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Live at Paste: Cory Chisel & The Wandering Sons
A live album from one of alt-rock's weirdest acts is a bitter tea to swallow.
The Fiery Furnaces must be running on fumes by now. The quirky indie-rock group has been touring pretty consistently since this summer and it's showing no signs of slowing down.
Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger must be junkies for the live show experience, because the Furnaces are extending their tour for the umpteenth time. Originally scheduled to finish off their global trek on Nov. 30 in Antwerp, Belgium, the band has now extended the tour all the way to Dec. 15.
The final performance (for now at least) is scheduled to be in Chicago, where they will bring their Window City to the Windy City alongside a pile of other bands for Thrill Jockey's 15th Anniversary Celebration.
Dates galore:
November
15 - Paris, France @ Nouveau Casino
16 - Bern, Switzerland @ Dampfzentrale
17 - Milan, Italy @ Musicdrome
18 - Munich, Germany @ 59to1
19 - Vienna, Austria @ Flex
21 - Cologne, Germany @ Gebaude 9
22 - Berlin, Germany @ Lido
24 - Hamburg, Germany @ Knust
25 - Copenhagen, Denmark @ Vega
26 - Oslo, Norway @ John Dee
27 - Malmo, Sweden @ Debaser
29 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Bitterzoet
30 - Antwerp, Belgium @Trix
December
8 - Brooklyn, N.Y @ Music Hall of Williamsburg *
9 - Philadelphia, Pa. @ First Unitarian Church *
10 - Allston, Mass. @ Great Scott *
11 - Montreal, Quebec @ Cabaret du Musee Juste Pour Rire *
12 - Toronto, Ontario @ Lee's Palace *
13 - Detroit, Mich. @ Magic Stick *
14-15 - Chicago, Ill. @ Logan Square Auditorium (Thrill Jockey 15th Anniversary Celebration) ^
* with MGMT
^ with The Sea and Cake, Califone, Trans Am, Arbouretum, Freakwater, ADULT., the Zincs, Bobby Conn, Brokeback, Eleventh Dream Day, Archer Prewitt, Pit Er Pat, School of Language, Thalia Zedek, Angela Desveaux, Fred Anderson Trio, Frequency
Related links:
TheFieryFurnaces.com
ThrillJockey.com
Paste:The Fiery Furnaces ballet tour and new LP
Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com
City of Gaud
The Fiery Furnaces compress their glitzy prog-pop into bite-sized packets
If you don’t like the Fiery Furnaces by now, you probably never will. Their overstuffed sixth album gives no indication that Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger intend to scale back their decadent musical buffet, which—according to your threshold for pageantry— might be regarded as a smorgasbord of delight or a gluttonous binge. The Friedbergers are maximalists trapped in a minimal age, where concision and austerity enjoy a higher premium than sumptuous overstatement. But if the Furnaces are the Cirque de Soleil to the prevailing trend’s Butoh, they’ve maintained a fairly sterling critical reputation against the odds. Like the guy in the triple-XL harmonica vest once said, “the hook brings you back,” and The Fiery Furnaces always pack plenty of memorable hooks into their intricately arranged prog-pop.
When the Furnaces debuted with 2003’s Gallowsbird’s Bark, being a sibling duo with a penchant for retrofitted blues-rock earned them the requisite White Stripes comparisons, but the album’s quirky arrangements and whimsical, obliquely narrative lyrics took a page from Neutral Milk Hotel. This marked the first and last time you could easily compare them to any band other than their own. They quickly followed their debut with Blueberry Boat, a bloated prog epic that made the persistently inventive Bark seem staid by comparison. The multifaceted, instrumentally lurid extended jam became The Fiery Furnaces’ calling card. Where a more typical band might write 20 songs and choose 10 for their album, the Friedbergers seem to write a hundred and stitch together snippets of them all, unwilling or unable to pick and choose. Even working in shorter forms—as they do on the brawny and resolutely sculpted riff blitz of the title track—the hectic segmentation, high-art schmaltz, musical-theater melodrama and dizzying thematic overlap of the songs gives one an idea of what it might be like to listen to Gershwin medleys with a head full of crazy.
The Furnaces have always treaded a precarious line between daunting experimentation and pop accessibility, with most of their work skewing in one direction or the other. Widow City finds them settling comfortably into the median: It’s not the compass-less skronk of Rehearsing My Choir, a concept album built around the creaky reminiscences of the Friedbergers’ grandmother, but neither is it the relatively forthright synth-pop of Bitter Tea. Instead, it’s a meandering and muscular rock drama—digestible in three-minute chunks, and gloriously impenetrable in its hour-long entirety. Infectious melodies soar improbably from the smoldering wreckage of acid-bathed synths and stylized space-funk guitars, but are pinned down, still squirming, by Robert D’Amico’s thunderously supple percussion. The ornate architecture rising from this solid foundation sounds instrumentally diverse, yet most of it emanates from Matthew’s Chamberlain keyboard, an early analog synthesizer capable of generating (via loops of tape concealed beneath its keys) the string, horn and woodwind sounds draped lavishly about Widow City.
