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The Super Furry Animals are not related to the Teletubbies.
They aren’t a spin-off of Pokemon and you won’t find
them in the candy aisle next to the root beer barrels
and Gummi Bears. However, they could be any or all of
these things, and in the future they may well be. What
the Furries are is band of five Welshmen from Cardiff
who sublimely juxtapose just about every hyphenated
genre of pop music known to mankind with effortless
style and charming grace.
 From
the Beach Boys harmonies of “(Drawing) Rings Around
The World” to the nookie boogie Gamble & Huff string
parts found on “Juxtapozed With U” to the electronic,
head-thwapping Aphex Twin-style outros and interludes,
the Furries’ latest release in a string of art-pop gems,
Rings Around The World, manages to boldly go where no
other band has thought to (or probably ever could) go.
But where most bands these days seem to spend lifetimes
prefiguring their future stardom, image and niche, the
Furries appear more like time-travellers from the fourth
dimension of pop culture, bent on tickling us all out
of our deadly serious and careerist image-consciousness
with a musical juggling act equal parts Brian Wilson
and Groucho Marx. And the best part is it all comes
naturally.
“It’s not a method,” explained Gruff Rhys, from the
band’s 30-quid-a-month room turned state-of-the-art
recording studio located in a Cardiff community centre.
“I suppose we became friends first. I mean, there’s
a set of brothers in the band and they know each other
because they’re brothers, not because they stuck an
advert in a window somewhere advertising for someone
who’s got the same taste in music, you know. We didn’t
form with one particular musical vision in mind—we’ve
never been into the same clothes, or necessarily the
same records—but for me that makes it more exciting
to be in a band like that.”
As well it should be. But the Furries aren’t all hugs
and rainbows. Since their inception in 1993, the band
has had a penchant for surrealist-anarcho-leftist politics,
manifesting itself in such straight-to-the-point songs
as “The Man Don’t Give A Fuck” and “The International
Language of Screaming,” with its fantastic couplet,
“Every time I look around me everything seems so stationary/It
just sends me the impulse to become reactionary.” But
perhaps the most compelling aspect of the band’s sweet
‘n’ sour pop confection is its Situationist-style ability
to subvert the meaning of trad pop music structures
by infusing them with dead-on piss takes at the politics
that walk hand-in-hand with, and give rise to, global
warming, homelessness and gentrification, to name a
few. Add new friends and icons like the non-conformist
Cardiff City football star Robin Friday and Welsh drug
smuggler Howard Marks and you’ve got the makings of
the ultimate band: Fun, cool, rockin’, politically astute
and so whip-smart they continuously confound expectations.
And it’s exactly this blend of qualities that balances
the Furries’ creative yin and yang.
“If we’re sounding incredibly tortured that’s when we
laugh the loudest,” revealed the Furries singer/guitarist.
“Em, because usually it’s in a $1000-a-day studio and
you’re singing this silly, mourning song and that’s
when we laugh. But we don’t want to make...we never
try to achieve comedy. The exception is “Receptacle
for Respectable,” you know, where we completely went
with our silly streak.”
Silly indeed. Surely pissing off Beatles purists everywhere,
the Welsh quintet tapped Sir Macca himself to reprise
his carrot and celery champing role on the Beach Boys
classic “Vegetables” rather than asking him for more
a pedestrian contribution like actually singing or playing
the old Hofner. For his part, though, Rhys said he loved
the idea of people carefully trying to discern the “Cute
One’s” rabbitty crunching.
But, really, with five full-length albums worth of deliciously
surreal tunes, who has the time for that shit. A better
question might be how the hell this band of brothers’
music has largely escaped the attention of the American
indie rock ‘n’ pop-loving public? If tunes like “She’s
Got Spies” or “Tradewinds” aren’t the archetypal blueprint
for bucolic summertime road-trip soundtracks, nothing
is. But that’s just conjecture. The fact is, they’re
not going to be on the radio anytime soon and they probably
never will be, so fuck it. Go buy the albums and find
out for yourself. Rhys, however, hasn’t even considered
the question in any depth.
“I don’t see it as a trouble. I think it just takes
time for the music to travel. I mean, it’s as much to
do with distribution as anything,” he proffers. “Sometimes
it’s just that you can’t get your records distributed...
it’s just mundane things like that. It’s got nothing
to do with the music. And occasionally records make
more sense at a certain time than others. On a basic
level we are very happy to just make the records. There’s
so many coming out every week, I think you’re lucky
if you get one record heard.”
