SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

guerrilla is their most wild stylistic grab bag album, with a bunch of tracks that are just sonic experiments more than anything else, and even the pop songs are relatively disparate stylistically

and then on ratw they really successfully combined the two approaches, leaning towards the pop side of their songwriting over pure experimentation, but successfully incorporating all the sonic experimentation into the songs themselves more directly too

I'd never heard, or realized, that about the harmonizing. It's interesting that the rest of the band started releasing their own songs after RAtW, to varying degrees of interest and success.

Cian harmonizes with Gruff beautifully. Their pairing on “Download” is sublime.

going for it = fleshing the experimentation out into full-blown compositions with greater narrative complexity, length, scope etc, yes

Bunf's background vocals are the most off in their own little world, like his part on Baby Ate My 8 Ball is an imitation of the ambulance coming for the baby.

Sticking him in the center of a chordal harmony is just... What??

P sure "Download" is Cian's song and he also has songs on Guerrilla and RATW (a couple co-written with Bunf)

Yeah some tracks on Guerrilla are songwriting experiments presented in varying stages of incompletion. I like this in part because they are freeform and defy conventional structure. Do not agree with this idea that the experimentation is subordinate, must serve the songwriting, or ultimately the end goal is integration into "full blown compositions" which unfortunately means conventional song structures.

Looking at the tracklist for Guerrilla, the ones that are "just sonic experiments" basically = Cian's songs.

Wherever I lay my phone, Some Things come from nothing, The door to this house and Chewing Chewing gum are the ones that are Cian's or mainly Cian's, as well as all the interludes obv.

He wasn't really "writing songs" - he was developing these tracks which were kind of formless, which creates a challenge but also opens up possibilities to create new kinds of sstructures and song forms. Which is what I wish they'd done.

It seems like what changed after Guerrilla is the way they work with his tracks- instead of treating them as standalone songs, they incorporated them into other songs (Slow Life) or built songs on top of them (Lazer Beam).

Also, Cian started writing more structured songs on piano and deloped fewer tracks on a sampler.

Looking back, using their solo back catalog as a map, Bunf appears to be the Super Furry Animal that possesses the older songwriting methodology. I hear more of the early sound in his writing than the others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q78h4fuFc-k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwS8bvd8BLw

He's probably less capable of writing a fully-realized ballad or 2-minute pop hit, but I think he's the least tethered--agreeing with the concept his harmonies were kind of out in space compared to Cian's. I think his A-sides/B-sides from Phantom Power on are the sloppiest, but some of the most interesting.

I don't think Bunf songwriting is much of a factor in their early stuff, he was generally (mis)taken to be the lead guitarist in early press, his best guitar parts tend to be wayward contrapuntal lines that add harmonic tension, much like his backing vox- the buried fuzz gtr in Northern Lites is a good example. Afaict this is his important contribution.

Cian takes up a lot of space with chromatics on some of those songs, his parts can be bold and deliberate and push against the grain. Sean O's strings on 'Turning Tide' are able to kind of tiptoe around the chromatics but I think he asserts himself more from RATW.

Like Cian's musical voice tends to be a lot leaner and more aqueous than Gruff's, which is rounder and more full bodied. Much like their singing voices and their physical bodies... Idk whether this is a factor in their music sounding more or less "fleshed out", probably not what was meant but Cian's ideas tend not to ve very fleshy

Sinewy *maybe*

Def spidery. He's their Spiderman.

Impressed with Chris Shaw's ability to carve the space for certain textures to rip your head off in these very busy mixes, i can see why he's so proud of his work on this stuff

Wherever I Lay My Phone is easily my favourite thing on Guerrilla - it allows the sonic experiment to play itself out for six minutes and build into something anthemic, an instinct they'd shown before obviously and one they'd revisit a lot more on RATW. I don't think putting the sonics into song-structures worked against their interest value. I'd argue SFA's strengths revolve around their interpretations of pop music!

