www.futuresoundoflondon.com/
The Future Sound Of London are Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain, one of the most influencial and outstanding electronic acts of the last 20 years.
The band met while working in a bar in Manchester in 1985 or 1986, depending on which interview you read. Brian had moved to Manchester from his hometown of Glasgow to study sound engineering. A fan of the industrial and the electronic end of post-punk, he came from an entirely different music perspective to Cobain, who moved from his quiet life in Bedford to study electronics in the city that gave the world Factory Records and The Smiths: your typical 80s Brit indie kid. A friendship formed and they began considering making music together, working the clubs, introducing each other to sounds and substances.
In 1988, Brian embarked on a project for the Stakker graphics company with his friend Mark McClean. He created a track called 'Stakker Humanoid', which was accompanied by the now infamous Eurotechno video. Garry got involved with the Humanoid project and its accompanying album, featuring soulful vocal house and a couple more acid house cuts. Brian's solo work throughout the '80s was extensive but largely unreleased, the Humanoid album and accompanying singles aside.
When Stakker Humanoid collapsed amid a still-hushed legal battle, the two joined forces properly and began to create music as a duo in their newly created Earthbeat Studio in the Dollis Hill area of London - or many duos. Smart Systems, Yage, Indo Tribe, Mental Cube, Yunie, AST - the names were many, and each name brought a different approach to composition and production, covering all bases of then contemporary dance music. With 'Stakker Humanoid' re-entering the chart in 1992, followed by the breakthrough ambient dub track 'Papua New Guinea' (the first full "Future Sound Of London" release), the pair became of interest to the wider music industry, and the major labels came running. A series of bizarre interviews - including getting record company execs to sit on a soaking wet chair - whittled the list down to Virgin Records, who became the band's new label. Their original label, Jumpin' & Pumpin', gave debut album Accelerator an overdue push at the time - but it was already out of date.
Taking advantage of the larger company's less restrictive thoughts and budget, Dougans and Cobain immediately lurched into experimentalism with their Tales Of Ephidrina album under the Amorphous Androgynous alias. Released on their own Virgin spinoff Quigley, the album was a link between the techno FSOL of old and the organic sound the band became most known for.
www.secondthought.co.uk/fsol/
31 июл 2013