As for being heard, while the Furries certainly don’t
get the airplay they deserve Stateside, they have more
than enough material available, and right now the band
is working on yet another album, and this time they’re
steering the ship. Where in the past the band has worked
with producers like Gorwel Owens and Chris Shaw, this
time the band is producing itself. And why not? Sony
threw enough cash at them for the recording of RATW
for the Furries to be the first band ever to record
an album and release a corresponding DVD using the latest
5.1 surround-sound technology. Funny that: a band that
deconstructs the perils of a technologically advanced,
yet morally depraved society, gets to use the instruments
of that very culture to spread its populist, tear-down-the-walls
message. (Fucking right on!) But as for how the new
album will sound, even Rhys isn’t entirely sure. When
asked during a recent interview if the record the band
is working on now is, in fact, a Furries album, he replied,
“Yeah, as far as we know.” But upon further interrogation,
Rhys went on to reveal the method to the Furries madness.
“We don’t think about our music in stylistic terms,
really,” Rhys said. “We usually write pieces down before
jamming them out and then we just go with the band,
you know. I suppose we listen to a lot of records and
they make their way on to our records, but we don’t
sit down and say, ‘Right, we can copy this and we can
copy that.’ It’s just sort of what comes out. We don’t
rehearse a lot because we don’t want to make the songs
too tight ”
Interestingly enough for a band of such accomplished-sounding
musicians, Rhys said he doesn’t remember when he became
such a kick-ass arranger and musician; it just sort
of happened. While that might sound like so much self-effacing
bullshit, to hear the curly-headed singer tell it that’s
really the way it went down. If anything, he argued,
it’s just the experience that comes with writing 150
songs over the last 9 years. As a result, his chops
evolved to the point where he was able to execute his
ideas with an increasing level of sophistication.
Nevertheless, how the songs are created is fairly academic.
Furries fans, like crack addicts, just want more, and
Rhys is in no mood to disappoint. Of the new album,
he says, “We’re still getting to know the equipment
and I think the playing is a bit more exciting—the drums
are more explosive and I think there’s maybe a little
more spark in this one. There’s more a fire going on.
I mean, with the current one (RATW) we wanted to make
something more laid back and sort of wiped clean, but
I think this one has a little more energy to it.”
Lovely. Allan Kemler for Crud Magazine 2002©
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| 04/02 1 Giant Leap - My Culture
04/02 Elfpower Interview - Andrew Rieger - Creatures
04/02 Frou Frou Interview - Guy Sigsworth/Imogen Heap
04/02 Gomez Interview - Ian Ball
04/02 Idlewild - Live - London Astoria
04/02 K's Choice Interview
04/02 Leaves - Live - Camden Dingwall
04/02 Longwave Interview - Exit
04/02 Lucy Mongrel Interview
04/02 Oasis - The Hindu Times
04/02 Phantom Planet - Interview
04/02 Unwritten Law - Interview
04/02 VUE - Coordinates Interview
05/02 BRMC - LIve - Kentish Town, London
05/02 Breeders - Title K
05/02 FC Kahuna - Machine Says Yes
05/02 Moco - Live - London Monarch
05/02 Need New Body - Interview
05/02 The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Live - Soundhause, Northampton
05/02 The Bellrays - Meet The Bellrays
06/02 Fleadh Festival - Finsbury Park
06/02 Frou Frou Coordinates Interview
06/02 Incubus - Interview - Mark Einziger
06/02 North Mississippi Allstars - Interview
06/02 Papa Roach - She Loves Me Not
06/02 Proud Mary - Live - Northampton, Soundhaus
06/02 Pulp - Live - Sherwood Pines, Edwinstowe
06/02 Reindeer section - You Are My Joy
06/02 Silverchair - Diorama
|  | 06/02 Something Corporate - Leaving Through The Window
06/02 Soinc Youth - Interview
06/02 The Burn - The Smiling Face
06/02 The Coral - Live - Roadmender, Northampton
06/02 The LIbertines - Live - The Social, Nottingham
06/02 The Vines, Sheffield Leadmill
06/02 Trik Turner - Interview
06/02 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Live, Soundhaus, Northampton
07/02 12 Stones Interview
07/02 Arolo -Interview
07/02 Buy To Let Doncaster - Anti Social Behaviour
07/02 Cassius - Interview
07/02 Farrah - Interview
07/02 Glassjaw - Interview
07/02 Neil Michael Haggerty - Interview
07/02 Hoobastank - Running Away
07/02 Leaves - Interview
07/02 LL Cool Jay Interview
07/02 Oasis - Live - Finsbury Park, London
07/02 Polyphonic Spree - Live - Camden Monarch
07/02 Queens of the Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf
07/02 Super Furry Animals - Interview
07/02 The Beatings - Live - Metro Club London
07/02 The Bellrays + The D4 - Virgin Megastore, Oxford Street London
January 2001
July - August 2001
September - October 2001
November - December 2001
January - March 2002
April - July 2002
August - December 2002 | |
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