To chart the twists and turns of this album—its shifting terrain so detailed and unpredictable—feels more cartographical than musicological. We shove off in Philly on “The Philadelphia Grand Jury,” where quick runs of twinkling piano-segue serve as ligaments between guitar passages that alternately whiz and swoon. Chamberlin-generated bassoons echo the piano theme and Eleanor’s aching vocal refrain, and an extended soft-rock breakdown whips into a crunchy stomp by the end. After a quick trip through the “Duplexes of the Dead,” where a reverberating organ and soaring synthetic brass washes through an acoustic strum, and “Automatic Husband,” where spastic rock choruses erupt from bleating oompah verses, we find ourselves suddenly shunted to the Far East on “Ex-Guru,” as noodling keyboards collapse into more sinuous strains through a violent tempo shift.
From there, it’s a short trip to Northeast Africa, where the glassy reggae of “My Egyptian Grammar” provides a welcome respite after the frantic “Clear Signal from Cairo,” which rolls apocalyptic fuzz bombs, a svelte staccato throb, weepy lobby music, free-jazz squiggles and a long section of proggy scorch into a roiling six minutes. By the time the cartoon sound barrage and circus synths of “The Old Hag is Sleeping” roll around, listeners will find themselves either enthralled or utterly exasperated. Widow City covers so much territory so quickly that it can actually give you jetlag, and its geographical diversity is mirrored by its hallucinatory, irreconcilable lyrics. It’s a travelogue of the mind that uses musical history (drawn mostly from 1970s prog, soft rock and cinematic incidental music styles) as an environment and the Friedbergers’ personal history as a guide rail. This psychic map does not come with a key, but that doesn’t prevent us from enjoying the garish scenery along the way.
From pint-sized pop-pimp Prince to Milkman-making musical trio Deerhoof, it seems as though the canons of acceptable scores for ballet hasn't changed this much since Merce Cunningham met John Cage.
Enter stage...wherever - The Fiery Furnaces, announcing their foray into scoring a performance by the nimble-toed on Billboard.com (although we highly doubt we'll see many pink tutu clad dancers at this one).
"The 'we're number one' finger and the heavy metal horn-sign," are some of the things we can expect to see at the show, says band member Matthew Friedberger of the performance. He speaks to the entirety of the dancing being based upon American Sign Language, and the aforementioned "American event social gestures."
Touring this fall to promote the October 9th release of Widow City, the latest LP of theirs to drop since they recruited granny to take over the vocals on 2005's Rehearsing My Choir, the brother and sister duo (Eleanor being the other half) will begin the trip the very night the record drops.
Tour dates:
October
9 - Newport, Kent. @ Southgate House
10 - Milwaukee, Wis. @ Shank Hall
11 - Madison, Wis. @ The Annex
12 - Saint Paul, Minn. @ Turf Club
15 - Vancouver, B.C. @ Richard's on Richards
16 - Seattle, Wash. @ Crocodile Cafe
17 - Portland, Ore. @ Aladdin Theater
19 - Berkeley, Calif. @ UC Berkeley
19 - San Francisco, Calif @ Independent
20 - Big Sur, Calif. @ Fernwood Resort
21 - San Diego, Calif. @ Casbah
22 - West Hollywood, Calif. @ Troubador
26 - Austin, Tex. @ Emo's
27 - Austin, Tex. @ Emo's
29 - St. Louis, Mo. @ Blueberry Hill
30 - Champaign, Ill. @ Highdive
31 - Chicago, Ill. @ Logan Square Auditorium
November
2 - Millvale, Penn. @ Mr. Small's Theater
3 - New York, N.Y. @ Hiro Ballroom
11 - London, Eng. @ KOKO
Related links:
Paste Culture Club podcast interview with The Fiery Furnaces
TheFieryFurnaces.com
InTheRaw.net interview with the band
Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.
Even the Fiery Furnaces have limits to their unconventionality. For example, like regular bands, they sometimes put out albums and tour. What a bunch of sell-outs.
The band should be right at home with fellow peculiars Tortoise and the Sea and Cake on Chicago’s Thrill Jockey Records, which will release their next album in October. Besides the LP's title, Widow City, no other titillating information is available.
However! A few new songs have been guaranteed to show up on the Furnaces’ “Fourth of July Tour” (which includes no July 4 performance, ha ha).
It goes exactly like this:
June:
21 - Cleveland, Ohio @ Grog Shop
22 - Chicago, Ill. @ Empty Bottle
23 - Ann Arbor, Mich. @ Blind Pig
25 - Toronto, Ont. @ The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern
26 - Ottawa, Ont @ Babylon Club
28 - Philadelphia, Penn. @ North Star
29 - Boston, Mass. @ Paradise Rock Club
30 - Hoboken, N.J. @ Maxwell's
July:
1 - Brooklyn, N.Y. @ Studio B
5 - Washington, D.C. @ Black Cat
6 - Raleigh, N.C. @ Lincoln Theater
7 - Atlanta, Ga. @ The Earl
Related links:
Fiery Furnaces Official Homepage
Thrill Jockey
Fiery Furnaces on MySpace
Got a news tip for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.
