SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

I prefer "The Horn" to "Back on a Roll." I used to really hate Bunf's songs, but I came to appreciate him somewhat. "Sex, War and Robots" is a great song and one he hasn't really matched since. I'm not actually sure that he can sing, but he sure does try.

Cian's backing vocals stand out more to me than Bunf's when I play back most of their albums. He's all over Radiator, for instance.

Sex, War and Robots would make my top ten SFA songs. It's a gorgeous song.

Ah, I love every song on Rings Around The World so I'm not entirely too sure what you mean by the "style over substance" thing. The big, expensive, ambitious production was kinda the point of the record, although I'd like to think that they had the material to back it up. Unlike, for instance, Love Kraft where they got the production spot on but clearly didn't have the material to back it up.

If I recall, the main problem that fans had at the time with Rings Around The World was track sequencing related... from 'Alternate Route To Vulcan Street' up to '(A) Touch Sensitive' featured all the immediate songs, but then they sequenced all the "slow burners" on the second half of the record from 'Shoot Doris Day' up to 'Fragile Happiness' (with the exception of 'Juxtapozed With U', of course)

I remember one or two folks being disgruntled with 'No Sympathy' at the time, saying that it played like a less good 'Mountain People' (standard song turns into techno freakout), and I still come across folks who dislike 'Run! Christian, Run!' and 'Presidential Suite'. I like all of 'em on that record, though, and you must listen to the record in 5.1 if you can, because the band made the record with surround sound in mind and it's therefore considered to be the primary version.

If there's a track or two you don't like on RAtW, a few of the b-sides should make up for it. They're some of the strongest songs the band has recorded. I don't have a problem with RAtW anyway; it's the album that sold me on the band and began my obsession. I purchased Guerrilla and found it a bit inaccessible, but I couldn't stop playing RaTW for the longest time. Its impact has dulled somewhat over the years, but I'll always remember it fondly.

Interesting to see how you rate Love Kraft.

― Kitchen Person, Wednesday, May 6, 2015 2:11 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My opinion of the record has changed quite a lot over the years, actually. When the first leaks came through, I'll admit I wasn't quite sure of what I was hearing, had serious doubts and thought to myself "oh god, I hope that this record isn't going to turn out to be shit", as one does when the preceding six albums were so good. Then the record came out, and I didn't find it too bad and actually sensed it might be a bit of a grower. A lot of SFA fans were down on the record at the time, if I recall. I went through a period of liking the record and saying to other folks to give it time and not dismiss it right away, just in case it grew on 'em.

However, with 10 years of distance from the albums release, and especially after not hearing it for a long while, I put it on the other day in the middle of an SFA listening session where everything from Fuzzy Logic up to Phantom Power sounded as great as ever, only to put on Love Kraft, get three tracks in and think "hmm... this isn't sounding too good" ... and then slap bang in the middle of that run of tracks from 'Walk You Home' to 'Back On A Roll', I start thinking "hang on, I'm not really enjoying this... this isn't doing anything for me..." followed by a realisation of "oh my god, this album is actually fucking wank!"

Like I say, it's produced really well, and it works on an "ear candy" level for headphone listening and those who like burrowing deep into layered productions. As a collection of songs though, yeah, it's atrocious, and I can see why SFA lost listeners with it.

I can never remember half of the songs on Rings. A lot of them just seem to blend into each other. You know how you said Frequency wasn't a great ballad and especially played next to Demons, that's exactly how I feel about Shoot Doris Day and Presidential Suite. I know big production is supposed to be what Rings is all about but the songwriting doesn't seem anyway near as strong as Phantom Power which did that idea a whole lot better.

Juxtapozed is a great single but I always hated the other two singles. The title track is one of their least inspiring tunes, it just goes nowhere. Always frustrates me they insist on playing it live. It's Not the End of the World is too similar to Forever by The Beach Boys and again compared to all their other earlier ballads just seems so bland and kind of hollow.

I definitely wouldn't lose any sleep if they retired "Drawing Rings Around the World" or "Golden Retriever" from their live sets.

I'm a massive High Llamas fan, which I've mentioned before, so I kind of feel at home among the sweeping arrangements that took over from RaTW to Love Kraft. That's another element that doesn't bother me as much as it bothers others.

I need to stop capitalizing the wrong letters in RAtW.

Yeah, I feel the same about Golden Retriever. I don't dislike it as much as Rings but it's probably my least favourite song on Phantom Power.

I disagree that Bunf hasn't topped 'Sex, War & Robots', I think 'These Bones' and 'White Socks/Flip Flops' are of equal quality to that song, if not better. It just seems to me that he went off the boil a little bit around the time of Love Kraft. There were some fine B-sides during the Rings Around The World era: 'Edam Anchorman/All The Shit U Do' (I see them as being one song) and 'Tradewinds' being two very fine songs indeed, and 'The Roman Road' and 'Patience' aren't too far behind. All of those could hav easily made the album itself. On the other hand, 'Gypsy Space Muffin' is a very weak Bunf composition that's probably even worse than his songs on Love Kraft, and 'Happiness Is A Worn Pun' takes the riff of 'The Teacher' and does nothing exciting with it.

