SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/super-furry-animals

DISC 1 – FUZZY LOGIC + B-SIDES
Fuzzy Logic (Original 1996 album – 2016 Remaster)
• God! Show Me Magic
• Fuzzy Birds
• Something 4 The Weekend
• Frisbee
• Hometown Unicorn
• Gathering Moss
• If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You
• Bad Behaviour
• Mario Man
• Hangin’ With Howard Marks
• Long Gone
• For Now And Ever
B-Sides & Such (2016 Remaster)
• Lazy Life (Of No Fixed Identity)
• Don’t Be A Fool, Billy!
• Death By Melody
• Something For The Weekend
• Dim Bendith
• Waiting To Happen
• Arnofio / Glô In The Dark
• Guacamole
• The Man Don’t Give A Fuck
• (Nid) Hon Yw’r Gân Sy’n Mynd I Achub Yr Iaith

DISC 2 – LOST ON THE BYPASS ROAD
(Bonus tracks – previously unreleased apart from track 1)

Studio Demo Session, Summer 1995
• Frisbee
• Something For The Weekend
• Hangin’ With Howard Marks
• Sali Mali
Studio Demo Session, October 1995
• Bad Behaviour
• Lazy Life (Of No Fixed Identity)
• Mario Man
• Death By Melody
• Hometown Unicorn
• Waiting To Happen
• If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You
• Gathering Moss
• The Man Don’t Give A Fuck
• Fuzzy Birds
• For Now And Ever
Live At The Phoenix Festival, 20th July 1996
• Frisbee
• Organ Yn Dy Geg
• Fix Idris
• Something For The Weekend
• Hometown Unicorn
• If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You
• Focus Pocus/Debiel
• Bad Behaviour
• Mario Man
• God! Show Me Magic

Can't wait to hear the demos, but this MDGAF demo is horrendous:

https://soundcloud.com/salvolabel/the-man-dont-give-a-fuck-demo-session-october-1995?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=twitter

I guess that makes it even cooler since MDGAF rules.

i'm partial to these demos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lcY6kFwt94

particularly this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL0km3QzlAo

There's absolutely no way I'm buying this album again. The bonus material looks very unexciting, too.

I'm more interested in any possible outtakes/unreleased songs rather than demos. Although the live stuff should be fun to listen to.

Hey Gruff claims the remaster sounds completely new and that there's tons of differences with the original release. You know he's never prone to hyperbole..

Apart from when he described Hey Venus! as "speaker blowing", Dark Days/Light Years as "biblical" and 'Lliwiau Llachar' as sounding like The Who. I could go on - I won't. But yeah, I'll believe it when I hear it.

Gruff also says: "The reissue is radically different to the original, some songs have alternate beginnings and endings and people will notice the difference in definition, especially in high resolution digital and the new vinyl cut. 1995/6 was an overwhelming whirlwind of touring, gimmickry and mayhem for us so it's been a real treat to take some time to relive and reassess all these songs and compile everything that we recorded in that short, magical period in one place."

It's likely he's referring to the demos when he talks about alternate beginnings and endings.

Truth be told, I'll probably stream the demos once and stick with the original CD.

I have a confession.

I absolutely love 'Bing Bong.'

Had the best time ever dancing with my son to it yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmu6GYIHH6o

http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2016/10/10/magnet-classics-the-making-of-super-furry-animals-rings-around-the-world/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MagnetMagazine+%28Magnet+Magazine%29

Pretty interesting long article on Rings Around the World. Of course, this part intrigued me the most:

That lost outlier, Shaw remembers, was titled “Chihuahua”: “It was part of a long, extended jam that they did in the studio, almost like a dance track. Somebody hit upon the idea of getting a samba band on the record. Apparently, there’s a Welsh samba band somewhere, because we found them, and got them to the studio, but it just didn’t work out. Though we did get something out of it. A girl in the samba band played one of these huge, deep-sounding bass drums; Eric peeled it off of one of the recordings and turned it into an 808, and that wound up being the obnoxiously low bass tone that you hear—or, rather, feel, though only if you’ve got a big enough subwoofer—on (Ciarán’s Stooges-sampling trip-hop instrumental) ‘(A) Touch Sensitive.’ So, the samba band kinda made the record.”

