Why does anyone like the Fall?

YSI???

Sure! ILXMail me.

"My rhythm section can do that shit when they apply themselves"

"Quit iPhone"

Can't wait for the Samsung advertisement/cross-promotion.

I recently *finally* got around to reading the MES autobiography and easily the best revelation is that he's a big fan of Dr Karl from Neighbours.

yeah i liked that bit

tho dude is an unreliable narrator of courtney love proportions

Meet Cute:

http://www.keithmcdougall.com/#!ill-be-your-mirror/c1o9m

Awwww

Just finished Steve Hanley's book. That predates this...

Haha that was great

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/07/the-fall-sub-lingual-tablet-review

also i didn't really like Re-Mit, but i always come back to fall albums just to see and i'm digging it today

Elena is such a a cool keyboardist, she does't get enough credit as an awesome fall member

so true, plus she totally slays the vocals on "I've Been Duped"

Longest serving fall member by now?

I think Hanley still has a couple of years on her, didn't she start right at the end of the century?

Steve Hanley was exactly 19 years, Eleana Smith has now 12.5 years.

So, come 2022,she will overtake him.

First impression: this record rules.

It's pretty much the same vibe as the last two and it seems to have been approached the same way, where it's like 50% songs that were written ahead of time and worked out in the live set, and 50% shit being made up on the spot, but as long as you're cool with that it's pretty fun.

Yeah it's all right.

## Sub Lingual Tablet ##

Got hold of the new album the other week at a gig. I'm beginning to realise I've got a few criteria for evaluating new Fall albums:

1) Is there a great, all-time Fall song on there?

Early LPs were crammed with them but I don't think there's been a preponderance of great tracks on a single LP since... This Nation's Saving Grace for definite, maybe up to and including The Frenz Experiment. Might include The Unutterable as well. I'd have the last incontrovertibly great song on a Fall LP as Weather Report #2, though I think Hittite Man off the last album might be up there.

Not sure there's anything of that sort on this one - Junger Cloth probably closest for me (obviously this is all 'personally' or 'for me', so I'll try and dispense with such crypto-humility.) A lack of musical invention feels like it's the critical factor here - early to mid-Fall had music that was as strange and intense as the Smith's lyrics.

** 2) Does the album have focus, subject matter, a loose-ish unity, a sense of latent purpose? **

The last album scores really highly on this I think. That's partly because of the fairly simple mechanism of having a fair bit of noise/spoken word glue between the tracks. It gives a sense of continuity - interrupted by strange commentaries and flares of electronic irritability, like one of his spoken word albums. The subject matter of the LP gave off a feeling of an old England of the future. There's the stuttering and drunkenly incoherent Sir William Wray (from which Smith stated he'd deliberately removed any recognisable words - tho it does contain the contemptuous 'All you do is touch gesture' - electronic tablets are a fairly constant source of derangement over the last couple of years). No Respects Rev - "and judge your soul's realm, the god and the (???) damned, in the words of.... (wails and skrrttching sounds), in 12 years, do you take.. . in a cove, location in Whitby. England you schweinhund, why are you here? why are you here?"

Then there's the extremely enjoyable Victrola Time, Edwardian/MDMA subject matter - feels like a rip of Betjeman's Indoor Games at Shrewsbury - motorik backing, a very lunatic vocal opening and an ending that reminds me of The Vampyr. Finally, Loadstones, which feels like a Quatermass/Children of the Stones future neolithic landscapes, with a great opening: Local! Loadstones! After a dark sunset, my brother and I - we walked up the path, far from the tower, a light sea breeze, ruffled (our clothes?).

The whole exudes a sense of ancientness and futurity, strange landscapes, history seeping through and seething behind the current technological wallpaper. There's no great songs on there, I don't think, but the total effect is extremely strong. I think I said at the time, although it's more dilute, it feels like it has the same heft as Slates (no, not anywhere near as good, not by a long chalk, but a minor classic - the sort of book you might find in an old library, with the writing of the spine obscured, written by a local parson, that on opening reveals itself to be rather alarming...)

So yeah, I agree with UM S@kedown!

This one is less good, more like Ersatz GB, but it's very enjoyable. As a friend said 'As ever, no idea whether it's actually "good", but it's much rocking and lol, so the entertainment value is high.'

I want to write more on specific songs, but i gotta get on a plane!

oh and sleeve - yes, fernet and get together would be amazing! You're west coast right? If you're East, I'm in NYC until the weekend, then DC and Atlanta until at the beginning of next week. If you're not, I'll have a fernet anyway and toast you anyway!