'It's Not The End Of The World?' and 'Shoot Doris Day' both touch me in a way that 'Frequency' never will, and 'Frequency' doesn't have a moment in it that even touches the part in 'Presidential Suite' where it goes "You know that when we met there were fireworks in the sky..." etc.

'(Drawing) Rings Around The World', although played to death live, is a great live song, although I wouldn't mind them dropping 'Golden Retriever' every so often. I think those tracks are great, though.

It's heartening to see there's still so many wildly diverse opinions about this band and their albums. That's one thing that has remained consistent.

On the subject of those Bunf songs, I like, even love, both, but "Sex, War and Robots" remains his only song that has an emotional core. I actually really enjoyed The Pale Blue Dots' LP as well, so he's definitely grown on me (I know you thought it sounded like out of tune warbling).

Yeah, you're pretty OTM about 'Sex, War & Robots' being his most emotional song. The thing with Bunf is I like him when he sings in his natural register, like on that song and 'White Socks/Flip Flops', his high register works well for backing vocals but not so well for lead. When he strains to reach those high notes on 'The Horn' and 'Back On A Roll', it's fucking painful. I often wonder why Mario Caldato Jr. didn't say "hang on, Bunf, I think we should change the key on this song to suit your natural range".

I didn't like The Pale Blue Dots' LP, no. I thought Cian's first album was a bit dull, and his second album had some good moments on it. The second Neon Neon album was (IMHO) terrible, and American Interior had some good stuff and some okay-but-not-spectacular stuff. I streamed those albums, but haven't bought any of that stuff, likewise Gulp or The Earth. Last SFA (or related) thing I bought was Hotel Shampoo, come to think of it. I'm just not really as interested in the side/solo stuff as I was with SFA themselves during their "golden years".

Very minor setlist change at the Manchester gig, they played 'Drygioni'.

I'm actually surprised you like "Crazy Naked Girls." I think it could use another verse or two. "Mt." is not my favorite, and I'm surprised Cian couldn't come up with a more interesting song structure considering everything else he's written for the band.

Neon Neon is one of my least favorite side projects. Gruff the clearly SFA's most talented songwriter and vocalist (that goes without saying), but he can go definitely go overboard with his ridiculous ideas when he isn't careful. That instinct has always been there and he can sometimes reign it in and make some really memorable music. Worst of all, though, Praxis Makes Perfect is just kind of boring. I understand the live show was fantastic, but that doesn't really matter when all I've got is a CD with 30 minutes of uninspired synth pop.

"Hoops With Fidel" is also one of the most annoying things he's ever written. More annoying than "Lazer Beam," even.

'Crazy Naked Girls' and 'Cardiff In The Sun' were two tracks I wasn't sure about at first, but they seem to have grown on me. I don't know about another verse or two, but perhaps it could have been one false ending less - they really hammer that riff into the ground. 'Cardiff In The Sun', weirdly, came into its own for me when I listened to outside of the context of the album fairly recently.

'The Very Best Of Neil Diamond, 'Helium Hearts' and 'White Socks/Flip Flops' I think would have made much better "singles" than 'Mt.' and 'Inaugural Trams', and 'Pric' is a great closer.

I thought Stainless Style was fantastic, but in hindsight they really should have left the Neon Neon project after that album because it would have been a neat one-off. Praxis Makes Perfect was definitely nowhere near as good!

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/06/vote-indie-general-election-song-dont-give-it-away-politics-swing

Cian and Steve Mason.

Makes sense, they've both released "political" albums over the last few years.

A bit heavy handed for my taste, but I am a Steve Mason fan as well so I figured I'd share.

Someone deep within the crowd reports that they played "Neo Consumer" tonight.

'Neo Consumer', eh? I guess it wouldn't have taken 'em very long to get that one rehearsed up, but I'm genuinely surprised that they've thrown that one in!

Well they technically played something that was going to be on DD/LY last night... "Earth." That might've taken less practice than "Neo Consumer."

I'd forgotten about 'Earth', always felt that it was a bit of a pointless joke track.

Yeah, I agree. There is a pretty nice version of it Gruff and Bunf performed for a small audience. I always enjoyed their renditions of SFA songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5okLQAYqlo

That really impressed me. Cian does seem to hit a couple wrong notes on his piano (maybe it's just the recording?), but I think the outro is phenomenal.

