Super Furry Animals : S/D

Probably the only person in the world who holds this opinion, but 2019's The Earth album is prob. the best SFA side/solo/whatever thing that's come out in the 10 years since they took their hiatus. Dionne's got an incredible voice, and Daf's stoned, lazy backing Vox sound amazing paired with her singing. This is so outside the boundaries of what SFA fans want to listen to that I'm not surprised these albums haven't taken off (or maybe I have really bad taste).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7woDyNwATI

If we count the Baby Queens album, that gets my vote.

Oh, that's a really good one as well. I thought it had potential to break out past the SFA/Wales market, but it didn't appear to go anywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H74B_wkmHKk

this is so good

stoked to check out The Earth thingy

It sort of sounds like all the things SFA are good at, but with none of that Gruff charm that’d send it over the edge perhaps?

ha this is exactly along the lines of my initial post thoughts, which were "this is good, but it does not _delight_ me like good SFA," but it sounded revoltingly precious. i could not word it properly.

*watches Naughty Naughty*

nah that's almost exactly inside what this SFA fan wants, THANKS

gotta say, i didn't know distribution in the web age could be this hard. i wanna wanna wanna buy that shit direct, it on apple music if you ask right, not on bandcamp, they say they're in amazon (they're not by my looks) and the weblink off the only shit i could find (on FACEBOOK!) is dead.

the shit off apple music is good imo. if anyone has the right place to send dough for songs tho

Finally got a dl. I have no idea who this is really for, other than me. I love the fuck out of it right off the bat. "You Must Be Mistaken" could be a mid SFA song.

Awesome. Glad you are enjoying it. I think Bunf might make an appearance on “Cyanide Sighs.” Don’t have the credits but I think I hear his voice near the end.

Can’t Have It All is exactly the weird delightful shit i think about that came from SFA. In some ways it is the trippiest retropsych that i’ve heard because there are all manners of proper styles colliding in non-standard ways, and the lyrical icing smoothed onto it is both beautiful and incredibly arch.

*sighs* this is the fuckin best.

This one's got a really good hook:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG6Nj5Orl1w

lol aggressive!

So many pop intersections topped with belting brutal funny lyrics. It’s like Shirley Bassey singing Rings Around the World with a good feeling for hitting the punch lines.

so i’ll shut up now.

And at both LA shows, the performances were good but not enthusiastic, the recreations of the songs so straightforward to the point that I could have just put the DVD on and watched that most of the time -- and with the muddy sound at the El Rey in particular, details WERE lost, trust me. They just didn't seem all that thrilled to be there both times, nearly six months apart, and while I can easily ascribe that to being in LA, board semi-regular donut bitch in Seattle described similar vibes up there (and he's as much a fan as I).
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, October 30, 2002 5:41 PM (seventeen years ago)

Got off the bus right around this point. They were way better live in the late '90s before they started playing their entire set to a click track.

There were many shows I attended where they were pretty listless, but then they were still capable of moments like this well into their career:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kV0bC1iChg

There's the B-side.

Pretty damn far out!

PPS i’m def still very ride or die on the earth, it’s the MOR-actually-NOT-MOR, tina-turner-is-updated-and-very-real album pair that i didn’t know i was waiting for.

the preceding album is the MOR album to those is so not as good, same production and playing level, but sorta bad.

lookin forward to das koolies b side...

B-side is v. Spacemen 3 once you get past the six minutes of opening drone.

"but then they were still capable of moments like this well into their career:"

That... sounds exactly like Epic period SFA playing Mountain People to a click track? That mellotron- ugh.
This performance makes me very grateful that Mountain ppl was on Radiator instead of Phantom Power.
Might as well watch the DVD = nail on the head.

don't mind me, as I've clearly never forgiven them for RATW, going all nerdy ("retropsych"), yada, yada.

The outro is fantastic IMO. I know it's derivative of the old outros, but it sounded huge in person.

Funny thing is, back in the Creation days I often thought how they needed to get a producer like Mario C on board to make their records that little bit bolder and edgier.
And they went on to kraft their most edgeless records with none other than.

Yeah, i liked the outro pretty well. Not as well as the ken nordine "orangely out of its head" one from 99, but pretty well.

idg what makes RATW less adventurous than the previous albums. sure it's a bit more polished but it's still completely all over the place surely

i mean, if you can ignore 'it's not the end of the world' and 'presidential suite'

I got into them when RAtW came out, so I can't really see where deflatormouse is coming from. I do agree they're a bit sterile live, however.