That was a good read!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMWruEyANF3/?taken-by=kliphscurlock

Radiator is getting remastered.

A vinyl reissue of Radiator would make me very very happy.

I know nothing about production, mastering or mixing, but is there any chance they'll be able to improve the sound of the bass on the record? The album's production has always made my ears feel very tired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZY4HGiMdqE

A vinyl reissue of Radiator would make me very very happy.

― Kitchen Person, Thursday, November 3, 2016 11:45 AM

Fuzzy Logic remaster is out/on Spotify if you're curious

Single version of Something 4 The Weekend used instead of the album take. Actually don't mind this bit of revisionism

It was like that before iirc - I listened to the FL/Radiator version recently and that had the slower version, put it down to Sony/BMG slackness. It is a better version though it sounded weird in that context.

Am interested to compare this with the original but probably not enough to buy it. I've been happy with the way it's sounded for 20 years tbh.

Enjoyed that film, esp. Guto's look-to-camera as Gruff listed 23 coincidences. Bunf looks terrible though.

It's listed as 'U.S. Version' on Spotify, but it sounds like the same old UK single version to me. Did it go on all the US pressings then? That could explain why it ended up on the 2fer. The UK album version isn't anywhere to be found on the deluxe.

perhaps Bunf read this thread

scrub that, the album version appears after Death By Melody

Sorry Bunf. Get some sleep man!

This is being live broadcast on BBC Radio Cymru at 8pm

Composed by Cian Ciarán, performed by BBC National Orchestra Wales, poetry by Gruffudd Antur.

For 20 years and counting a member of Super Furry Animals, Cian Ciarán comes together with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales to tell a traditional Welsh fable in music. The world premiere performance of a work that has been almost two-decades in development, Cian Ciarán’s first orchestral piece Rhys & Meinir promises a rare, aural experience that encapsulates the drama of ancient Welsh folklore, the envisioned splendour of rural Wales and the innate, musical curiosity of the intrepid composer.

Rhys and Meinir found love in the village of Nant Gwrtheyrn, North Wales and their childhood romance blossomed for all to see. On the day of their marriage, Meinir is nowhere to be found and the mystery leads Rhys into months of despair. When finally a thunder strike reveals Meinir’s final hiding place, Rhys is unable to live a second longer.

Supported by Arts Council Wales and the PRS for Music Foundation

Yeah, the US version swapped out the original album version of 'Something For The Weekend' for the single version, even at the time.

The remasters don't sound much different to me, but I'm listening on low budget earbuds on a laptop. Someone with a better system might want to chime in.

The "if You Don't Want Me to Destroy You" and "Mario Man" demos are pretty interesting. There's a different chorus on "Destroy."

I did notice two or three seconds of extra noise at the end of "God! Show Me Magic," however, so I guess Gruff told the truth about something.

Cian's composition in full: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0380rs6

If you're interested, Kliph is giving pretty thorough and interesting answers to questions about the remasters and the SFA vault.

https://m.reddit.com/r/superfurryanimals/comments/5b36qa/qa_kliph_scurlock_answers_your_questions_about/?compact=true

Yeah. Like that sort of thing..

Preserving what they did originally is priority number one to me.

He says, after detailing a series of unneccessary, revisionist changes to Fuzzy Logic. I'm all for demos/unreleased tracks, but I hate this kind of revisionist bullshit. I'll be sticking with the 1996 original - it still sounds fine.

or: he details a bunch of minor decisions made in reconstructing edits and crossfades between songs, and one extended outro.