I can understand that.

I like "let's get juxtaposed, juxtaposed" as a subversion of "let's get physical, physical" for example.

To me their strength was in pulling away from the song-center, that's what I feel is most essential and unique to their approach... so relegating the center to something like a perspective point would be a logical conclusion.

I guess I'm more interested in the ability of their experiments to disrupt than cohere.

Otoh my fave sfa track is prob Mountain People which does exactly what you're saying. I don't like any of their other tilting wave machine tracks nearly as much tho.

Can't really choose between Ice Hockey Hair and Slow Life, to absolutely nobody's surprise

Ice Hockey Hair would be my second or third choice. Genuinely surprized to realize that two of their most anthemic tracks are my favorites, it is not a quality I tend to prefer.

Mountain People wasn't always a favorite mind you. As best I remember, the crazy synth riff and dissonant guitar anti-solo at the end of Herman <3's Pauline was the first thing that really hooked me as a pissed off 14 y/o.

I had a cassette of Fuzzy Logic before that but wasn't into it.

It's cute that after giving Ron Mael a shoutout on Fuzzy Logic and sticking his portrait in the liners, they reasserted their appreciation for Sparks by writing a song about Einstein's patents on the next one.

I think the celebratory element was something I tolerated more than enjoyed at the time, for the most part. It was all about the comic and charicatured expressions of rage.

They were certainly very good at channeling this anger into fun, collective release

Deflatormouse I took maybe 4 mos off ilx, but in poking my nose back in, and immed learning more than i can absorb, i suppose— that’s why i’m here 19 years after greenspun stuff. Ppl here often really know, and can explain. (RATW is still apotheosis lol).

They were my favorite band from the time I was 13 to 17-ish. I've had almost 25 years to think about why and I'm still figuring it out lol

I def share the deranged, antic sense of humor so that's part of it. But I'm really bad at processing my emotions so I'll probably never figure it out. That might be one of the reasons I was drawn to this band, their approach to dealing with emotions could be very indirect.

https://podfollow.com/1566723156/episode/284bd5820a835740a4d52e0b8e8ed7dd22e00cde/view

Fairly interesting convo with Guto & Cian. Cian's audio is pretty bad, but listenable enough.

Just picked up the long-overdue vinyl reissue of Rings Around the World. It’s been many years since I’ve listened to this album front to back, and I had all but forgotten what an end to end masterpiece it is. Even the songs I don’t love really _work_ in the context of the album. Sequencing FTW.

Altho for my money, the CD version with the back-to-back punch of “Tradewinds/Roman Road” is even better than the original album proper.

Only noticed more recently how Fragile Happiness is one of their best songs

The instrumentals are fun to listen to, just to really hear what they threw at this thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEtU9GQwUbk

(they released an additional 'disc' last Friday with all the demos, etc.)

Think juxtaposed comes out particularly well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQx78IMM3DY

“Acoustic” mix of Tradewinds is so lovely, wow

We'll go to Miami
Take old friends and family
We'll stay out and party
Does Will Smith lie?
Does he ever cave in and cry?

One of the weirdest things I've discovered from all the reissues & rarities:

They'd been working on "John Spex" since the Guerrilla sessions and somehow ended up turning it into "Lazer Beam," easily the worst SFA single ever and runner-up for worst SFA song in general.

I think they could've turned it into something cool. the LFO & Danger Mouse remixes were all right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG7BxOUIYJY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvyPrlYPm0Q

I think they had something...

"Point your random finger at the sky" always stuck out as a weird lyric. Now I see it's based on the sample in the second outtake.

Def. one of SFA's biggest failures. I could never suss out a good melody or idea in the song. At one point I imagined a nice cosmic guitar solo in place of the "We will conquer utopia with space chariots" bit and thought that might lead the song somewhere.

https://thepalebluedots1.bandcamp.com/album/lots-of-dots-2?fbclid=IwAR0uLj0ypugR3T4IiMoI-0GeYidAMhH4_F_LYWPsOK4A5Jr-bevVqx-IasA

My favorite side project. Insta-buy.

