New Fall Album On The Way...

[The Roofdog]

Live At The Witch Trials
Dragnet
Grotesque (After The Gramme)
Slates
Hex Enduction Hour
The Infotainment Scan
The Unutterable
The Real New Fall LP
Imperial Wax Solvent
Your Future Our Clutter


Everybody's top 10 is different

Fuck that, where's This Nation's Saving Grace you animal?

[Egyptian Feast]

Fuck that, where's This Nation's Saving Grace you animal?

Bubbling under. It's my favourite of the Brix albums, and it does go in and out of my top 10. I do think the first half isn't quite as strong as the second, however. The double whammy of 'Paintwork' and 'I Am Damo Suzuki' towers over everything else on the album.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Witch Trials would be the real non-conformist choice since that was the work of a different band: first of all, the songs were crafted when Tony Friel was in the band, and secondly they still had a fairly democratic ethos when they recorded it. the "dictatorial" stuff was a response to people drifting away in 1979 as punk came to an end.

[legion]

You can get a rough idea of a person's age by asking them who their favourite Doctor Who is.

This also applies to favourite Fall albums.

Mine's Extricate.

[Egyptian Feast]

Witch Trials would be the real non-conformist choice since that was the work of a different band.

Agreed. Dragnet does sound like the first 'proper' Fall LP. Having said that, if I was ranking them, Witch Trials would be very near the top. No matter how many times I listen to it, the opening of 'Frightened' never fails to give me a shiver.

[Why I Hate Tables]

I think picking a favourite Fall album is really difficult because it's a real case of apples and oranges. Ask me one day and it'd be Perverted By Language: the peak of M.E.S's lyrics for me, so many quotable lyrics and great phrases, a per-song word-count denser than a lot of recent Fall records combined. It's got the grinding repetition (repetition repetition) of Garden but also the twisted pop of Hotel Bloedel and the intensity of Smile. Ask me another day, though, and it could be Hex Enduction Hour or Extricate. It's usually one of those three, admittedly, but I've not heard a Fall album that was bad all the way through. Sometimes Shiftwork nudges its way in: any album with Idiot Joy Showland on it isn't to be sniffed at, and I may be in the minority here but I think Book of Lies is great. Sticks in your head, nice organ riff, strange overlapping vocals: what's not to like.

Imperial Wax Solvent's not a great record but it's got the epic (in the traditional and gushing idiot senses of the word) 50 Year Old Man: "I'm a 50 year old man, what're you gonna do about it?" is the kind of pointlessly, surrealistically defiant phrase you only really get from Smith. Code: Selfish has got the Atrocity Exhibition in a wheely-bin opener Birmingham School of Business school and the uncharacteristically fragile, downbeat Gentleman's Agreement. Let's just hope the new one has more than the one token good track (last outing's was Greenway's nonsensical These New Puritans slagging for me); Your Future Our Clutter was, to use a cliche, a return to form. More of that, but different.

[the psyche intangible]

You can get a rough idea of a person's age by asking them who their favourite Doctor Who is.

This also applies to favourite Fall albums.

Mine's Extricate.

Mine too and you, sir, are about 38 years old

[hedgehog90]

Mildly amusing twitterings from the one and only, Mark E Smith:

[shiftwork2]

I could think long and hard about whether that account is genuine and still only be 50% sure of my answer.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

I think my least-favourite "proper" album would be Shiftwork. I don't actually hate it or think it's complete rubbish. There are 3 or 4 good tracks on there, and the CD version included "High Tension Line", which is one of their best singles, and also "White Lightning", one of their best covers.

However, this is more than any other the Fall album that seems to be bending and trying to fit with current trends in "alternative music", and coming off the worse for it. Looking at interviews around the time we can infer that Smith was under pressure from Phonogram to deliver sales, after the failure of Extricate to break the mainstream despite getting lots of promotion (and reviews saying it continued the commercialisation of Fall sound). In the middle of the early 90s recession MES may have thought twice about getting dropped, so maybe this time he was prepared to go some way to try to fit the prevailing "indie dance" moods, in response to suits who wanted to know why he couldn't have a hit if bands like Inspiral Carpets were getting in the charts. So we get stuff like "The Mixer", which sounds awfully thin and dated to my ears. At the same time, he'd just got rid of Schofield and was looking to mutate the band sound again away from the late 80s chart-friendliness. This was the start of what I think of as "the Dave Bush years", when a particular techno-flavoured electronic sound was near the centre, although it doesn't get full control until Code:Selfish, the final Phonogram album, where MES is clearly decided to just please himself and not care what happens (and this leads to getting dropped with an unreleased Infotainment Scan to take away).

Smith's loathing for the current scene is evident in "Idiot Joy Showland" of course, and also "War Against Intelligence", but he is still ready to make concessions to the new world even when hating the plagiarists. This is the only album where it sounds as if he's re-done the vocals to make them sound better (in this century, we get albums where the vocals are stitched together from multiple takes, but that's different. Here it sounds like he's actually trying). The production also sounds odd, and I think the album was put together with recordings all over the place, rather than 1 big session at 1 studio.

And I can't stand "Edinburgh Man" any more than "Bill Is Dead". Musically ok, but the lyrics are just comically bad and proof that he can't write a proper pop song, at least not if he consciously attempts it.

[easytarget]

Mildly amusing twitterings from the one and only, Mark E Smith:

New idea for song: Man goes walking down the street, announces random observations [May need work]

Gold.