Christ, that was good! All of the footage that I've seen of the bands gigs this year have shown a band that seemed to have regained something which seemed to be absent in the gigs from 2007-2009. I think I've said this before, but, I guess with the benefit of hindsight, the band were exhausted and just needed to take a break. I know that there's a lot in these shows that was in previous shows (the yeti's and suchlike) and that it's quite a "nostalgic" setlist, but the break seems to have done them a hell of a lot of good as a live unit.

You are on the money.

They seem to have taken this "reformation" a lot more seriously than I anticipated as well. Even though they are relying on old standards, reworking the outro to "Mountain People" or having the whole crew, horns and all, on stage shows they weren't in it just for the money. In a sense, they may have purged themselves of their excesses during the hiatus, which makes me very excited about new music. I don't think you can quite count them out yet.

I have also heard from very reliable sources that they were pretty much thrilled to be together again during rehearsals and back stage.

Yeah, it sounds like they're enjoying playing together again and enjoying each others company. It's fair to say that at this stage, after several years of solo/side projects that I haven't really enjoyed, and after a good five years or so of thinking that this band were dead and buried, that I'm more optimistic of the future of the band and a new SFA album than I have been for a long time. I'm beginning to find myself thinking that a 10th SFA would be a great idea after all, as long as they take their time over it and don't fuck it up.

I was pretty surprised to hear the extended version of Mountain People, back when I used to see them a lot they would sometimes swop that out with MDGAF for the techno blowout finale.

I was at the first Brixton night and there was a natural moment of ovation during a pause in Hello Sunshine (before 'I'm a minger...') they seemed genuinely touched.

Last time I saw them play it, they didn't play any kind of extended ending or anything like that. It felt a bit weird!

This evening I realised it had been a while since I listened to the surround sound mixes of the Sony albums, so I dug out the Rings Around The World DVD and was just blown away all over again by the ambition and excess of it all. First of all, there's the 5.1 mix of the album itself (the band consider it to be the primary mix) which is just excellent - the way that the drums pan around you in 'Alternate Route To Vulcan Street', or the way the ending to 'Receptacle For The Respectable' circles around you, and some great use of the subwoofer channel on '(A) Touch Sensitive'. There's a few details here and there which seem to be absent or mixed out of the stereo version, such as the siren when Gruff sings "abandon ship" on 'Alternate Route To Vulcan Street', or the way the guitars carry on for a little longer into the outro of '(Drawing) Rings Around The World'. I truly feel that if you haven't heard Rings Around The World in 5.1, then you haven't truly heard it. Then, there's the other stuff: videos for every track, including most (but not all) of the B-sides (the videos for the singles on the DVD album are different to the ones they used to promote the singles, as found on the Songbook DVD, too), remixes, plenty of photos capturing the band during the making of the album both in the recording studio or just generally hanging about, little incidental pieces of music (that you can't find elsewhere) on the numerous menus, shots of the 5.1 graph in action showing where the signals are going to the various channels. It's all such a well put together package, and the entire project must have cost them an absolute fortune in total (sometimes I wonder just how much) - not just for the DVD and its contents, but for the additional videos they made to promote the singles, the CD album, the vinyl album (one side plays inside out and there's a hidden piece of vinyl in the sleeve), the long tour they went on playing gigs in surround sound, and the album had its own web address (www.ringsaroundtheworld.co.uk) with more additional stuff on there. I think people sometimes forget just how ambitious this era of the band was, I certainly know that I had!

The Phantom Power DVD isn't as ambitious or overloaded with stuff as the Rings Around The World DVD (the Fowler-created "wallpaper" that plays throughout the album isn't quite as exciting as having a video for each track, although it's pleasant to look at, and to be fair does have more stuff happening during the 'Father Father' tracks), but the surround sound mix is (once more) excellent, and is well worth hearing. I have no problems with the stereo mix of Phantom Power at all, but those seeking a more livelier mix should check out the surround sound version. 'Slow Life' is particular is a treat in 5.1 - it would be a treat even in mono, but the 5.1 is definitely an experience. There are extras on the DVD, although if you've got the Phantom Phorce remix album, that takes care of the remixes and the "producers commentary" gags (which is one of the bands crew members pretending to be a producer called Kurt Stern). There's also small videos that precede each track, if you choose to listen to each track individually.

As for Love Kraft, from what I remember this is the best surround mix of all of them, but sadly the 5.1 surround sound version of this album is only available on the limited edition hybrid SACD, and I no longer have the means to listen to SACD's so was therefore unable to enjoy this album in what I'd call its best version. As you'd imagine, tracks like 'Lazer Beam' breathe just that little bit more when it doesn't have to contain all of its information in two channels.

Would love to hear RATW in surround, I've always been under the impression that the whole mix of 'Alternate Route...' panned around slowly.

