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February 09, 2005
fiery furnaces :: ep
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If only all tide-the-fans-over-until-the-next-proper-release compilations were this good. Scratch that. If only 10% of the albums of any kind in the known universe were this good.
The brother-and-sister Furnaces are idiots savants, prodigious innocents. The melodic cadence comes from children's tunes. The lyrics are a kind of concrete folk impressionism, a Walt Whitman-meets-Dr. Seuss puzzle. And the accompaniment? I don't know where to start, and I suspect they don't either. They seem to randomly grab the tools at hand - real keyboarded and stringed instruments, proper percussion, computer squeals, squelches, and treatments, not to mention their own voices - and warp the full lexicon of riffs and licks around them.
"Single Again", in and of itself, throws rhythms from 3 different pop eras under the simplest of chord changes.
EP isn't an EP. It's just a lot shorter than Blueberry Boat, which clocked in at the maximum 80. It's the best place to start with the Furnaces, as it splits the difference between the (approximately) conventional song structures of their early work and the kitchen-sink production madness of Blueberry Boat. It's a much easier record to get into, and almost equally rich. There's a mix of old and brand-new; I haven't followed their odds and sods, so it's all fresh to me.
What's keeping this from perfection? A couple of tunes that feel a bit like leftovers near the end.
The Furnaces are so difficult to peg that I've found only one good review to share: Derek Miller's nailing of the essence in Stylus Magazine. I don't know this guy's writing too well, but I'll be watching it from now on.
Single Again (mp3)
Tropical-Iceland (mp3)
Posted by borrowed_tunes at February 9, 2005 10:04 PM
Comments
FIRST YOU BUM'S!!! HA HA HA !!!
Posted by: MICK JAGGER at February 9, 2005 11:06 PM
I bought this on recommendation of the Borrowed Tunes management, and immediately liked it. I already had Blueberry Boat, but I found EP more immediately accessible.
I just wish I were more familiar with their material before I saw them open for Wilco earlier last year.
Posted by: Denis at February 18, 2005 04:42 PM