SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

Yeah, check 'em out and see what you think, just don't expect to have your mind blown.

(The latter in particular is one of their patchiest records.)

I find LK their patchiest, but that's fair. I really think HV! and DD/LY are underrated albums. Perhaps they're not SFA at their best, but I don't expect many bands 15 years into their career to hit that high point anymore anyway. It's a shame they've completely ignored them since their reunion, but I SUPPOSE the fans don't want to hear them anyway so I'm in a small minority of music listeners/fans!

I think we've had this conversation a few times by now...

Like I've listened to Hey Venus! twice this week and wondered why I didn't rate it highly when it came it out. It's a perfectly competent record. Maybe that's why it was so underwhelming? I dunno. Just, compared to my typical reaction to listening to LK these days, I find HV! a very enjoyable, easy listen.

Love Kraft is without a doubt their patchiest, but Dark Days/Light Years is their second patchiest and Hey Venus! is basically SFA in snack size.

Hey Venus! b-sides are pretty good, too. I really don't find much fault with it. It's just not a progressive leap over anything they've done, though it has a few brilliant odds and ends. DD/LY--we'll just continue to agree to disagree on that one! I'm still surprised no b-sides ever surfaced, but I guess they went in and out of the studio fairly quickly.

Rings Around The World is their patchiest record for me. I've never understood why people rate it so highly.

I thought it was the greatest album in the world when it came out (and I still love it), so I'll never understand people who don't rate it highly. :\ Another album with great b-sides, too.

n/m just counted it is 17 singles but still.

Always bought them because the b-sides were quality.

/wtev, have you posted under a different name on ILx? you sound like you have been around.../

'whatever' and something less appropriate before then. 10-12 years? Some time before the ysi threads took off on ilm.

I'm still surprised no b-sides ever surfaced

Unfortunately, I wasn't surprised... CD singles were on their way out and I remember the 'Run-Away' single being difficult to get hold of.

Always bought them because the b-sides were quality.

― wtev, Friday, July 21, 2017 2:26 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree - even as late as the Hey Venus! singles the B-sides were mostly great.

SFA didn't really write songs deliberately to be B-sides - most of 'em were originally meant to be album tracks but when assembling the albums they left 'em off. They just used to record songs and then make an album out of 'em, and then put the ones that didn't make it out as B-sides.

Who's up for a B-sides poll

I don't think you'd be able to fit 'em all in one poll!

Had they saved "Blue Fruit" for Love Kraft and dropped "Back on a Roll," people might have been kinder to the album. :)

'Blue Fruit' is awful, though!

Like, I can't see how the inclusion of one of their weaker B-sides would have helped. Love Kraft is an EP ('Zoom!', 'Atomik Lust', 'Cloudberries', 'Cabin Fever') that they inflated to album-length with subpar tracks.

Around the same era, tonally fits, still a Bunf song, and heck, I like it. Great outro, too! "Sunny Seville" wouldn't have fit. "Colonise the Moon" might've done something with a more interesting arrangement.

"Frequency," "Ohio Heat," and "Walk You Home" are all great, u mad

I have a soft spot for "Psyclone!" honestly. The strings make it special. The bass isn't bad, either. Will never understand what the hell they were thinking with "Lazer Beam." Gruff must've been asleep when he wrote it.

Not all of SFA's B-sides were A-side or album worthy, although many were. There's some great stuff like 'Waiting to Happen', 'Calimero', 'Hit and Run', 'Wrap It Up', 'Mrs. Spector', 'Colorblind', 'The Matter of Time', 'Charge', 'Edam Anchorman', 'Summer Snow', 'Sunny Seville' and 'These Bones' ...

... but there's also a few things that suck: 'nO.K.', 'Rabid Dog', 'Happiness Is a Worn Pun', 'Gypsy Space Muffin', 'Blue Fruit', 'Sanitizzzed' ...

'Colonise the Moon' sucks too.

"Frequency," "Ohio Heat," and "Walk You Home" are all great, u mad

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Saturday, July 22, 2017 6:53 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'Ohio Heat' is passable but I loathe the other two. 'Frequency' is nothing special, but overrated like fuck by the hardcore. 'Walk You Home' is a drab, confused mess. I particularly hate 'Psyclone!' though, which is a cringeworthy lyric married to a drab tune that not even its multiple key changes can save.

I think "Sunny Seville" is more cringeworthy than anything on the album, lyrically. "Sucking on dictaphone"?

"Summer Snow," "Edam Anchorman" and "Patience" are so good

x-post:

I'll take that over "take the turbulence and twinkle your toes", which makes me wince. At least 'Sunny Seville' has a decent tune and the lyric is funny, rather than embarrassing.

'Patience' is great and slipped through the cracks for years. Glad that it's been rescued from obscurity somewhat.

https://i.imgur.com/eqaXssh.png

I don't even know anymore.

Maybe the aliens in hometown unicorn took them and replaced them with clones who exist only to milk the commercial cash cow.

