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Archive: matthew-friedberger

The Fiery Furnaces — Remember

2 November 2008 12:15

Categories: Entertainment, Music, Reviews

Remember cover You wouldn’t expect The Fiery Furnaces to do anything in the conventional way. When their debut album, Gallowsbird’s Bark, was released in 2003, they were seen almost as being part of the same scene as The White Stripes. There was the bluesy-rock element to the thing, then the fact that both bands were a brother–sister partnership (though in the case of The White Stripes, it was actually a desperate publicity-seeking lie).

But come the release of their second album, Blueberry Boat, it was clearer that The Fiery Furnaces weren’t going to play it by the book. The stripped-back bluesy rock took a back seat and was supplanted by a kind of wonky prog, with antique synths, rattling pianos and a ceasless desire to keep the listener alert. Their following album, Rehearsing My Choir, was a concept album about their grandmother, who also provided lead vocals. Enough said.

Staggeringly prolific, the band now has five albums and an EP under its belt (plus a double solo album from Matthew Friedberger) after just a few short years. This year, for the first time since their debut, they have opted not to release a studio album.

Instead, they have released a double live album, Remember. But quite what you should expect from a live album from The Fiery Furnaces? Their live shows (although, regrettably, I’ve not been lucky enough to see them live yet) are famous for the radical reinventions of their songs, setting the words of one song to the melody of another, chopping their songs into little bits and creating one long medley, and so on. This promises the audience something a bit more than the sort of experience you might get by putting the album on a loud stereo and standing among a bunch of sweaty men who are intent on spilling beer all over you. You’ve got to admire a live act for putting a bit of effort into mixing things up a bit.

The only thing predictable about a Fiery Furnaces live album is that they would do something weird. Weird move number one was to eschew a standard tracklisting, instead listing six ‘suites’ and inviting you to guess the tracklisting for yourself and check a website later to see if you were right. I guess that at least replicates the live experience, where you are not sure what the setlist will have in store for you.

But that wasn’t all. When you start listening to the album, it is quickly clear that there is something not quite right. The first track proper, ‘Blueberry Boat’, contains a number of jarring switches in sound quality. It transpires that the “live album” that you hear on the CD has been spliced together from at least four different recordings, even to the point where songs are interrupted in their prime to switch rendition. Quality ranges from song to song and even within songs, from soundboard quality to bootleg without warning. Well, the liner notes do warn, “Please do not attempt to listen to all at once.”

Even though it takes a bit of time to get used to, it is not as annoying as you might think. What the purpose of this experiment was is not clear to me. But the decision to include a number of different recordings does at least mean that the album documents a full overview of the Fiery Furnaces live experience, with tracks spanning the band’s whole career.

As you might expect, not all of the live versions of the tracks sound as good as the studio-recorded album versions. But some of them are. Besides, what is really great about Remember is that it is not just another live album, where you could just add some canned crowd noise onto the studio album you already own. This is almost like hearing 52 brand new songs. Strangely familiar, yet different enough to provide a completely new experience.

Typically, despite the ostensibly painstakingly-created edits, the album keeps some of the band’s live guff-ups in tact. In fact, very near the start of the album we hear singer Eleanor Friedberger forgetting the lyrics and practically holding a committee meeting with her brother as they try to remember what comes next. It fits in with The Fiery Furnaces aesthetic — equal parts grand and shambolic.

Wonky prog, remember? Each of their albums sounds like an attempt to make Kid A with the cheapest, oldest equipment going. It’s all part of the band’s charm, and it’s good for that kind of attitude to continue even in the manner in which Remember has been edited.

So full marks to The Fiery Furnaces. Even though the strange editing has alientated some, I think the album is an excellent document of the band’s capabilities as a live act. It has provided me with a taste of some of their excellent live versions (I especially love ‘Single Again’ and ‘The Garfield El’). I am now eager to see them live whenever they next come near my neck of the woods.