Pale Blue Dots album is out in a couple days. Looks like just a few copies left.

http://thepalebluedots1.bandcamp.com/releases

This new track that features Gruff is quite nice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX9V838P76I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFezk2G-lp8

Well, Bunf just managed to release the best SFA-related thing since SFA were around.

Two and a half weeks later - by far Bunf's best song, aside from "White Socks/Flip Flops." I need an entire album that sounds like "Thermos." He even finally got his voice sounding a little less shaky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtNeuXVqvi4

Cian harmonizes with Gruff beautifully. Their pairing on “Download” is sublime.

― afriendlypioneer, Monday, September 6, 2021 3:23 PM (four months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Cousins. Which adds a further layer to their obsession with The Beach Boys.

I'm all about Bunf right now.

Thermos is so good.

The first song ever recorded as Super Furry Animals, featuring actor, Rhys Ifans on lead vocals revealed by the band with time-limited, Bandcamp release: Of No Fixed Identity

Former lead singer and friend of the band, Ifans, performed the track in the studio in 1993 before taking the path towards a Hollywood career

Left in band archives for almost thirty years, the Bandcamp-only, one-week release emerges in support of the www.crowdjustice.com/case/save-the-severn-estuary/ campaign.

The song that started it all for Super Furry Animals and kept under wraps for almost thirty years, Of No Fixed Identity, featuring actor, Rhys Ifans on vocal duties has been surprise released by the band – but it’s only available strictly from Bandcamp and for a very limited time only.

https://superfurryanimals.bandcamp.com/releases

Never knew that stuff was recorded or that Gruff was in the band at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m7w6P75Gqs

I am loving this new track. It’s SFA all the way.

Looks like Das Koolies are going for it. 15 track album in September. Not a single song from the released EP or singles to date.

https://www.qobuz.com/nz-en/album/dk01-das-koolies/tkpgobxtyr2ob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmgwRdT3ijw

https://www.roughtrade.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.roughtrade.com%2Fmedia%2Fthumbnails%2Fproducts%2FDas_Koolies_-_DK.01_62c1b38f_thumbnail_2048.webp&w=750&q=100

Tracklist:
1 Best Mindfuck Yet
2 Out Of This World
3 Nuthin Sandwich
4 Shakedown
5 A Ride
6 Collide
7 Katal
8 Pain Down The Drain
9 Montezuma
10 Holy Shit
11 Masters Of Mankind
12 Alligator
13 Sky
14 Sorry
15 Wired For Sound

A new world emerges via a musical ‘big bang’ emanating from Das Koolies’ post-industrial Cardiff docklands hideaway, as the band announces that their debut album, DK.01 will be released on Fri 22 September 2023. Made with the help of contributors and influences as diverse as MC Killa Kela, 17th Century composer, Henry Purcell and their four decades together as Super Furry Animals, the album promises a genre-bending expansion of their most electronic-leaning and experimental ideas.

Quickly following up the success of the release of their debut The Condemned EP, Huw Bunford, Cian Ciarán, Dafydd Ieuan and Guto Pryce return with DK.01’s first blast of friendly fire in Best Mind F*ck Yet, forming an instant connection between their past and future. Embryonic versions having played the Furries off the stage during their MWNG tour in the mid-00’s, and featuring actor/former-SFA front man, Rhys Ifans on vocals, any band biographers will be compelled to furiously update their records as the strings-laced kraut/techno pounder is born into the band’s border-free land of possibility.

Best Mind F*ck Yet’s earthquake release comes with a new video emerging as part of the band’s creative link-up with artist, Edwin Burdis/Dah Dit Dit (Arctic Monkeys, Blossoms, The Coral), continuing to develop a visual world to complement the audio following the release of an animated video for The Condemned at the start of this year.