A melancholy travelog from indie rock’s restless provocateurs
International travel might be exotic and glamorous, but it also has a dark side: the isolation of being immersed in unfamiliar languages, oceans apart from loved ones. This backpack paranoia drenches The Fiery Furnaces’ latest, a record less overtly conceptual than its predecessors but no less challenging and rewarding. Listeners sent fleeing by the eccentricity of their Grandma opera Rehearsing My Choir can warily creep back, as Bitter Tea scoops out its share of sucrose Motown-inflected melodies filtered through the Friedbergers’ keyboard fetish. But devoted followers need not fear a compromise, as the Furnaces throw in a couple of their characteristic multi-song suites and resist anything resembling traditional song structure. Most thrilling is their dissection of the backwards vocal—an ancient rock cliché utilized as both avant-garde atmosphere and skewed pop tool—before culminating in the brilliant forward/reverse duet of the bittersweet “Nevers!”
Matthew Friedberger, one half of brother/sister duo The Fiery Furnaces, is preparing for the release of his first solo album, a double disc entitled Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School, which will be released Aug. 8 by 859 Recordings.
The first disc, Winter Women, will showcase Friedberger's more accessible pop songs. The second disc, Holy Ghost Language School, is the more experimental of the two.
Meanwhile, The Fiery Furnaces are embarking on a European tour before returning to the States for a few shows in June.
For more info on Matt Friedberger and The Fiery Furnaces, click here.
What have you done for your grandmother lately?
Most of you will hate this album—either because of the squelchy-squishy arrangements, or the (intentionally) disjointed songs, or just because you balk at hearing Matt and Eleanor’s grandmother, Olga Sarantos, hoarsely narrate the entire album. But imagine you’re listening to a radio play and let the story engage you, and you might find yourself hooked. As they set their grandmother’s life story to music, the Friedbergers turn memories into sounds, juxtaposing old-timey upright piano with electric guitars, and alternating from maudlin motifs to triumphant ones. Dreams die, love fades, girlish adventures grow into tall tales, and everything ends at a funeral. To some it’ll sound like Blueberry Boat mark two, while others will hear a clown car crashing into a Goodwill. On their own terms, however, the Friedbergers succeed: they make a whole life flash before our ears.
Back in 2003 when The Fiery Furnaces released their debut, Gallowsbird’s Bark, many critics lumped them with neo-garage revivalists The White Stripes. Roughly 80 percent of this knee-jerk association can be attributed to the fact that The Fiery Furnaces are led by a brother/sister duo (of course, Jack and Meg White are actually… oh, never mind) and 20 percent had to do with the band’s sound. Though they rocked and enjoyed a good riff, Bark reveled in an eclecticism that kept the garage rock suit from fitting terribly snug, and the Furnaces seemed too happy painting outside the lines anyway to bother with how they were filed.
With their follow-up, Blueberry Boat, the Furnaces have brushed aside the canvas completely and started slopping paint directly on the easel. Abandoning conventional pop structure altogether, they’ve crafted 13 tracks that stretch over 70 minutes, many of which are divided, suite-like, into discrete movements. The default label for a record of this description is “prog,” but that term doesn’t really fit. A better reference would be the Broadway musical, though the band says it was inspired by The Who’s “A Quick One While He’s Away.”
Wherever the roots and whatever the reasons, Blueberry Boat contains some truly exceptional music. Building most songs on piano, Matthew Friedberger displays a keen understanding of operatic composition, intuiting precisely which melodic fragments will sound great mashed together. I’m tempted to liken his approach to Meatloaf svengali Jim Steinman, another songwriter who thought four catchy songs would sound better if he could find a way to braid them into one very long and very catchy rock symphony, but the differences are too glaring. The Fiery Furnaces are indie rockers possessing a meager budget, which Blueberry Boat’s sound reminds us. Though the album possesses dynamic range and instrumental variety, the songs never seem to offer the kind of layering such epic music demands. When the “guitar section” comes in for a big climax, it’s usually just the one. Compared to most epic rock, Blueberry Boat sounds like a glorified demo, though a very good one.
And then there are the lyrics, sung alternately by Mathew and sister Eleanor, who emerges as an oddly compelling and bookish indie soul woman. The songs tell stories but remain cryptic—imbued with clever wordplay—and dense with curious rhyme and meter. “I went down to the market where tied up you used to bark at / Went where you got adopted felt so bad I nearly dropped dead” is a typically playful couplet from the insanely grabby “My Dog Was Lost But Now He’s Found.” The lyrics, copious as they are, prove a continual treat, and the multi-part melodies are unusual and memorable. An album as vast and sprawling as Blueberry Boat is all about how its pieces fit together, which is precisely why this one stays so effortlessly afloat.
| Nov 21 Fri |
TV: The Allstarz (James Brown tribute band) on David Letterman Film: Movie Openings In-Store: The Impossible Shapes live at Waterloo Records & Video in Austin, TX |
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Episode 70
August 19, 2008
