 – Annie Nightingale Mix)
05 AMPBEIYM Vol. 3
06 AMPBEIYM Vol. 4
07 AMPBEIYM Vol. 5
08 AMPBEIYM Vol. 6
09 AMPBEIYM Vol. 7 (Part 1)
10 AMPBEIYM Vol. 7 (Part 2)
11 AMPBEIYM Vol. 7 (Part 3)
12 AMPBEIYM Vol. 7 (Part 4)
13 AMPBEIYM Vol. 8

Amorphous Androgynous Discography:
1993 – Tales Of Ephidrina
2004 – The Isness & The Otherness – Disc 1 – The Isness
2004 – The Isness & The Otherness – Disc 2 – The Otherness
2005 – Alice in Ultraland
2008 – The Mello Hippo Disco Show
2008 – The Peppermint Tree & The Seeds of Superconsciousness
2014 – The Cartel Remixes
2015 – A Monstrous Psychededlic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind – The Wizards of Oz – Disc 1
2015 – A Monstrous Psychededlic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind – The Wizards of Oz – Disc 2

Similarly, DJ Food has generously made a multitude of his mixes available at djfood.org for your listening pleasure.  And NinjaTune has 37 of DJ Food’s Solid Steel mixes uncut on their Soundcloud page.

This latest musical discovery has really pushed these two libraries to the front of the line.  In the weeks ahead I’ll be further-exploring the IDM / trip-hop / dub / psychedelic / and ambient wonders of DJ Food and Amorphous Androgynous.  When I emerge from the funky depths, I’ll go on to explore FSOL’s thirty other aliases –

• Aircut
• Amorphous Androgynous
• Art Science Technology
• Candese
• Deep Field
• Dope Module
• EMS:Piano
• Heads Of Agreement
• Homeboy
• Humanoid
• Indo Tribe
• Intelligent Communication
• Mental Cube
• Metropolis
• Part-Sub-Merged
• Polemical
• Q
• Sand Sound Folly
• Semtex
• Semi Real
• Six Oscillators in Remittance
• Smart Systems
• Suburban Domestic
• T.Rec
• The Far-out Son Of Lung
• The Jazz Mags
• The Orgone Accumulator
• Unit 2449
• Yage
• Yunie
• Zeebox

…I’ve got some work ahead of me.

UPDATE: Before the end of the evening I was able to acquire the remaining stray albums and DJ sets missing from the above catalog.  Now I’ve added:

1993 – Amorphous Androgynous – Tales Of Ephidrina
1994 – Future Sound of London –  ISDN (Black Edition)
2005 – Amorphous Androgynous – Alice in Ultraland
2008 – Amorphous Androgynous – The Mello Hippo Disco Show
2008 – The Amorphous Androgynous – The Peppermint Tree & The Seeds of Superconsciousness
2013 – Amorphous Androgynous – The Cartel Vol. 1
2013 – Amorphous Androgynous – The Cartel Vol. 2
2014 – Amorphous Androgynous – The Cartel Remixes
2015 – Amorphous Androgynous – A Monstrous Psychededlic Bubble Exploding in Your Mind – The Wizards of Oz (2CD)

Playlist of the day – Kelly Watch the Stars: Downtempo Classics

Playlist of the day – Kelly Watch the Stars: Downtempo Classics.

Over 700 of the best downtempo albums ever recorded. The list includes several large discographies like the 108 albums and EPs by Lemon Jelly and 56 funky jazz break LPs and mixes by DJ Food. Several NinjaTune artists are featured, as well as a number of downtempo compilations like Hi-Fidelity Lounge, Cafe del Mar, and an archive of WRUR Rochester’s Plasmonic Lounge broadcasts.

Music to beat the heat.

Slow Music for Fast Times

This morning saw the conclusion of our latest archival project.  The world’s longest-running ambient radio program, Hearts of Space began broadcasting slow music for fast times back in 1973.  The original program was a 3-hour set, shortened to its present 1-hour format when the show began public radio syndication in 1983.