I've convinced myself they're trying to fund a new album, but the truth is they're probably just old & tired and wish they'd signed that deal with Coca Cola.

I wish they'd signed that deal with Coca-Cola.

I've convinced myself they're trying to fund a new album, but the truth is they're probably just old & tired and wish they'd signed that deal with Coca Cola.

Hey they're younger than me and I'm not old.

So there's a pretty big group on Facebook that some members of the band are a part of, and Daf addressed the negative track on Out Spaced. Apparently it's the backing track to one of the original SFA songs he did with Rhys Ifans. For some reason the store was it was some noodling Bunf did. Anyway, I thought that was pretty cool. Apparently he didn't even know it was on the album and hadn't heard it in decades.

He says he composed it himself. Not that it's an impressive composition or anything. Just a little more interesting trivia in this time of want.

Well, that's that cleared up! Yeah, the story for years was that it was a Bunf demo from 1992.

They generally have shit memories when it comes to their own stuff.

So the remaster came out today. I think it generally does sound a little better, maybe a little less murky. The bass is still barely present, but I don't think that's a problem a remaster can fix.

"Naff Gan" is the "Ice Hockey Hair" demo. The lyrics are the same as that live "Welcome to the Family" performance. It went from being a pretty charmless, grungey slice of nonsense to a classic, so it's an interesting historical piece. "Music Box" is just Gruff mumbling over some music.

I'm not much interested in hearing it - not unless there's stuff on there that's "proper" songs that I haven't heard before.

"Smoke" is an alternate mix of "Smokin'." I swear I heard this years ago on a compilation of some sort. But yeah, there's nothing AMAZING AND UNRELEASED on here. I think their vault is spent unless you want to go searching for some crumbs.

The new El Goodo album Strangetown just released is great. Good follow-up to their last one, which is also great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq27wwtEkvg

Liked that, will check out the album

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/latest-news/gulp-return-with-glittering-track-morning-velvet-sky

New Gulp song/album produced by Luke Abbott. Prob. best SFA spin-off in my opinion.

Cian's orchestral album is out now if you've preordered. It's pretty breathtaking stuff!

Here's a short video snippet:

Fersiwn glasurol @CianCiarán o chwedl Rhys a Meinir
A classical composition of the love story Rhys a Meinir by @CianCiarán#rhysameinir | Nos Iau | Thursday | 9.30#chwedlau #chwedloni@superfurry pic.twitter.com/MDhCWnB8fA

— S4C (@S4C) November 26, 2017

https://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/cian-ciaran-rhys-and-meinir

http://www.apessimistisneverdisappointed.com/2017/11/a-brief-review-of-rhys-meinir-from-cian.html

The album is, frankly, a revelation. A listener shouldn't be surprised that Cian Ciaran is a man of prodigious talent but, rather, that he is so easily capable of branching out so effectively. Rhys A Meinir is a record that alternates between lush orchestral passages, and stark, soundtrack-like pieces of music that convey the sadness and lyricism of the Welsh tale to a listener. In my interview with Cian Ciaran, he mentioned an appreciation for the music of John Barry, Bizet, and Ennio Morricone, an appreciation that one can hear here in the selections on Rhys A Meinir. A track like "Haul o rywle'n tywynnu" early in the record even bears a faint trace of Randy Newman's soundtrack work about it, while the lighter-than-air "Safodd yn stond" offers a rich abundance of harp figures. The more direct "Marwydos" brings a kind of folk music to the classical work, while the absolutely stunning "Rhedeg" chills and moves the soul in the style and spirit of the best Bernard Herrmann film scores. It's not entirely a surprise that this is an affecting work, but that it's so atypical of what one would expect from a Super Furry Animal. The band used strings before but never quite like this, Ciaran here embracing the larger forms and offering up something both Modern and Romantic.

Playing "Zoom", the 2cd best-of in the car at the moment.

It's so good!

They were/are so good. I fear they'll never be back. They're still hawking merch, though. There's always hope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIbS4ekCNmY

There's a good shot of a Hey Venus! preliminary studio track list in the documentary. "Upside Downers" from Cian's first solo album appears on it. The orchestra's motif took form during these sessions as well; he plays it during the studio session recordings and calls it "Lick My Love Pump" *lol*.

I enjoyed the doc. Good watch. V. relaxing, too.

http://beta.s4c.cymru/clic/e_level2.shtml?programme_id=794828413

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y6VLjIKwqQ

Ah! Greetings my friends,

- I’m happy to announce that my new album of 10 songs ‘Babelsberg’ is coming out on Rough Trade Records on 8th June. It features the BBC NOW orchestra with Kliph Scurlock, Osian Gwynedd and Steve Black on drums, piano, bass and I’m singing and playing guitar.

i did add my name to do a Super Furry Animals artist poll on ILM. not sure if i will actually do it. i ask, is there enough interest on ILM do actually do a poll?