Current mood: apocalyptica...
Category: apocalyptica... Music
Well, the big wave never came...
Or at least it didn't come BIG enough to completely wash out East Anglia and tease the Thames Barrier into some kind of serious flex and grind..
Which begs the question: Am I a cunt to feel cheated??
I guess I am, because flooding isn't a nice thing. But I'm of the view that nature kicking off in this way should really be soundly applauded and enjoyed if at all possible...
Yes boss, I'm no storm chaser, but I did use to live one cliff on from Dunwich - one of the few places breached. And last evening - knowing it was vulnerable - I found myself firmly ashore behind the Thames Barrier, wishing I was instead prone flat on my earthy brown stomach, watching the power and majesty of the waves tear my old cliff up...
Now, this thought is perhaps in slightly poor taste, given that my former neighbours are now setting about cleaning up the mess caused by the high tide. But I'm sure I'm not the only one to get a thrill from watching nature throw an eppy from time to time...
No boss, Disaster Porn is big business these days and one of my favourite records to musically fantasize it is The Future Sound of London's - Dead Cities.
Released in 1996, Dead Cities is some kind of imagined city-wide apocalypse with great musical production values. It's a moody but beautiful Titan of a bleak light destruction record and one I'd advise everyone to tune into...
Originally recording under names such as Stakker and The Amorphous Androgynous Mr Dougans and Mr Cobain released their first LP as the Future Sound Of London in 1994..
Considered a classic of the ambient genre by some, I always felt Lifeforms wasn't quite the ticket. Sure it's neat and clever and just the kind of thing to listen to on the way out of a Mushroom trip, but it also sounds a touch too nice, harmless and abstract - as does so much ambient music...
2 years later, FSOLs second major LP Dead Cities was released and since the first time I heard it, I've believed this record to be a whole and very different set of flooded houses..
You see, quite apart form anything else, Dead Cities is an exceptionally beautiful and warm ambient LP with the melodies, harmonies, beats and rhythms that so much ambient twiddle bleep fake robot bliss LPs miss. Dead Cities however also has the direction, journey and a dirty narrative to keep you plugged in - it's a very heavy record...
Another great attribute is that Dead Cities has emotion and feel long beyond and above what most electronic music could manage in 1996. Furthermore, it's one of the few ambient records where you sense it's authors truly suffered during production - where they were really and very seriously trying to get inside and experience something, as opposed to lazily making a disc that would sound good in the stonned chill out room of a nightclub...
I kid you not, if you DJayed We Have Explosives! at 2AM at Gods Kitchen or any other such house music loveclub, you'd soon see the mong eyed workaday drugheads for the lazily violent savages they really are...
So, my point is that this is a very classy LP and whether you're a fan of the apocalypse and it's four horsemen or not, Dead Cities is definately a record worth the complete and total entrance fee..
 | Currently listening :
Dead Cities
By The Future Sound of London
Release date: By 29 October, 1996 |
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