Since syndication Heats of Space has aired 1080 hour-long episodes showcasing quality ambient music each week for over 30 years.  Innerspace has successfully compiled a complete archive of the show’s broadcasts and will continue to add new episodes as they are aired.

We’ve made sure to uniformly name and tag each program and to include the original broadcast date and a companion track listing with the metadata for each episode.

Beginning next week I’ll be moving into a larger office and wanted to create a downtempo chill-out library as a relaxing ambient soundscape for my work day.  The Hearts of Space broadcasts will be added to a rotation along with other complete label archives, such as:

– the six phases from the late Pete Namlook’s ambient FAX +49-69/450464 label

– the intelligent d’n’b sounds of LTJ Bukem’s Good Looking Records and its companion projects

– the first ~150 records on the Ninja Tune label for some jazzy, downtempo electronic music

– a wonderful 330-hour audio archive of psybient albums from Simon Posford and other prominent figures of the scene

– and an additional 72-hour collection of quality psybient mixes by Spacemind

The majority of these selections are not offered by any of the major streaming networks or from current commercial markets, but Innerspace Labs has got it covered.

And you can check out Spacemind’s mixes on Youtube.  Here’s Light Reactions (Remastered)

Transformative Soundscapes – The Latest from Innerspace Labs

This week arrived two absolutely astounding additions to our library.  Each is a milestone in its own right so I’ll waste no time getting right to them.

The first is a modern classic from the legendary NinjaTune label.  Originally released in 2004, Skalpel’s self-titled double LP was repressed through beatdelete in 2013. The DJs behind Skalpel, Marcin Cichy and Igor Pudło were dissatisfied with the humdrum music of their native Poland.

“The Polish music scene is very poor at the moment. Nothing really interesting happens. The majority of music on TV and radio is kind of ‘World Idol’. Very little individuality – just copies of American music.” (interview, R4NT.com)

Their response was to create their own sound – “resurrecting the dusty & smokey spirit of polish jazz of 60s and 70s, re-imagined for 21st century audiophiles.” (NinjaTune.net)

I’d nearly pre-ordered the 2013 180g 2LP beatdelete reissue when it was announced, but had let the opportunity pass.  Thankfully, a member of one of the vinyl communities I frequent recently posted a shot of the album which inspired me to give it a second listen.  I was camping at the time, but came prepared with my Sennheiser circumaural studio monitors.  Around 11pm I laid back, closed my eyes, and lost myself to the album.  The 5-wheel camper and fold-out mattress was instantly transformed into something more like this:

By the middle of the third selection, I’d already tracked down a sealed copy and processed my payment – certain that this was an essential for my library.

Mr Tim G – my sincere thanks for re-opening my ears to this album!

 

 The second (and equally-outstanding) recording is a selection from minimalist composer, Terry Riley’s catalog.  I already have A Rainbow in Curved Air, The Church of Anthrax (with John Cale), The Ten Voices of the Two Prophets, and know very well that I need his most-celebrated work – In C.

But this particular record – Persian Surgery Dervishes, had escaped my radar.  It was only after I saw numerous copies surface among members of a social network that I decided this was something I needed to hear.

At first listen, I was completely enveloped in a wash of pulsing electric organ loops.  Each side-long track sounds as if it were an exercise in the tape loop technique developed by Riley and Pauline Oliveros (later popularized by Fripp and Eno).  However, the rapid, cyclic melodies heard on each side of the album are in reality two LIVE solo performances of Riley in LA and in Paris performing on a just-intoned Yamaha organ.  Even more astounding is that the second performance sounds far different from the first, but is simply Riley demonstrating the importance of improvisation.  The two recordings are each of the same composition.

Dervishes is beautifully meditative and is really an album you can loose yourself in.  Like most great minimalist compositions, the listener loses their sense of time and the piece becomes the atmosphere of the room.

Special thanks to all of the users who posted their copies of this exceptional record – Andrew G, Tintin E, Andrew T, Luke B, Chris A, and likely many others!

Now get lost.