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Music of 2007: #10–#4

1 February 2008 01:04

Categories: Entertainment, Music, Reviews

Music of 2007

A series of posts

  1. What I listened to in 2007
  2. Music of 2007: #40–#21
  3. Music of 2007: #20–#11
  4. Music not of 2007: three reissues
  5. Music of 2007: #10–#4
  6. Music of 2007: top three

At last! I have got round to the top ten. Was it worth it? Probably not. Next (i.e. this) year, I am only doing the top 20, I swear…

10. Hanne Hukkelberg — Rykestrasse 68

Rykestrasse 68 cover A neat album of playfully experimental jazzy folky songs. The interesting but subtle use of found sounds makes Rykestrasse 68 an unconventional album, but one that never forces the fact down your throat.

At the heart of this album is good songwriting and a wonderful singing voice. I just love the quirkiness of the vocals in ‘Fourteen’.

Video: ‘A Cheater’s Armoury’

9. The Future Sound of London — From the Archives Vol. 1–3

From the Archives Vol. 1 artwork
From the Archives Vol. 2 artwork
From the Archives Vol. 3 artwork Technically, this isn’t from 2007 (or is it? I dunno), which is the only reason why this doesn’t appear any higher on the list. But bear with me.

The Future Sound of London are (a little bit) before my time. But they are still among my very favourite electronic music groups, despite the fact that electronic music normally dates really badly. Sadly, little has been heard of FSOL since the release of Dead Cities in 1996 (not counting that Amorphous Androgynous stuff). I don’t suppose we can be too upset — they were stunningly prolific in the few years leading up to that moment.

I often yearned for the return of FSOL. A best of here and a compilation there has come, mostly reminding people that maybe FSOL just belonged in the 1990s. Would their music still seem so vital today? I wondered.

Well in 2007 FSOL seem to have begun a huge clearout of some sort, releasing several CDs worth of archive material from the 1980s and 1990s. So far only From the Archives vol. 1–3 seem to have come out on CD. I’m biding my time to see if the rest gets a CD release, but it doesn’t look like it.

Anyway, the point is that From the Archives is amazing. It is hard to believe that all of these tracks are rejects. It is clear that the technology available to them was not what it would be today. But this just means that it sounds like classic FSOL in their prime. To think that they had all of this awesome music just sitting around doing nothing for all those years!

Plenty of tracks contain familiar elements and samples from more well-known FSOL material. So it is useful to think of it as a historical document as much as a collection of albums.

The artwork takes a similar tack. Well-known elements of old FSOL artwork have been remixed into a form that is rather deferential to the peak period of activity. All in all, it’s quite a refreshing approach because normally bands seem keen to distance themselves from the past.

Because it sounds dated, and consists of music that didn’t make the cut, it is perhaps best to recommend it only to people who are already fans of FSOL. But for those people, what a treat this is! I couldn’t believe my luck when I read about it.

For those not so keen on getting the lot, there is a digest 2× vinyl edition. And Bleep are selling what appears to be an alternative digest version on MP3 and Flac.

8. Simian Mobile Disco — Attack Decay Sustain Release

Attack Decay Sustain Release Simian Mobile Disco is the phoenix that has risen from the ashes of the early-noughties indie-electro band Simian. Slaving away for years only to have your shtick stolen by the much more successful Hot Chip as soon as you disband. It must hurt.

A change of tack was in order for the Simian lads then, and Attack Decay Sustain Release is the result. Unashamedly danceable to an almost cheesy extent, don’t expect much in the way of experimental explorations. Do expect to be grinning ear to ear.

Video: ‘It’s the Beat’

7. Björk — Volta

Volta artwork The pre-release hype had it that this was Björk’s most accessible and poppy album for around a decade. There is a modicum of truth in that. But fans of Björk’s wonderful explorations won’t be disappointed.

Okay, so if you compare the Timbaland-produced lead single, ‘Earth Intruders’, with one of the more guttural offerings from her last album, the almost a cappella Medúlla, then it does look like a change to a poppier direction. But there is more to Volta than that.

In reality, it is just as exploratory as other Björk releases. Any preconception that Volta is a pop album is encouraged by the fact that ‘Earth Intruders’ opens the album, but the balloon is popped when the song fizzles out and ends with a cacophony of foghorn sounds that last over a minute.

There are a few other fun moments. ‘Innocence’, the second single, is a particularly interesting song. It is fun and catchy, but if it is commercial then it is a delightfully skewed version of pop. For me, though, the best moment is Vertebrae by Vertebrae. I love those dissonant horns.

