This is very interesting. In the '90 FSOL made some of the most groundbreaking electronic music, so when I picked up their 2002 album "The Isness" I expected some breakbeat driven techno with ambient interludes and creative sampling. "We Have Explosive" is one of my most beloved tracks from my '90s childhood. "The Isness" is nothing like that at all. It is '60s style psychedelic music; at some point FSOL finished their mollies and got a bunch of 'cid. They also made friends with a veritable city of musicians, employing a whole orchestra of strings and horns, guitars, sitars, and a gospel choir. Regardless of my expectations, I will be having a dose of whatever FSOL has on hand because they have created a fantastic album of pastoral psychedelia.
The opener, Elysian Feels hearkens back to their days of samplers and synths, but it dissolves and gives way to the mello hippo disco show which is not disco at all. The lyrics are decent throughout the album, bordering on the dumb but lines like "he's feeling kind of low low/ thinks her life is go go/ but it's so so slow/ he's screaming for the do-do" and "while you're here miss medicinal/ well I think you're cuticle/ so beautiful" can be forgiven when they're woven into these electroacoustic soundscapes.
Consider the mammoth epic The Galaxial Phamaceutical. Electronic effects wash over acoustic guitar and horns, giving way to Beatles-style vocalizing over piano chords, building up again, and so on, all the way to the edge of the universe. It is notable that none of the album comes off as forced or hokey, especially given it's aspirations. A song like "Divinity" could easily come off wrong, with it's hey-na-na-nas and sitar, but FSOL crafts a gorgeous epic.
I suppose it is my bunx, but I never really regarded '90s electronic groups like The Chemical Brothers, FSOL, The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, etc as songsmiths. I figured that they could create danceable party jams, but I didn't bother to keep up with the bands catalogs past the turn of the century. I thought that they would be turning out more of the same beats; much of their previous works haven't aged so well. It turns out that FSOL and The Chemical Brothers (I don't know about the Prodigy, nor Fatboy Slim) have come a long way and matured quite well.
The only caveat is whether one is in the mood for trippy hippy music. The album feels positively massive at an hour and change due to the the sheer density of the music. Rather than sitting to listen to the whole album, I've been enjoying it in increments, listening to a half at a time. I haven't had the chance to dose up to this album, or even to accompany the album with a bong pull, but I feel the album is ideal for drug use.
I'll find somewhere to upload some mp3s and share those, otherwise find an inexpensive way to acquire this album because it is good to have around, especially with fall approaching.