The Illectrik Hoax – Waking up from a Lifelong Retromusical Hibernation

I’m feeling incredibly inspired.  It’d been a week of stagnation; I’d looked at my record collection and had said to myself, “wow… I’ve successfully built an autobiographical library of the greatest examples of each niche genre I love – downtempo electronic, avant-garde jazz, the Berlin School… and many others.  But NOW what do I do?

With the purchase of Underworld’s 20th anniversary deluxe edition of their masterwork, Dubnobasswithmyheadman, I’d come full circle to the album which first-inspired my life-long musical journey.  But something was missing.

The 20th Anniversary Box Set of Dubnobasswithmyheadman

The majority of my knowledge of electronic music focuses on early revolutionaries of the genre – the tinkerers and innovators of monstrous noise machines.  I’ve archived classic milestones from the grating clamor of Luigi Russolo to the soothing sounds of 20th century ambient music, concluding with Basinski’s soundtrack to 9/11.

But I’d really lost touch with modern music, instead obsessing over the rich and vibrant sounds of 1969-1973.  Thankfully, a siren sound lured me to the official website of DJ Food in the last few weeks, and, on a whim, I compiled an archive of his 35 Solid Steel Radio shows, and with the entire weekend ahead of me pledged to dedicate some serious listening time to these programs.

These would be the first “modern” recordings I’d heard since the dream pop halcyon revival of the late 90s and first years of the new millennium.  And with the opening minutes of the very first set, my ears piqued and I was swept away.

His “A Weird World Reader” mix is described as a trip through the recent EP ‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’ featuring tracks, samples and influences that make it what it is.  The first track is a 17 minute tour de force collaboration with The Amorphous Androgynous – a track called, “The Illectrik Hoax.”  10 minutes passed in a single breath and as the track concluded and I returned to the physical world, I leapt from my listening chair.  Locating my girlfriend and fellow music junkie, I fit my studio monitors firmly upon her ears and cued the track up a second time.  Her eyes closed and her head began to groove with the rhythm.  I paused the track asking what she thought, but her only response was a whine of discontent translating to, “play more!”

The wonderfully weird “Weird World Reader”

Minutes later I had the full album playing in my studio and was absolutely enamored by the mysterious, sci-fi soundscapes of the record.  Best-absorbed in its entirety from start to finish – this is a concept record of infectious rhythms and strange sounds which successfully transport the listener to the “Weird World” Food alluded to in the Reader mix.  Long before the end of the album, I’d searched Discogs.com for a copy and phoned my local shop to order one for my library.

The Search Engine is a 4LP set of 45RPM discs housed in a magnificent quad-gatefold sleeve.  True to DJ Food’s usual form, it features eye-popping artwork that is best-viewed in its proper 12″ format.

Discogs classifies the record as “Abstract, Breakbeat, Broken Beat, Downtempo, Experimental, Hip Hop, Leftfield music.” – effectively a mishmash of all my very favorite words.  Thank you, DJ Food for breaking me of my pretentious retomusical fanaticism, and for initiating me into the music of the now.

UPDATE: New findings reveal that the 17-minute mix is exclusive to the 2012 Record Store Day smokey psychedelic vinyl edition, limited to 1500 copies worldwide.  I’ve just tracked down a sealed copy and it’s on its way to me now.

Here’s the complete track – “The Illectrik Hoax (A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Mix by the Amorphous Androgynous.)”

A Journey into Electro-Jazz, Future Jazz, and Dark Jazz

A week ago, I finally started listening to my archive of the first 154 releases on the legendary Ninja Tune label.  From the early 90s forward, nearly every artist with a progressive electronic sound and a touch of jazzy flare was on Ninja Tune.  

I was already a fan of the big names in Future Jazz like Jaga Jazzist, Bonobo, Funki Porcini and St Germain.  The first LP I bought after being bitten by the electro-jazz bug was St Germain’s classic Tourist album on Blue Note Records.

Here’s “Rose Rouge,” a classic example of electro-jazz.

