Saturday, January 08, 2005

Music 2

Returning to the imaginary question about what music I enjoyed during the last year of non-blogging:

2. The Fiery Furnaces' (watch out, that link to their homepage will start playing music if you click it) most recent record, Blueberry Boat. (Second link includes links to streaming audio of some songs). When I used to tell people about their previous record, my line was that they were like the White Stripes except that they were great instead of sucking. Now they have grown even far beyond that. Very complicated (in terms of lyrics, rhythms, instruments and other noises), but never seems like showing off. Everybody says that Blueberry Boat is reminiscent of old Who concept records, but technogically modern. Maybe so. My favorite things about them are (a) they rock, in the sense that their music never leaves me with a ho-hum feeling; and (b) they are not trying to sound like every other, or even any other, band. Now you see why I am not a professional music critic. You should also go see them live -- the show that I saw, like most shows of theirs as I understand it, consisted of an hour-long ad hoc medley of parts of songs all jumbled together, that was musically fascinating as well as an impressive feat of strength.

Eleanor, the singer, is the world's champion at enunciation. She can sing loud and fast, but with perfect precision and clarity.

(Apparently they've got a new EP coming out next week, unless I dreamed that).

posted by sam 7:45 AM 0 comments

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