Video: ‘Earth Intruders’

6. The Fiery Furnaces — Widow City

Widow City artwork It is a sign of how strong 2007 was for music that The Fiery Furnaces are so low on this year’s list. Possibly the most prolific band around, they often churn out more than one album per year and quality never seems to drop.

Okay, so Widow City isn’t quite up there with Blueberry Boat or Rehearsing My Choir. But this is still a stunningly awesome album. Fans of Matthew Friedberger’s double solo album will be particularly pleased — Widow City is similar in style in a lot of ways.

The album begins with a lush, slow, Eno-esque guitar solo. A fine curtain raiser to the normal Fiery Furnaces diet of playful alliterative lyrics, Mellotrons and other vintage synths, and delightfully wonky prog.

Unusually, there are some weak moments in this album. Some tracks towards the end of the album are particularly forgettable, but ‘Clear Signal From Cairo’ takes the wooden spoon — it just hasn’t clicked with me at all.

Video: ‘Ex-Guru’

5. Justice — †

† artwork It’s easy to get bored of electronic music. In dry patches you listen to one techno album after another, none particularly improving on what has come before. Then a group like Justice comes along to provide a breath of fresh air and remind you why you love electronic music.

What’s good about this album is that it is really immediate. It is clearly designed for the dancefloor. But there is still a good deal of sonic experimentation going on there to keep it interesting for the chin-strokers like me. And of course Justice have that infectious sound that only Parisian groups seem to have (hence the number of times you see Justice compared to Daft Punk).

My favourite track is ‘Tthhee Ppaarrttyy’. It’s not a banger as you might expect from the title — not at first anyway. Instead, it sets the scene of a person preparing for a party against an introspective-sounding melody. Can’t forget the other highlights though — ‘DVNO’ and, of course, the monumental ‘D.A.N.C.E.’

Video: ‘D.A.N.C.E.’

4. Underworld — Oblivion With Bells

Oblivion With Bells artwork I have been a fan of Underworld for quite a while, but I was still floored by the quality of this album. It has been a while since Underworld have released a studio album, so I was wondering if they were running out of steam. On the contrary, they have raised the bar.

It takes a while for the album to get going. I thought lead single and opening track ‘Crocodile’ was so-so. After that things star to get better. Before you know it, every track is a winner.

Particular highlights include ‘Ring Road’ which has an infections driving beat and hypnotically rhythmic vocals. It’s impossible not to nod your head or tap your foot along. Meanwhile, ‘Boy, Boy, Boy’ sounds like the past future of pop music that sadly never happened.

What amazes me is the fact that after all of these years Underworld are still going strong. Okay, it’s been five years since their last album, but this is top quality stuff. Most electronic acts tend to fizzle out after a few years. But Underworld’s history can be traced back to the 1970s, and they’re still going strong. I might even go as far as to say that Oblivion With Bells is Underworld’s best album. Karl Hyde must be the coolest fifty-something around. Except for Brian Eno.

Video: ‘Boy, Boy, Boy’

The top 3 is coming tomorrow. I promise.

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My ten favourite albums of 2006

3 January 2007 01:53

Categories: Entertainment, Music, Reviews

So here it is at last, my top ten. As always, you’ll have to press play every 30 seconds on the audio clips.

10. Franz Ferdinand — The Fallen / L. Wells

Okay, so this isn’t an album, but did you want me to call this post “my ten favourite albums and / or singles and / or EPs and / or whatever else of 2006″? What a mouthful. Anyway, I’m usually kind of lukewarm about Franz Ferdinand. The hype that surrounds them is a bit off-putting really, but you have to admit that they make quite a lot of good music.

All singles should be like this. The band called it a “quintuple a-side” (although the CD I own only has four tracks, hmm…). All of the tracks were of a high quality; not the sub-standard b-sides that are often slapped onto a CD single. The most glorious moment is the incredible remix of ‘The Fallen’ by Justice. Brilliant stuff.

What I wrote about it at the time

9. TV on the Radio — Return to Cookie Mountain

Some people have said that they are surprised that I like this album. I don’t know why they should be. There are some fine songs on here, demonstrating that you a good song can be sonically interesting. Opener ‘I Was a Lover’ takes the crown in that regard. Not every song is a winner. There are some quite boring moments, like the collaboration with David Bowie, ‘Province’. Still, the quality of the album overall is still good enough to keep me happy.