Also, maybe the songwriting on Hey Venus! and Dark Days/Light Years isn't up to par with the earlier albums, but it seemed like they were starting to move towards a less polished sound on those two albums.

"idg what makes RATW less adventurous than the previous albums."

I wrote a very long post in the 'ALL CAPS' SFA thread that touched on this. I think my primary complaint was "not as cool" as their previous albums (going soft) rather than "not as adventurous". But certainly also less adventurous in that on RATW they established a stylistic continuity from album-to-album for the first time and began to disengage from the musical conversation of the moment.

What they'd lost, in a word, was urgency.

I agree that their two Rough Trade albums took steps to address all this (I think quite deliberately), and I agree that they weren't up to snuff.

FWIW I wasn't that into Fuzzy Logic when it came out. I bought it and listened but wasn't all that taken with it until I went back and listened to it in late '97 with Radiator as my Rosetta Stone.

I really rather like DD/LY, if we ignore the existence of 'Mt.'

I mean, they gave plenty of lethargic performances when they were touring behind Radiator and Guerrilla where they were too stoned to stand up. Literally, on at least one occasion. And that was pretty fucking cool, actually.
They were not always energetic and enthusiastic. But in everything they did, they confronted the "now".

ha i don't rate phantoms that highly, and hold post phantoms at meh, but ratw is a creativity highlight that is more than retropsych imo. its not just retro and its not just psych, tho i have a soft spot for both.

Always thought 'psych' was a misnomer for SFA actually, as they've shown a lot more interest in soul textures and dance music production.

" ratw is a creativity highlight that is more than retropsych imo. its not just retro and its not just psych"

ok, why/why not??

I won't assume that "not just retro" = techno, but the techno breaks feel gratuitous and tacked on to me this time around and don't transcend the novelty emelent IMO, where on the previous two releases there was a seamless structural and stylistic integration with electronic experiments forming the basis for several tracks on Guerilla.

so wtev has taken over the SFA ballot poll for me, this now looks like it will be coming up soon...

ILM Ballot Polls for 2020 and beyond -- the ordering, timing, "I would have voted if I'd known about it," etc

The b-side reminded me of this gem. Bunf's kind of underrated, imo:

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

Bit of an odd voice. Maybe not a great voice. He seems to be the guy in the band who's just a little less polished & a bit more adventurous than the rest, and you can really hear it when he strikes out on his own.

Sort of fascinated by how different Gruff looks in this footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbEnvo0fh08

He was rocking dreads a few years earlier:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdcHQ9HHu8U

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

I'm kind of digging this stuff right now. Never gave it much time.

I saw SFA at a small (for them) club in Portland on the Hey Venus tour. 2008? 2009?

I was friends with the promoter, who knew that I was a huge fan, and as a result I found myself in their dressing room after the show.

This was notable for a few reasons:

First of all, they had a full DJ setup going... like, two turntables, PA, crates of records, and the band members were just taking turns spinning jams for themselves and their friends on this comically overpowered system in a dressing room slightly larger than a typical US hotel room.

And... there were bowls of weed *everywhere*. Not bowls as in pipes, or cereal bowls... but, like, the big metal mixing bowls you find in a restaurant kitchen, just *filled* with weed, like a half dozen of them. I've honestly never seen more marijuana anywhere on earth.

I ended up getting what was almost certainly the most stoned I've ever been in my entire life as SFA joyously spun records for hours, geeking out with them on their albums, laughing hysterically. It was the best time ever. SFA OK.

That's a great story. Their legendary weed consumption comes up in this documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKT67LyDKvU

There's a small feature in the new Uncut. Cian basically says Das Koolies is the new band as far as he is concerned and not a side project. They have no plans to record a new SFA album and Das Koolies is their main focus. They apparently have enough material for three albums, of course they always say that kind of shit. Anyway, I guess you could read into the "new band" thing in a couple ways.

"It's not a side project, it's not a gap-filler, it's not something we're doing because we're waiting to do Super Furries things again. This is what we do now, basically."

Very much up for this album despite not caring for the single

How'd you like the B-side--if you've heard it?

Er, not blown away either but it's early days

Super Furry Ifans

https://superfurryanimals.bandcamp.com/track/of-no-fixed-identity

“Apathy only ruined me”!?

So, wait, have we never done an ILM artist poll of these guys?

Looks like the four lads, minus Gruff, are set to release some more stuff as Das Koolies. Posting some snips and snaps on their social media. I have to say I’m more interested in it than the new Gruff LP. Been a while since the other guys had their time to shine and I liked the first couple tracks well enough.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1349013979279758?mibextid=0NULKw&fs=e&s=TIeQ9V