"Emil Amos was originally commissioned by the legendary KPM music library to make this music for use in television and film. But after the executive overseeing their experimental wing exited the company, Emil brought Zone Black to Drag City and re-mixed it into a proper full-length album. While the record was originally inspired by old school '70s television music, like the grim, descending riffs that took us to commercial as the running back strained in anguish for the ball in slo-mo, it became a genuine attempt to reach towards a new kind of library music. Emil (Grails, OM and podcaster supreme) carves out a much more personal interpretation of what we think of as 'music for television' with Zone Black. Taking classic, dark pieces that he grew up with as inspiration, like the 'Lonely Man Theme' from the original Hulk TV series, he fantasized an alternate environment where composers were allowed to explore more extreme states of mind, while on much witchier drugs . . . fully separating library music from its outmoded commercial constraints. Imagine Brian Eno recording Another Green World equipped with Madlib's gear and a much darker sense of humor . . . or Kafka creating The Castle with a Juno keyboard and sampler instead. In the spirit of classic synth-based soundtracks like Firestarter or Midnight Express, the instruments narrate the experience. Urban landscapes in noirish chiaroscuro, fatal encounters unfurling beneath the persistent glow of riot lights, last-ditch meetings in pre-dawn discotheques . . . all evoked with synths, harpsichords and mellotrons drifting over drum machines and the arachnoid radiation of FX disappearing up into the darkness. Every track illuminates a different corridor of Emil's brain, but A.E. Paterra and Steve Moore of ZOMBI periodically step in to contribute sax solos and drum beats to amp the coloration up. Zone Black is a fully inhabitable world, its episodic narrative divided into an improbable balance between morbid, ambient anthems and insouciant hip-hop instrumentals. Emil hadn't heard it done quite this way before, so he took it upon himself to make the sound real. And if you don't hear it in the next, big horror feature (or in a new Zone Black game done up for Xbox, yeah!), it'll make great mood music for tripping in the bathtub while dreaming of a new horizon of music to take drugs to. Listening to Emil Amos' Zone Black evokes a variety of distorted, paranoid visions -- cue it up!" - Drag City.
After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.
This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).
Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.
Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.
Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