8. Steve Reich — Different Trains

This is the CD released by Black Box in 2006. I bought this before I knew of the Phases box set, and I had wanted to hear this for a while so I couldn’t resist really. Luckily enough, I much prefer this performance to the one on Phases. The Duke Quartet’s performance is more passionate than The Kronos Quartet’s rather clinical approach.

This CD also includes ‘Piano Phase’, Steve Reich’s first phase piece that wasn’t for tapes. There is also ‘String Quartet No. 2′ by Marc Mellits, whom I confess to never having heard of before. But it is a very pleasant piece of music indeed. I particularly like the jauntier fun bits in ‘Mara’s Toys’.

7. Matthew Friedberger — Winter Women / Holy Ghost Language School

For how long can Matthew Friedberger churn out such fantastic music at such an alarmingly fast rate? Already committed to making at least an album a year with The Fiery Furnaces, Mr Friedberger has moved into making solo albums. Apparently this is because he is scared of forgetting how to make music. I’m not complaining.

The Fiery Furnaces tend to attract mixed reviews, so you should be warned that this is just like The Fiery Furnaces but with their idiosyncrasies amplified still further. It does feel a bit wrong without Eleanor Friedberger though. Mind you, it also reminds me of Eels’ more recent material. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s a double album, or all of the mellotrons.

This double album hasn’t attracted as much attention as Bitter Tea. I’m not really sure why that should be, because it is almost as good if you ask me.

6. Jarvis — The Jarvis Cocker Record

Another accomplished musician taking his first steps into the world of the solo career. This album is probably exactly what you would expect from Jarvis in this stage of his career. At first I thought it was quite similar to Pulp’s last album, We Love Life. But over time I’ve spotted bits of older Pulp, and lots of bits that are plain new to Cocker’s sound.

Sonically, it is not all that adventurous. But Jarvis Cocker shouldn’t be, because his strength is in brilliant songwriting. And there is plenty of that here. Although I predict this to be a grower, not every song is as great as you’d hope. But four or five of these songs are irresistibly enjoyable. ‘Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time’ is a fine choice for a first single.

Meanwhile ‘Fat Children’ is a delightfully angry song about society, where fat children take your life because “the police force was elsewhere, putting bullets in some guy’s head for no particular reason”.

5. Squarepusher — Hello Everything

How much better can this man get? Hello Everything was well-positioned to be a damp squib. The expectations following the utterly outstanding Ultravisitor were high. But if anything, Tom Jenkinson has improved.

Maybe the album as a whole isn’t on a par with Ultravisitor. But watching the videos of him performing ‘Hello Meow’ and on the BBC’s The Culture Show, I am convinced that Jenkinson must be one of the best musicians on the planet, full stop. It would be enough if he just did the electronic stuff, but with the bass added in it’s just mind-boggling.

I quite liked the cosmic sound of this album, on tracks like ‘Planetarium’ and ‘Circlewave 2′. The b-sides to the Welcome to Europe single were also top-drawer stuff. How much better can Squarepusher get?

What I wrote about it at the time

4. Team Doyobi — The Kphanapic Fragments

Once again, I am left wondering if I’m the only person in the world who likes Team Doyobi this much. This was definitely the album that I looked forward to the most all year, and it was very frustrating to see the release date being moved back so often. I’m sure it was originally meant to come out in March or April. It was never seen until mid-November.

Still, it was well worth the wait as Team Doyobi took their music another stage further. While the bold 8-bit-style electronics are still there in full force, it is mixed in with a much denser, darker sound. The first two tracks are fairly proggy affairs, lasting fifteen minutes each. These two tracks take up half of the album!

But the Team proves that they haven’t forgotten how to have fun as the best moment comes with ‘Thus Jacked Zarathrusta’. Here is your robot music indeed! What an epic. The end result for the album as a whole is a more mature progression on their familiar sound, but one that isn’t all that alien to what we’re used to from them. A tricky balancing act accomplished. Apparently their next album is already just about finished. I can’t wait to hear what they’ve got in store.