This one is less good, more like Ersatz GB, but it's very enjoyable. As a friend said 'As ever, no idea whether it's actually "good", but it's much rocking and lol, so the entertainment value is high.'

This is pretty otm. I think Re-Mit is probably the best of these recent three--I'd put "Jetplane" and "Loadstones" up there with the best of their work, not nearly as high as "Weather Report 2", but up there--and while there's nothing so far on the new one that jumps out as an all-time classic, I'm still enjoying it quite a bit. This is another one with no Elena lead vocals, though. :(

Early LPs were crammed with them but I don't think there's been a preponderance of great tracks on a single LP since... This Nation's Saving Grace for definite...

This is true. It was their last high watermark. I think Brix's arrival took them in a different, less interesting direction (see "Wonderful Frightening World) but they managed to get it together one last time for this record.

I'm reading Hanley's book right now and it is a must for all serious Fall fans. It adds quite a bit of insight to the bands output. Being in that band is/was no picnic.

Fizzles, I am unfortunately a West Coaster, will raise a glass to u as well

Fizzles, I was v sorry to miss u last time u were in nyc. Email me if you want to meet up for a sec this time. My day job is in west chelsea gallery area if lunch, and nights are free except friday night

joncroaker

at

gmail

great. will get in touch now I've finally checked in.

the new album is terrific. much better than the last two, which i didnt care for tbh

I dunno, I'm not as sold yet. After a couple of listens the two standouts see the opener and the 10 minute track. No Elani on vocals, boo. His growly drunken old man voice isn't my favorite.

Fizzles impersonated several of the tracks at dinner Thursday night, based upon this preview I'm psyched to get it

I'm really enjoying it. "Stout Man" really the only weak track imo. Wondering if the vinyl mixes will be drastically different.

Social media seems to be a thread running through this album. "I WANNA FUCKIN FACEBOOK TROLL"

Listening to Re-Mit & SLT for the first time. Re-Mit is alright, but I'm actually getting a lot out of Tablet; it's prob the best since Y.F.O.C., though it is a bit patchy. I feel like with these last 3 LPs, the Fall album has turned into something else; you can't really compare Tablet to Imperial Wax Solvent or Country on the Click, any more than you could compare those albums to Perverted by Language or Wonderful and Frightening.

Speaking of which:

Early LPs were crammed with them but I don't think there's been a preponderance of great tracks on a single LP since... This Nation's Saving Grace for definite...

I would propose that Country on the Click absolutely fits this description.

I wish emusic would get slt but I guess if they haven't by now they aren't gonna.

preponderance of great tracks on a single EP = YFOC arguably, COTC arguably, The Unutterable definitely

SLT has Dedication Not Medication and Auto Chip 2014-16 which are both p good imo if not quite top-level material

The Real New Fall LP is pretty stacked
I think I liked The Fall Heads Roll better than most

Reformation Post TLC isn't very good
OFYC rules

Fall heads roll was a letdown after that incredible peel session of 4 of its tracks

>>you can't really compare Tablet to Imperial Wax Solvent

This is funny because both records have the same backing band! I think IWS is the last LP that felt like it had a lot of great individual tracks that overshadowed others, the last few lps seem more "level" in the overall quality of the songs.

Anyone hear Wise Ol' Man yet?

I had the synth line from "Black Door" in my head all day yesterday. Even at under two mins, that song gives me a strong Elastic Man/New Face in Hell vibe. Junger Cloth and Snazzy also work in that really vivid, loopy garage rock mode that MES & co. had moned to such great effect in 1980-81.

*mined

59 years old today. Hbd MES!

Wow. He's only 55 here but looks worse than many people do at 80: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/14/mark-e-smith-self-image

Some dispute over his age, some say he was born in 1955.

Shocked to learn (via that Guardian piece) that he's 6'1". Based on his personality I would have put him at about 5'6".

Interestingly, in that article - from December, 2013 - he says he's 55. That would have made him 58 today, so he was lying about his age then.

Or he didn't remember because he's a fuckwitted souse

He doesn't look a day over 70, that's for sure.

Haha I kinda doubt a dude who is bragging about losing his teeth is gonna lie to shave one year off his age

Or bragging about being a "fifty year old man, and I liiiiiiiiiiiike it"

Listen to "Wrong Place, Right Time." If that bass doesn't move you, you are beyond help.