Enter the world of Futility Rites, 16 addictive Fell songs old and new – some previously released, including the singles ‘Lemonade’, ‘The Return’ and ‘Black Triangle’, and some never heard before…

Due for release on July 4, 2025, Futility Rites will be the world’s first ever “vinyl-less vinyl” album, packaged in a standard 12” vinyl sized sleeve, with hand-crafted art and inserts by Fell’s Nicolas Burrows. There will be no physical record enclosed – only a download code. It’s an experiment in more eco-friendly approaches to releasing music, by cutting down on PVC plastic usage, while still giving music fans a beautiful tactile artefact to collect and enjoy. The “vinyl-less vinyl” album was masterminded by Doughnut Music Lab, an art and research collective that draws on ideas from Doughnut Economics (see below for more info). The release of Futility Rites is a collaboration between Lost Map and Doughnut Music Lab.

Fell are Nicolas Burrows, together with bassist Jon Rulton (Bear Driver, Dream Giant), drummer Dav Shiel (Beth Jeans-Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny) and keys player Matt deKersaint Giraudeau (Dogtanion). Originally from Blackpool, Lancashire, Nicolas cut his teeth in the early 00s, playing in bands around the then-burgeoning Leeds scene (Crayon, All My Friends Are Dead, Vest For Tysso, Bear Driver, Super Eight), before starting to create his own project Glaciers. In 2016 that project mutated into Fell, and saw Nicolas record There Still Are Mysteries, an album of haunting autumnal pop, with Stereolab’s Andy Ramsay in the production chair. 

In 2018, Fell released their debut EP for Lost Map, produced by Dan Blackett (of Bella Union signings, Landshapes) titled For The Pickling – six lilting, woozy micro-opuses that transported the listener to a half-forgotten childhood summer and back again. It was followed by the sprawling home recording project Sides which saw Fell releases a string of six double A-side singles in 2020 and 2021. Released in January 2023, Fell’s second full-length album Mallows Marsh was an ambitious, patchwork record full of mood shifts, flicking about lyrically through Anglo-Saxon healing charms, pastoral horror, horticultural murder-ballads, mid-Brexit snapshots and ruminations on personal mythmaking.

Gathering together a scattered assortment of Fell songs written over a 10-year period between 2015 and 2025, but yet to find a proper home until now, Futility Rites is a kaleidoscopic and unpredictable ride through a decade of daydreaming through song. There are tracks about everything from Kevin Ayers to the resurgence of European fascism, the ill-defined border between Leyton and Leytonstone, and the post-human future of lichen. The feeling is homespun, DIY and very personal, the palette shifting playfully from 60s psychedelic pop to synthy krautrock, rudimentary Casio and drum machine electronica and so much more. About Futility Rites Nic writes: 

“We didn’t think of this as an album with any kind of theme or conceptual element – it’s collected singles and rescued old demos, very, very new things made in a studio and solo tracks recorded at home. So, it’s a bit of a hodgepodge really. In that regard, it’s different to previous releases where the groupings of songs have been thought out more, and production was more consistent, even if the songs are different in feel. This was a different way to do a record – working to a (quite short) deadline rather than making something on our own time. Most of this has been done at home with a very simple setup. It’s sharpened my production skills. It’s an anomaly, perhaps, in the Fell catalogue, but one that has been fun and rewarding to make.”

ABOUT DOUGHNUT MUSIC LAB AND “VINYL-LESS VINYL” 

The majority of vinyl records are manufactured from poly-vinyl chloride (PVC) – one of the most environmentally damaging plastics. It can take nearly 500 years for PVC to biodegrade if it ends up in landfill. So, what if a vinyl record contained no record at all? Set up by academics at the University of Glasgow, Doughnut Music Lab is an art and research collective that draws on ideas from doughnut economics (economies built around sustainability rather than endless growth) to imagine what shape musical life might take in a post-fossil-fuel future. They’ve begun investigating a novel proposal – 12” sleeves with all the cool packaging, artwork, inserts and added extras of a normal record, but with a download code in place of a disc.

“Vinyl-less vinyl,” as they call it, is rooted in the assumption that many music fans are more interested in vinyl as a way to display their fandom than for its superior audio qualities. Their assumption has been backed up by extensive survey work, which revealed that a significant proportion of vinyl record buyers might indeed be persuaded to switch to plastic-swerving alternatives, especially if they were cheaper. Their collaboration with Lost Map in the release of Fell’s Futility Rites represents Doughnut Music Lab’s first attempt to road-test the idea in practice. It isn’t presented as a one-size-fits-all answer to plastic waste in music production, but simply a way of opening up ideas and conversations, on the path to a hopefully more sustainable future both in music and society. 

fellsongs.com /// lostmap.com /// doughnutmusiclab.org