3. Scott Walker — The Drift

I like this album so much because it sounds like Scott Walker has actually put some effort into making this a good album. In a year when so many of my favourite bands have put in so-so efforts, it is so refreshing to hear this.

It’s meant to be difficult to get into. So people keep on saying anyway. But I don’t think his music is much more difficult than, say, Björk’s. Still, it’s hardly a barrel of laughs. At times it is a downright unpleasant listen. It sometimes seems as though he’s written the lyrics to be as dirty-sounding as possible, with his talk of “the pee pee soaked trousers” to take just one example.

The music is just masterful though. It’s so good to hear somebody being genuinely experimental. Why aren’t there more musicians like this?

2. Grizzly Bear — Yellow House

This was the big surprise of the year for me. I expected this to be a so-so album at best. I downloaded ‘On A Neck, On A Spit’ and I was unimpressed at first. A few days later I had a song stuck in my head. It was amazing. But I couldn’t for the life of me work out what the song was. It was one of those moments where I actually began to wonder, “Did I write that myself?” But it turned out, of course, to be ‘On A Neck, On A Spit’. A delightful grower — a beautiful song with a bit of a cheeky streak.

Well that was it. I had to buy the album now. And once again I was slightly disappointed. But once again I was won over by repeat listens. It is impossible not to just sit back and enjoy the music. This album has achieved the rare feat of getting me relaxed on train journeys. It is a basic idea: simple, pleasant songwriting. It’s pulled off masterfully.

The peak of this album is reached with ‘Marla’. It is deceptive. On the surface it sounds like this studio is haunted. But delving deeper, you discover that it’s perhaps the most beautiful and gentle song on the album.

What I wrote about it at the time

1. The Fiery Furnaces — Bitter Tea

It says something about the state of music this year — at least the music I’ve heard this year — that Bitter Tea has topped my list. It is true that when this album was released, I wrote an effusive review that predicted that this would turn out to be my favourite album of the year.

But this does not come close to being The Fiery Furnaces’ best album. My biggest complaint is that it doesn’t really feel like a complete album. It just starts, quite suddenly, with ‘In My Little Thatched Hut’, which feels more like it should have been in the middle of the album.

But what am I doing, criticising such a fine album? I should be glad that The Fiery Furnaces exist at all. They are one of the most unique bands around at the moment. How could you fail to fall in love with their clattering pianos and antique synthesisers? Well, quite easily actually — but not if you’re me. The point is that fans of The Fiery Furnaces will find everything they want here.

What I said about it at the time

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Matthew Friedberger interview

23 August 2006 15:23

Categories: Entertainment, Music

There’s an interesting interview in Pitchfork with Matthew Friedberger from The Fiery Furnaces. The Fiery Furnaces are one of my favourite bands at the moment. I’m so glad that a crazy band like that can exist.

Friedberger comes across as a little bit weird in the interview. By that I mean he seems very dogmatic. He has a lot of strong views about how a record should and shouldn’t be made. But I think a lot of what he says makes perfect sense, and I agree with a lot of it.

I kind of get Friedberger’s point about rock operas aswell (although I am more comfortable with the idea of the concept album rather than the rock opera). The idea that an album is almost more important than the songs on it is one that I go along with. If I listen to music, it’s almost always an album as a whole, and not individual tracks. I don’t understand people who just set iTunes on shuffle and have tracks playing at random. How can you be bothered with the style completely changing every five minutes?

Freidberger also mentions that scary R Kelly hip-hopera. So it must be real.

Pitchfork: …I find it interesting that the response to your music is usually pretty extreme one way or the other; people tend to either really love your music or really hate it. Do you have any thoughts on why your music has such a divisive effect?

MF: Because we try to make it good! Other people try to make records that sound like another record, you know? That’s the reason why: To try to make it good and legitimate. To have it not sound like another record, we have to be different from the records we like in one direction or another.

…

Pitchfork: You often completely rearrange your songs for live performance, what’s the motivation or inspiration behind that?

MF: It’s the proper thing to do, I think. Why do you want to come and see the record live? I don’t understand that. I heard somebody say — I can’t remember what the song was– but Ray Davies did a song in “a terrible blues-rock way” and butchered it, but that’s exciting to me when people butcher their songs. You get something new out of it!

