On Sun, 20 Feb 1994, Jon Drukman wrote:
quoted 7 lines I'll just say that I don't see anyone who is pushing harder on the> >I'll just say that I don't see anyone who is pushing harder on the
> >experimental front, and although I see lots of people saying "He's not
> >that new and exciting" I haven't heard any other suggestions. Who am I
> >missing?
>
> Future Sound Of London.
>
OK, as long as we're lining all of the sacred cows up
against the wall and firing dum-dum bullets into them,
I'll have to pipe in with my gripes about FSOL.
Until yesterday, I never could quite put my finger
on why everyone else seemed to be a lot more impressed
with their material than me. In the course of
some intensive Sunday afternoon loafing, I put
on Amorphous Androgynous' _Tales of Ephidrina_, and
_tried_ to listen to it closely. No matter how
hard I tried to concentrate on it, I kept being drawn
back to the much more interesting issue of _the New
Yorker_ sitting on my coffee table. As pretty and
impressive as Dougans' and Cockbain's material tends
to be, it almost never *engages* me -- I might as
well be listening to a 40 minute sample CD. Sure,
it sounded nice, but when it ended I had a real
hard time remembering what I'd just listened to, so
much so that I had to put the Hang-Ups' "Comin' Through"
EP on to remind me that is _is_ possible for music
to engage the head and heart at the same time (and
sometimes the ass too -- props to Vapourspace)... beyond
"Papua New Guinea", no FSOL track has ever done that for
me (though I will admit to not having heard "Cascade"
yet -- the descriptions lead me to believe it's probably
more of the same, though.)
I don't *dislike* FSOL -- indeed, they're quite pleasant
enough to listen to, but at this point I've got about
as much background music as I think I'll ever need, which
is perhaps why my recent IDM purchases have been on the
harder/more "foreground" end of the spectrum: X103, UR,
CJ Bolland, etc., and why I'm (gasp) starting to
buy a few rock records again.
| Dave Walker, Detroit Art Services (DAS) |
| "I don't read, I just guess" |
| marmoset@msen.com -Happy Mondays, "Wrote For Luck" |