Does anybody know why Radiator was mixed with so little bass?

x-post:

Those sort of changes are still unnecessary, IMO. Just bring the overall sound up to scratch and put out the unreleased/demo stuff, that's all that needs doing.

They're not changes per se, though, and absolutely not unnecessary - he's having to MAKE the edits and crossfades and such as part of the mastering, and reckons it would be harder to replicate the poor-quality (in his assessment of the technology of the time, compared to today) edits than to make ones that sound good to him, and have the fannish bonus of containing little bits of music that the old version didn't.

If you don't want to hear them, that's fine! I'm almost certainly never going to buy these, but if I had disposable income and a good stereo, it would probably feel a little more worthwhile re-purchasing everything if I knew there were tiny little Easter eggs, representing the care and thought put into the project by the guy doing the remastering.

Honestly, the only noticeable change was putting "Something 4" into the track list rather than the original. I happen to prefer it to the original studio version so it doesn't bother me; it's also how the original US version is sequenced.

I dunno, I'll give it at least one listen when I get around to it.

I missed the show in Norwich. I've seen the set lists and they're straight-up playing the albums from front to back.

I found a poor vid of The Placid Casual. I think Bunf sounds pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go-uCTS2h8k

Just fishing right now, however I may have two spare tickets for tomorrow night at the Roundhouse, [we can't go sadly] not fussed about payment, anyone potentially interested?

Wd be up for this. Have DM'd you.

Holy WTF here. Via PR mail:

Everloving Records announces the US reissue Super Furry Animals’ 1996 debut album, Fuzzy Logic, for Record Store Day 2017!

On Saturday April 22nd, Fuzzy Logic will be available on 180g LP with an additional 35 bonus tracks and on 2xCD. Gruff Rhys says: “The reissue is radically different to the original, some songs have alternative beginnings and endings and people will notice the difference in definition, especially in high resolution digital and the new vinyl cut.”

Seriously, *35* bonus tracks? What the heck! No word on what exactly yet but the mail goes on to say:

From the two-decade deep well of their adventurous catalogue come B-sides, a legendary festival performance and demo versions from low-key 1995 recording sessions, revealing the genesis and winding roads taken by many of their early hits.

It was reissued in the same configuration in the UK last year, Ned. Yes, there are 35 bonus tracks... 10 of 'em are B-sides, the rest of 'em are demos and live stuff.

Nice. Well looking forward, then.

The "radically different" stuff is just some extra noise on a couple tracks. I don't have a wonderful set-up so maybe I'm missing out on the finer details, but I didn't the sound quality much better/different either.

Yeah, the most interesting stuff for me was the demos, although I only listened to 'em a couple of times and then totally forgot about the reissue completely until this thread was bumped.

Honestly, and I hate to be Neo Turrican, but this band's getting a bit too comfortable with the legacy act thing. I remember when they were self-deprecating about their first best-of album back in 2004. I won't go into whether or not their later albums are as good as their older albums, but their social media presence has gotten pretty depressing. It's all hawking Radiator-era T-shirts and news about RSD releases like this and the "International Language of Screaming" single reissue. I'm sure they've all got mouths to feed, but I'm gonna be really disappointed in this band if they keep this up...

No you're right. New album or fuck off

Well yeah, this is the thing. For a band that once remarked that it would be all over if they ever released a greatest hits, it's quite something (and depressing, in a way) to see that they've pretty much turned into a nostalgia act, which is something that I would never have expected this band to turn into. I'd always assumed for many years that the band were very much anti-nostalgia and preferred not to be backwards-looking. The thing is, though, I'm not hankering after new music from them either. I haven't even watched any of the footage of the Fuzzy Logic/Radiator shows. I prefer to remember this band as they were in their prime, when they were making ambitious projects like Rings Around The World and making highly listenable, wonderful records like Mwng and Phantom Power.

Glad I caught them live when I did (once at a record store show around Guerilla and then twice on separate Rings Around the World dates), even though all three shows were good rather than tear-your-head-off great. It does all seem very distant now.