I'm still a young student of The Fall. I like Fall Heads Roll because it has I Can Hear the Grass Grow, What About Us and Blindness.
Blindness might be more than the best Fall song ever. It might be the best song ever.

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Not so keen on FHR. Of course the versions of 4 songs that made up the final Peel Session in 2004 were fantastic, but after that we had the scrappy takes on Interim, and when the final album came out it seemed too slick in places, and the sequencing was wrong (since "Pacifying Joint" and "What About Us" are essentially the same music, he missed a trick not putting them at start and finish respectively, like the "Mansion"/"To Nkroachment" bookending on This Nation's Saving Grace). Some of the other tracks were just a bit dull as well ("Assume" does nothing for me). On a positive note, when I saw them live he did manage the complete lyrics of "Midnight In Aspen", apparently without reading off printouts. That surprised me as I thought he simply couldn't do the long songs anymore, for.... chemical reasons. He can, he just hasn't bothered trying much since the mid 90s.

Reforrmation Post TLC I prefer in many ways, although it was a fair bit of dead weight on it. Your Future Our Clutter is when we finally get another classic Fall album.

[the psyche intangible]

It's out May 13th with some excellent as ever song titles. My favourite being - Pre-MDMA Years.

http://www.clashmusic.com/news/the-fall-to-release-new-studio-album

[copyingdogs]

Blindness might be more than the best Fall song ever. It might be the best song ever.

The first time I heard blindness, I must've just sat down, doing nothing else, and listened to it on repeat for about 45 minutes. It's just hilariously good, and even a lot of friends of mine who don't like the rest of The Fall's really like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH1KhxKh1YA

This is definitely the best version though, IMO.

[hedgehog90]

You know when you hear an amazing song but it's only 2 minutes 30 seconds long, and you go "why god why can't it last 6, maybe 7 minutes!?"

And then you listen to blindness.
It's perfect. Awesome riffage and beat and it lasts just long enough to satisfy you without outstaying its welcome.

I wish all great songs were over 6 minutes long.
Fucking Beatles did it all wrong.

[The Roofdog]

99% of non-smokers die

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

Meanwhile, Steve Hanley's memoirs will be published next year.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Meanwhile, Steve Hanley's memoirs will be published next year.

I hope he mentions the time he said "St. Helens?" to me, whilst frowning. I bet he does. Plus the picture for the sleeve of the book just *has* to be that picture of him wearing an awful lot of make up while pulling a menacing face on the back of the 7 Inch version of "Slang King", given away free with limited copies of the "Call For Escape Route" 12 inch (Beggars Banquet, October 1984). What else could it be ?

[good times]

Do any of you rather plugged in people happen to know if this has leaked?

[Johnny Townmouse]

Other than three tracks (Sir William Wray, Hittite Man and Jetplane), no.

[hedgehog90]

What are the new tracks like? Any good?

Thought I posted this here already but it must have been in the awful album covers thread:



Fucking. Atrocious.

[copyingdogs]

I like them. Jetplane is my favourite, followed by Hittite Man and Wray. They leave a very strong taste in the mouth, and I didn't like them at first, but now I do. Either they're starting to experiment a little bit more than they have been recently, or Mark E is finally loosing it a bit...

[Mark Steels Stockbroker]

"Blindness" is one of those tracks that is essentially just a groove, and could be continued forever. I think it has gone on at least 10 minutes live, it could do 20 or 30. I think when I was seeing Fall gigs around 2006 they were doing it last of all, carrying on long after MES had fucked off to the pub.

[The Roofdog]

I was at a disastrous gig at the Kentish Town Forum (2005 I think) when the band came back on to do Blindness as an encore but MES didn't. They plugged away for about 4-5 minutes before gradually giving up one by one until only the drummer was left, who rocked on for a couple more minutes by himself. Fall drum solo.

[the psyche intangible]

There's snippets on itunes of the lp that I haven't listened to. Snippets suck.

[The Roofdog]

Snippets do suck.

Anyone going to Clapham on the 17th May? Once again, I can't convince anyone to go with me, so if anyone is going and fancies meeting for a pint before the gig, I am totally not threatening or weird (I've convinced basically everyone I know to come see the Fall with me once... my wife, five of my closest friends, people I've worked with... they only agree to come once)

[Unoriginal]

I was at a disastrous gig at the Kentish Town Forum (2005 I think) when the band came back on to do Blindness as an encore but MES didn't. They plugged away for about 4-5 minutes before gradually giving up one by one until only the drummer was left, who rocked on for a couple more minutes by himself. Fall drum solo.

I saw The Fall in Cardiff where Mark walked off stage halfway through and didn't come back. The crowd then proceeded to throw glasses at Ted Chippington, who had decided to wind everyone up after the show had finished. Good night.

[Don_Preston]

There's snippets on itunes of the lp that I haven't listened to. Snippets suck.

Care to add why?

I quite like them myself. Not up to the benchmark of Your Future, which I guess is their last brilliant LP, as the music sounds a little on the quiet side. But maybe that's just because I'm trying not to rouse anyone at this hour.

[The Roofdog]

We haven't listened to them! i.e. we won't listen to until we've got the whole track in a decent format. Snippets suck.

[Don_Preston]

Bit of a misconstrue on my part.

To say sorry, here's a recording from The Fall fans' Round Table:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1totDTfuMQg