The release of the fifteen track DK.01 this autumn re-opens the book on the quartet’s long-term friendship and musical union at the next chapter, with their meandering tale together having begun in the vortex of north Wales’ illicit rave scene in the early-1990s. Last seen on stage together as the Furries’ final tour concluded in 2016, Bunford, Ciarán, Ieuan and Pryce reconvened Das Koolies around poker nights and half-remembered riffs shortly after, scratching a persistent, 30-year itch to perform a factory reset and deep dive into the synth-driven sound they’d heard in their heads all along.

Looking forward to the album’s release Das Koolies say: “The return has been welcomed. Unanimously. Dissent, however, will be tolerated. An abundance of ideas, new inventions and old friendships percolate, produce and persist. Come this way as a dead end is circumvented to show an open road.”

Alongside Ifans, guests set to appear on the album include influential British MC Killa Kela and the physical infrastructure of Cardiff, Wales’ capital city itself, as field recordings of percussive strikes on metallic structures make their way onto the record, symbolising the freedom with which ideas entered the studio from all possible sources.

Referring to classical composer, Henry Purcell with a bassline inspired by 300-year-old examples of the same, plus completing one demo that has existed in one form or another since 1998, DK.01 will reveal and celebrate the elasticity of time and the musical ideas within it, as it will inevitably expose the band’s own liberty to do just as they please.

DK.01 will be released in multiple physical formats including collectors’ edition vinyl variants, whilst the band also works towards making their live debut to coincide with the release in September.

Das Koolies DK.01 was produced by Das Koolies and mixed in collaboration with Grammy nominated engineer, Tom Forrest (Duke Dumont, Basement Jaxx) and MPG (Music Producer’s Guild) UK Music Producer of the Year 2022 Marta Salogni (Bjork, Depeche Mode).

Thanks for the update afriendlypioneer.

This reminds me that I have to run the SFA poll this year and I'm thinking September/October will be when I run it. I have other plans for the board this summer.

Good idea. I’ve begun enjoying their latter-day albums more than the classics lately so I’ll throw the results a bit. :)

ranking SFA songs would certainly be a struggle, possibly a chore. but i can volunteer to do something like what the table is the table did for the Low poll i.e. repeating that i can't understand how some of you like their Epic stuff as much as their Creation stuff.

guess i've already done that actually.

ranking albums more manageable although it's a tough call between Radiator and Guerrilla.

fwiw i listened to Radiator a couple of months ago and some of the lyrics are so cringe, i mean they always were but my tolerance for this ain't what it used to be.

i can deal with the dad jokes but "why do we do what they tell you" is too much.

i.e. repeating that i can't understand how some of you like their Epic stuff as much as their Creation stuff.

I got into them when Rings Around the World had just come out in the UK. Must've been late 2000? (I could look this up.) The whole thing swept me away -- tour, DVD, 5.1 surround, the b-sides. I don't listen to it much anymore and I doubt I'd call it my favorite album, but it hit me hard and that carried into Phantom Power. Phantom Power culminates with one of their greatest-ever songs, maybe their greatest A-side? I liked how quickly they could turn inward and create epic-seeming ballads, so I enjoyed the rest of the album as well. I was a little too late for the '90s albums, but obviously they're all classics for the most part. Radiator's production is unbearable 2 me these days, unfortunately.

I've been waiting for them to unleash the synths & bass, so the new stuff w/o Gruff is especially exciting. DD/LY felt like the start of something really good, and then it ended.

i'll have to come back to this, but what don't you like about the production of Radiator? i love it.

Mario Caldato is one of my favorite audio guys of all time, the records he did with Young MC, Tone Loc and the Beastie Boys sound amazing. especially Loc's. i def fantasized about SFA hooking up with him in the 90's, but when they did it was like 'ehh, i wish they'd just go back to Gorwel Owen's place'.