dave walker disses FSOL:
quoted 10 lines Until yesterday, I never could quite put my finger on why everyone>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.
how odd. sometimes i find it hard to remember what their stuff sounds
like because it is so advanced... but of course after numerous
repeated listenings i can hear just about any part of "ephidrena" in
my head at will. i really don't understand all these comments about
it being sterile and just a collection of sounds - i hear melodies all
over the place. they aren't traditional forms and they aren't played
in traditional ways but they are in there. i'd say the fault lies
with the listener, not the creators. perhaps FSOL is just
too... well... *futuristic* for the people on this list (i'm not
singling you out dave) who claim that they want to hear the future of
music but in actuality prefer a thumpin' 909, some gratuitous weird
noises, and a few simple synth lines around it. i've noticed a
tendency when dissing FSOL to say "well, i really liked Papua New
Guinea, but this new stuff just doesn't work for me." PNG is a very
accesible tune in a standard format that just happens to have a few
really well chosen (and integrated) samples. in the Mixmag interview
i transcribed a while ago they noted that they had plenty of tracks of
that sort of stuff lying around but they preferred to challenge
themselves and their listeners by doing something *different*. there
was a comment on the list earlier about how someone was disappointed
by the aphex twin "on" single since it was similar to other aphex
works.
quoted 4 lines beyond "Papua New Guinea", no FSOL track has ever done that for me>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.)
it's more similar to AA than PNG, yes.
quoted 3 lines I don't *dislike* FSOL -- indeed, they're quite pleasant enough to>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
well, i couldn't disagree more. if FSOL have a fault, and you did
mention this, it is that their music is sometimes abstract and
intellectual to a fault. as you said - it engages the head but not
the heart. well, if you can listen to "mountain goat" and not be
affected, then i guess we don't have much musical language in common.
and before giving up on them for good, check out their Curve remix.
even people who don't like "cascade" think it's excellent.
Jon Drukman jdrukman%dlsun87@oracle.com
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This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.