I don’t often attend gigs because I usually find myself thinking, ‘why do I want to spend £20 to stand in an audience of morons spilling beer all over me when I could just listen to the album?’ I really like the attitude that The Fiery Furnaces have to playing live. Radiohead do the same thing with their songs from Kid A and Amnesiac, completely reinterpreting them for a live environment. It’s like getting two songs for the price of one. (I still wouldn’t go to see Radiohead though, you have to be rich / crazy to do that sort of thing.)

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The Fiery Furnaces — Bitter Tea

13 April 2006 02:08

Categories: Entertainment, Music, Reviews

The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea Every time I buy a new record by The Fiery Furnaces, I’m never quite sure what to expect. They have quite a madcap sound and tracks constantly change in direction, which is sure to keep you on your toes. Despite this, though, their sound remains remarkably consistent from album to album (give or take the odd grandmother here and there). You certainly know it if you’re listening to The Fiery Furnaces.

A lot of people have said to me that they don’t understand why I like them, but it makes perfect sense to me. The Fiery Furnaces are one of my favourite bands, but I’ll admit that it’s perhaps an acquired taste. There probably aren’t many albums more polarising than ‘Rehearsing My Choir’. I say polarising, although I really mean that I bloody loved it and everybody else hated it.

I have to confess, though, that parts of ‘Rehearsing My Choir’ were a struggle to get into, particularly given Olga Sanatos’ rather off-putting voice. That is one advantage of The Fiery Furnaces’ new album, ‘Bitter Tea’. It is immediate. By the third listen I had rated every single track 5/5 on iTunes. It normally takes weeks for any album to do that for me. Of course, ratings may go down as well as up, but I really don’t see that happening. I simply can’t stop listening to this album. [Cliche alert] I would even go as far as to say that some tracks are instant classics.

So what’s in it? Well I said above that The Fiery Furnaces’ sound is very recognisable. But it does seem to gain a little extra depth as each album goes, and the particular characteristic of ‘Bitter Tea’ is lots of stuff (especially vocals) going backwards. At points you may as well be listening to it backwards.

A particularly dizzying track is ‘Nevers’ (where, incidentally, their familiar wordplay is probably most evident on this album), which almost starts off like an audio equivalent of a strobe light. You can just about follow it if you read the lyrics along with it, but where’s the fun in that? Other early favourites of mine include ‘Oh Sweet Woods’, with its gentle dance beat backing an immense wonky piano riff. There is also ‘Benton Harbor Blues’ — quite a sad song set to a driving and delightfully psychedelic Magic Roundabout-style tune.

The Fiery Furnaces in action! I have to assure you that each and every track on this album is a winner. I just don’t understand how The Fiery Furnaces do it. There are only two of them (one of whom seems to carry the vast majority of songwriting responsibilities), yet they are churning these albums out at the rate of more than one per year. We’re only a quarter of the way through the year, and Matthew Friedberger apparently has a solo album lined up for later this year. You would think that quality control would be out of the window, but it definitely isn’t.

If I would have one complaint about ‘Bitter Tea’ it would be that it doesn’t quite feel rounded as an album. Although there is fantastic flow through the album, any of these tracks could have been the opener. ‘In My Little Thatched Hut’ is a fantastic track, but it doesn’t feel like the introduction to a fantastic album.

‘Whistle Rhapsody’ may be a brilliant closing track, except it’s not. Before the album is allowed to end we are treated to reprises of ‘Nevers’ and ‘Benton Harbor Blues’. I’m not really sure why — I’ve not been able to find out. Both of these reprises could be seen as stripped-back versions of the tracks that appear in the middle (really towards the end) of the album.

The reprise of ‘Nevers’ is certainly simpler, without the dizzying vocals of the original. The reprise of ‘Benton Harbor Blues’, meanwhile, is more flowing and doesn’t stall like the original. They might be a clue as to what they would sound like if they tried to be more radio-friendly. Then again, they might not. Who knows? The result of including these reprises is to make the album fizzle away with little fanfare. Even the closing fade happens quickly!

However, I should complain about the inclusion of magnificent songs, even if they are for a second time. Any negatives are very minor points. The bottom line here is that I love this album. It might not be quite as good as ‘Blueberry Boat‘, but that’s quite a high bar. As things stand, I will be amazed if a better album comes out this year.

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