Future Sound Of London
Lifeforms

LA RECENSIONE

If it were a place, perhaps it would be a lush forest. One of those tropical forests (or nearby areas) where sunlight only enters in patches. One of those forests with an undergrowth dense with unknown sounds, sounds that cannot be named. Animals, perhaps birds, with sounds glittering in their own way, far removed from those that would follow two albums later, those that would be the soundtracks of dead cities ("Dead Cities"), a sort of flipside to this with hyper-technological sounds, equally astonishing and beautiful, but identifiable under completely different spatial and possibly temporal coordinates.

Defining natural the sounds of an album of this type and genre might seem like a daring contradiction, were it not for the fact that the quality of music is first and foremost a matter of sensations. And, on the other hand, the very title of the album provides the key to understanding: "Lifeforms", a double CD overflowing with organic music, life forms struggling to remain framed within their own nest/song, almost systematically overflowing into the next track, which are, at the same time, offspring of the previous one. A sort of space-time continuum, in short, which makes it difficult to focus on one single track over another, and which the Future Sound of London probably struggled to contain within an already extremely expanded space (almost 92 minutes), especially given the number of singles that resumed, continued, and expanded the discourse/path of this CD for a further 70 minutes (which they would have done, even more extensively, with "Dead Cities" with as many as 4 single CDs).

If this music were a span of time, in short, it certainly wouldn't be brief, yet it would be well worth experiencing, taking care to move slowly (it's certainly not music for dancing), being careful not to make too much noise… so as not to disturb the forest around.