Listening to the surround sound mixes of Rings Around The World and Phantom Power, and taking in the DVD's after a long time, has reminded me of just how much I loved the ambition and excess of SFA during this period. I remember being a bit disappointed when they didn't bring out a Love Kraft DVD, because I imagine that the band could have commissioned some great visuals to go with the tracks, and I feel it's a shame that they just threw the 5.1 mix out there on a hybrid SACD, a format which admittedly didn't really take off as well as it could have done. Not only that, but you wouldn't be able to tell if it was an SACD or not if it hadn't been for a tiny sticker on the packaging and the 5.1 mixing credits in the booklet! Having said that, the Love Kraft shows were definitely well put together and presented.

It's hard not to feel that they "lost" a little something during the Rough Trade years, as good as some of the music on Hey Venus! and Dark Days/Light Years is, and I think the presentation of the band during this time had a lot to do with it. The stage sets became much more "basic", they stopped doing DVDs and surround sound mixes, they seemed to have given up on their web presence and the albums began to feel less like events and far more low-key - even Mwng had its own dedicated website with lyric translations and track-by-track commentary! - and also there was the decision to stop using Pete Fowler exclusively and bring in Keiichi Tanaami for the album artwork, which in hindsight probably wasn't the best decision - it messed up the continuity built up from the sleeves dating back to the Radiator era, and the end results were (it's fair to say) a bit divisive. I can only speak for myself, but these sleeves didn't feel recognisably "SFA" to me. Sure, during the Dark Days/Light Years era they put up loads of footage of the recording process on their website, made a little documentary for the album and played an "online gig" prior to the release of the album, but all of this footage is now lost to the mists of time - bar the documentary, which seems to be up on Youtube - the SFA of 2001-2003 would have bundled this all up into a DVD with assorted extras and a 5.1 mix and would have went on a mammoth tour with an elaborate stage set.

One of the things I'm loving about the footage of the gigs they played this year is that it seems to me that they have this regained desire to present themselves as a band in the way they once did. Of course, when it comes to the crunch, it's all about the music, but the way the band presented themselves was a part of their overall identity.

Would love to hear RATW in surround, I've always been under the impression that the whole mix of 'Alternate Route...' panned around slowly.

― MaresNest, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 9:35 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you can ever find a way of doing so, do it without hesitation. You know how John Lennon once said "you haven't heard Sgt. Pepper's... until you've heard it in mono"? That's exactly how I feel about the 5.1 version of Rings Around The World.

There's a great interview with Cian about the recording of the album here

They're coming to America!

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/4knots-super-furry-animals.jpg

_Would love to hear RATW in surround, I've always been under the impression that the whole mix of 'Alternate Route...' panned around slowly.

― MaresNest, Wednesday, May 13, 2015 9:35 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink_

If you can ever find a way of doing so, do it without hesitation. You know how John Lennon once said "you haven't heard /Sgt. Pepper's.../ until you've heard it in mono"? That's /exactly/ how I feel about the 5.1 version of /Rings Around The World/.

There's a great interview with Cian about the recording of the album here🔗

This is a great piece. Just ordered the DVD on Amazon – the shipping cost more than the disc.

Feel pretty bad I still haven't heard 5.1 mixes of RAtW-Love Kraft. That interview makes it sound like I'm really missing out on half of what the band hoped to deliver.

I finally got ahold of Ffa Coffi Pawb's Clymhalio (digital, of course). It's interesting to hear Gruff's evolution from a fairly tuneless and stoned kid that mumbles his lyrics to the colorful, psychedelic pop musician that he became.

They've got an American West Coast tour in February 2016 and a support slot with Noel Gallagher April 2016. I think something must be cooking.

Also:

http://i.imgur.com/O85haaA.png

:)!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-xM202ZpI4&app=desktop

Still waiting on SF dates here...

http://www.groundcontroltouring.com/tours/super-furry-animals

Wait no more

*Burns voice* Excellent.

If they'd just booked the American tour and only the American tour, I wouldn't have batted much of an eyelid to be honest. I would have pretty much have seen that as them treating their American fans to a series of shows in the same way they did with their UK fans this year. However, it's the fact that they've been booked as a support act for Noel Gallagher that's intriguing me... clearly the band really don't need to do that, as they're quite able to sell tickets for shows in their own right as demonstrated by the turn-outs of their initial reformation tour. So, why are they doing it? Either putting on another series of headline shows is too expensive for them (I'm assuming that because they're going to be a support act, they won't be using the lasers and all that stuff) or... they're wanting to play live to people to aren't usually a part of SFA's core audience, and one can't help but wonder why they'd bother doing that unless it was some kind of attempt to raise awareness/lay the groundwork for a future product. In any case, why Noel Gallagher's audience!?

I really hope that they're able and willing to tour a few more major US markets, next year. Not too excited about possibly having to travel to the west coast to see them, though it could be worse.

Along with that, Bunf recently moved back to Cardiff. They could always keep costs down and record at Cian's studio.

It's means they're going to split up, as predicted upthread