Artist bio
The Welsh quintet Super Furry Animals are one of the most inventive bands of their era, exploring new musical avenues with each release and each passing year. They have drawn inspiration from throughout the history of rock music, to say nothing of their huge electronic influences, and have consistently created compelling albums and songs within each idiom through which they pass.
Having formed from the ashes of a number of bands, including a noise-rock outfit and a techno group, SFA released their first EP, the impossibly-named Lianfairpwllgywgyllgogerchwymdrobwlltysiliogo-ygoyocynygofod (In Space) in 1995. They inked to Creation and kick-started their English-language catalog with Fuzzy Logic in 1996. Its unique punk- and power-pop-influenced tunes floated lysergic patterns and engaging lyrics about off-beat subjects, and the sound was furthered and expanded on the fine sophomore slab Radiator in 1997. 1999's Guerrilla was reportedly recorded only when the sun was shining, at Peter Gabriel's Real World studios, and added a decidedly technological edge to the group's music with an increased focus on electronic rhythms and textures spun together with a sharpened pop hilarity.
But then the group took another turn with its music as its label Creation folded; retreating to the moors of its homeland, the band recorded the Welsh-language Mwng for 6,000 quid in local studios. But hey, lo-fi and less-spoken language doesn't dim the album's appeal. It becomes the highest-selling Welsh-language album of all time, earning them a mention in a Parliament session.
Not to stay pointed in one direction for very long, the group's sixth album Rings Around The World was its slick, produced major-label debut, which sacrificed a tad of the earlier punkish rockula for a perfectly executed widescreen distillation of the group's talents. Eardrum-blazing techno merged with somber acoustic balladry; death-metal codas sat next to five-part pop opuses; sexually charged, thumping instrumentals and gospel-chorused classic rock songs all crashed together in a ponderous, life-affirming stew.
SFA upped the ante once again in 2003, with the space-rock epic "Phantom Power," which took the group's songwriting and arrangement skills to another planet, treating the world to a host of multi-faceted anthems.
They continues to explore the edges of the pop and rock universe, and they put on a great concert. What more could you want?
Albums by this artist
Love Kraft (2005)
Phantom Power (2003)
Rings Around The World (Recommended) (2001)
Mwng (2000)
Guerrilla (1999)
Out Spaced (1998)
Radiator (Recommended) (1997)
Fuzzy Logic (1996)
Concerts
April 24, 2002
Irving Plaza, New York
Interviews
Unleashing Their Power
July 26, 2003
Drawing Rings Around The World
July 28, 2001
Super Furry Animals
Radiator
» TROY CARPENTER | CO-DIRECTOR
|
NATN Recommended
Super Furry Animals
Radiator
Creation, 1997
RiYL: Love, Blur, Frank Black |
The second global communication from welsh popsters Super Furry Animals comes to us from deep within the recesses of interstellar rock music.
Radiator furiously mixes influences as broad as techno, '60s pop, and post-punk into a refreshing blend you can drink down with glee like a smoothie on a hot summer day.
Don't pigeonhole SFA when I call them a pop band -- their music isn't really straightforward, and it's doesn't rehash old Beatles hooks or Kinks guitar riffs. The five members wind their brains around central, catchy melodies, but twist them in new and different directions as frontman Gruff Rhys spins lyrical subject matter far from your traditional boy-meets-girl pop song.
"The International Language Of Screaming" sets forward SFA's mission statement in a few well-placed couplets ("Every time I look around me everything seems so stationary / it just sends me the impulse to become reactionary / spell it out, rip it up, rearrange it on the contrary"). "Hermann Luvs Pauline" captures a snapshot of Albert Einstein's youth, "The Placid Casual" brings up Sierra Leonian revolutionaries, and "Chupacabras" explores the multilingual capabilities of the feared Puerto Rican flesh-eating bats.
Not your traditional radio single fare, but enticing. While the lyrics may not all be as universally appealing as, say, a Ricky Martin song, they stir the electrical impulses in the listener's mind more than that type of FM fodder.
And the SFA beats can get your booty movin' just as quickly, while tapehead Cian Ciaran throws electronic bleeps and squirts around the rhythm like so many musical boomerangs. From the bed of horns layered over "Demons" to the groovy lilt of "Play It Cool" to the Welsh stomp of "Torra Fy Ngwallt Yn Hir," the album is shake-down fun at its core. You can dance to it, you can sing along in the car, you can smoke to it. It can be the soundtrack for a night on the town or a drive into the country.
The Super Furry Animals are clearly on to something apart from their contemporaries, whoever you might deem them to be. Whether you call this music post-alternative, britpop or just fun rock, it's definitely one of the most original records of its kind to come out in the '90s.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves. 