the amorphous androgynous - alice in ultraland
coming out of the cold of independent releases and total version chaos (how many versions of the bands last album 'the isness' were there - i got completely lost with it all!), the alterego of the future sound of london re-establish themselves on a major label, appropriately their new paymasters, emi, have dropped this release onto their revived harvest imprint. a classic prog era label that denoted a certain otherness about their releases, which having heard this 70 minute homage to all things 70's and ambient rock seems perfect.
of course, the last time i heard from fsol was on their scary urban nightmare 'dead cities' where the beats were large, and all manner of unpleasantness permeated the atmosphere.
but that was then ..
this time around, the music is full of joy, charm, and humanity. lots of natural world instruments sit alongside the bands trademark futuristic surroundings, the result of which is possibly the best ambient space rock album of 2005. there are, of course, many clichés of the genre dropped in across the 14 tracks, the excessive use of sitars, wah wah guitars, rich hammond organs, flutes, bird noises, slide guitar etc which were used to death in the mid-90's ambient boom, but amazingly this time around they band have refreshed the sample library and managed to make the results sound as fresh yet lovingly familiar as well. and yes, there are elongated passages where little happens other than lots of studio made swooshes, crashing piano chords, and headphone thrilling effects. but, where things step aside from the usual sonic pleasures is that this album contains songs ! proper songs. where they (pictures on the website indicate that this version of the band consists of 4 long haired time travellers) let loose with the pink floyd styled guitars, while adding a little baggy primal scream/rolling stones groove and generally sound to be having a funky led zepplin styled blast in the studio, especially during 7 minutes of album highlight, 'the wicthfinder'.
as with several other bands that do the psychedelic thing (dukes of the stratosphere especially), the urge to drop in a quirky little pop song, with excessively surreal lyrics, obviously became to large to ignore, and so we get 'in the summertime of consciousness', 4 minutes of chucklesome parody. i suspect fans of 'Papua new guinea' will recoil in abject horror, personally i love this revelation of humour and fun.
alongside the songs though, is a very live sounding album (albeit heavily processed through the trademarked fsol epic production technique), where pianos are played, acoustic guitars are strummed, electric guitars are solo'd and backward masked, harmonicas appear in the distance, tablas are rattled delicately while chimes are reverbed to maximum effect, saxophones honk, which all may sound ridiculous, but the music is melody rich, and on the whole beautifully laid back ( i aint using that c word in this rundown). thankfully, the album doesn't drift off too far onto the path of self indulgence, so 'alice in ultraland' ends up being hugely enjoyable for anyone who has enjoyed a soundtrack of mike oldfield, pink floyd, led zepplin, yes, the orb, klf and so on.
making this album a perfect way to spend 70 minutes when you need to avoid the realities of the new information overloaded world. so, i recommend switch off the internet connection, cancel that sky subscription, hide the remote controls, put on the headphones and immerse yourself in an album that rejoices in its sheer excessive audacity to revive such a hated musical form: the overblown conceptual prog rock album - welcome back.