That album instantly reminded me of LTJ Bukem’s Journey Inwards double LP (released in ’00 – the same year as Tourist) so I picked up a 94-disc archive of Intelligent D’n’B records, including Bukem’s Good Looking Records label, the Earth series, and several  others.  

My favorite album from that new selection was Big Bud’s Late Night Blues, which I’ll be ordering on vinyl soon.

But as I continuted to research the Future Jazz genre, a few artists clearly stood out from the crowd.  

From Hidden Orchestra’s official profile:

Hidden Orchestra combines two live drummers and deep basslines with strong jazz and classical influences, to make cinematic, emotive, percussive, next generation music using traditional instrumentation and organic samples.

I was similarly entranced by the stripped-down rhythmic and melodic jazz loops of The Cinematic Orchestra, particularly their earlier LPs, Motion (1999) and Remixes 98-2000 (2000).

For example, listen to “Channel 1 Suite” from Motion. (A possible nod to Buddy Rich?)

Or for a taste of electronic free-jazz from the very same LP, “Blue Birds.”

And from the album, Everyday – the slow and bassy “Burn Out.”

That’s when I hit the brick wall of harsh reality surrounding the family of Future Jazz LPs –

They cost a small fortune.

What I soon learned was that Ninja Tune is a small, independent label and they pressed very limited numbers of these fantastic albums in the 90s and early 2000s.  As such, many of these discs command $50 – $150 per album if you want the real thing.

And I wanted the real thing.

But two days of searching yielded the most wonderful discovery I could have ever asked for.  There is a site called BeatDelete.com.  Think of them as a Kickstarter for all your favorite, out-of-print records.

Ninja Tune was offering all their greatest albums from the 90s to be pre-ordered for reissue on BeatDelete.  100 orders locked in the re-pressing, and then they’d take it off the site.

I couldn’t throw money at the monitor fast enough.

I locked in pre-orders for two of my favorite Cinematic Orchestra double LPs and tracked down an original copy of Remixes 98-2000 from a private seller who also had a mint copy of DJ Food’s Kaleidoscope (another of my new-found favorites from the Ninja Tune archive.)

Kaleidoscope is the magic album I hinted at in my last entry.  DJ Food samples both the Del Close & John Brent How To Speak Hip LP from ’59 and features the smokey vocal legend of the 50s and 60s – Ken Nordine.  

And that jazzy upright bass plucking you hear is Benny Golson’s “Wink” from ’67.

The “thinking man’s” track he’s introducing at the end of “Ageing Young Rebel” is the reason I had to buy this record.  Here it is – “The Crow.”

And then, I discovered darkjazz.  Call it what you will – darkjazz, doomjazz, noir jazz, funeral jazz… It’s magnificent stuff.

From last.fm:

Dark jazz is a form of modern jazz characterized by the fusion of downtempo, minimalist ambient music with jazz. The term is often used interchangeably with doom jazz, and is comparable in feel and mood to dark ambient music.

There are approximately 100 contemporary artists which fall into the category of darkjazz, but there are three names among them that you need to know: Bohren und der Club of Gore, The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation and their other half – The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble.

For those who understand silence to be the most beautiful song the in the world, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble’s 2011 LP, From the Stairwell will take your breath away.

Almost literally, in fact – as I found myself holding my breath throughout my entire first listen, perhaps from fear that my breathing might interfere with the hauntingly fragile sounds coming from my studio monitors.  The album is full of half-audible frequencies – whisper-soft percussive tones, electronic sounds who’s source the listener can scarcely place, and gently-played fragments of jazz solos which vanish as subtly as the appear.

From the Stairwell is a contender which could challenge Miles Davis’ In a Silent Way for the quietest album ever recorded.

And if The Cinematic Orchestra’s Motion is an evening in a smoke-filled jazz club, then From a Stairwell is the intoxicated alley-walk home when the night is through.

In the age of the loudness war, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble is a beacon of hope that delicate and well-produced records will survive the millennium.

Here is Kilimanjaro’s “Cocaine.”