Emerging from the wilderness...

Still no internet connection at home at the minute, but here I am leeching from someone else's.

There's a couple of SFA-related newsy type things for your delectation;

Dark Days/Light Years
The album is now fully formed and available to download from SFA's official website. As a dedicated follower of the Furries I opted for the CD + mp3 bundle. No mention of the vinyl release but I assume there is one. And I'll be purchasing that too... I'm so sad.

But, the album is, as ever, groovy. I won't do a review as I'm hardly unbiased and I border on illiterate but I have been listening to it quite a lot. And I wouldn't if it was crap... It's quite raw and has a jamming-70s-prog-rock vibe to it, a departure from the smooth poppiness of Hey Venus! (as great as that is). It's that speaker-blower that Gruff was promising us on the release of Hey Venus! Y'know, turn it up to 11. Favourite songs so far;

Moped Eyes - Gruff's voice may just be the sexiest it's ever been on this song and there's a nice driving rhythym to back it up. Cool stuff.

Cardiff in the Sun - pure bliss, especially when followed closely by the sitar-laden The Very Best of Neil Diamond. It's a toss-up which of them I like the most.

I realise now why I like SFA... everything they do is extraordinary. I mean, they've recorded nine albums and all of them I would happily listen to for years and years to come. There's no-one else that come close to them in terms of consistency. Even David Bowie, who I've loved since before the Furries, has had hits and misses. The Flaming Lips, Grandaddy, Eels... they're all bands I adore but only the Furries seem to remain so vital to me. They tip-toe on that line between seriousness and silliness but always sound the better for it. They have warmth, style and humour and I adore them. The stars must have been in a once-in-a-millennium alignment when SFA formed. Anyway, enough gushing!

Pete Fowler
I highly recommend keeping an eye on Pete's blog as not only is he a great artist in his own right, but there's bound to be some SFA goodies pop up on there from time to time. Recent posts include teasers about the Dark Days/Light Years album artwork, a collaboration with Keiichi Tanaami, some of which is included with the downloaded album. Can't wait to see the full artwork on the physical release. Which is approaching fast, just a couple of weeks away, now!

Mr Fowler has also got a compilation album out, and there is a shiny new track from Gruff Rhys on there. Although with no lyrics/vocals... and that's what I love Gruff for... but it's still nice to hear some electronic noodling from him. Have a read about it here.

Plus, some of Pete's work will be in London at the Monsters Inked exhibition, which sounds groovy. What better on an Easter weekend than to visit a gallery exhibiting hundreds of monster illustrations?

NME
In the new issue of NME there is an interview with Gruff and Bunf entitled "What Rock'n'Roll has taught us" complete with an old photo of the band. Apparently from when they liked hanging around in graveyards. Ah, the follies of youth, eh? There's some nice anecdotal-type stories from the two. Particularly liked the idea of a Philadelphia fan tattooing misspelt Welsh SFA lyrics onto himself, and Gruff not having the heart to tell him he'd spelt it wrong. I'm guessing the cat's out of the bag now...

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse
I have images of 80s British cartoons running through my head now, but apparently Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse (I've always had a penchant for a bit of Mark Linkous...) are collaborating on some mysterious album/movie/plan-to-take-over-the world. Of which nobody knows anything apart from one poster doing the rounds that lists a load of names alongside theirs including Gruff Rhys. There's a lot of others (The Flaming Lips, Iggy Pop, Jason Lytle et al.) but I'm intrigued by the inclusion of David Lynch (I'm a Twin Peaks fan). Linkous, Rhys and Lynch? My excitement levels are rising...

My time's almost up. Back through the internet-free darkness I roam.

One hour (well 50 minutes...) to go!

www.superfurry.com

But head over there early. They're practising! Oh the excitement.

It starts at 8pm GMT and my computer seems to like it so far... Fingers crossed it will last the course. Come on little laptop, you can do it!

News explosion!

I really did pick the wrong month to move house... As I have no phone line and no internet connection at the moment, posts on here will be sporadic to say the least. Honestly, I really should have postponed everything until the new album was released but whatcha gonna do?

So! The album now has a name and, in the grand tradition of the Furries, they've given it a title that needs to be abbreviated to avoid RSI; Dark Days/Light Years. The track listing has also changed, with 'Earth', the one lyric song, being unceremoniously sacrificed and a few new titles being added. Or maybe there's some re-titling going on. Or maybe I'm mad. Here's the new tracklist, anyway;

Crazy Naked Girls
The Very Best Of Neil Diamond
Moped Eyes
Inagural Trams
Inconvenience
Cardiff In The Sun
Mountain
Helium Hearts
White Socks/Flip Flops
Where Do You Wanna Go
Lliwiau Llachar
Pric

There are a few magazines that the Furries (well, mostly Gruff) are popping up in at the minute as part of the promotional process. All of which I have bought.

Uncut
There's a tantalising sneek-preview review on Uncut's blog that you should definitely check out, which had the following interesting comment;

'I can’t recall an SFA album that has felt so explicitly like the work of a band; when Gruff does take the lead, his voice is often electronically altered, buried into the mix, or swamped by harmonies.'

I've always thought that the Furries were a pretty democratic band, but they do seem to be moving more and more towards there not being a clear lead singer/front man. Which is groovy. Even if I do love Gruff's voice...

The current issue of Uncut magazine has a bit of a bizarre interview with Gruff, which is almost worth buying Uncut for. But not quite. And yet still I paid £3.90-odd. For one page of Gruffalo goodness.

Q
Q magazine has an interview/feature with Gruff, which is actually quite interesting. Even if they do take the piss. It's in the style of that Guardian, 'Pieces of me' article and is almost worth buying Q for.

Artrocker
This is most definitely the pick of the bunch; there's specially-commissioned Pete Fowler artwork on the front cover, the feature is a few pages long and there are some nice, if Gruff/Bunf-heavy, photos in the studio. Worth buying, I think. Artrocker is available at Borders/WHSmiths or via their website. They'll probably have more stuff from the interview pop up online so check their website out; http://www.artrocker.tv/

Videos galore...
As part of the countdown to the digital release of the album, the Furries are posting personal videos up on their website to document the wonderfully banal process of creating an album. It's a cool idea, half-inched from that Time Code movie, but is quite tech-heavy. My computer won't play ball with the website but I'm sure other people have faster, better, stronger computers than me.

All of this is leading up to an online live performance of the album on March 16 at 8pm GMT. Which I'm giddily excited about, and which I am booking time in on my parents' computer for! The album will be released digitally on the same day and the physical release (eww...) will be April 13 in the UK, April 21 in the US. As I am quite, quite sad, I'm contemplating buying the digital release and the physical release. As I can't bear the thought of having it a month late and yet I still need a pretty CD to hold in my hand. It's sad I know, but the money will go to SFA so I don't mind. Unless you can download it for free if you pre-order the album... that'd be cool...

Anyway, times-a-wasting! I'm off to unpack some more.

Track-by-track

Haven't found this anywhere else but MusicRadar have got a track-by-track breakdown by Gruff of the new album. All sounds gooood.

Track-by-track - MusicRadar

New album announced!

Feeling slightly giddy as I've just found out that a new album is due in March! Suddenly seems such a long time to wait...

Apparently there'll be a digital release from their website 16th March and the physical release will be 13th April in the UK and 21st April in the US. There's no title as yet but you can see a tracklisting on their website, which I'm happy to see includes Earth (the song with one lyric?)! Groovy.

From the sounds of it, its going to be melodic, with no acoustic ballads and no country rock... so a bit of a harder sound but with the patented glorious SFA melodies and lyrics. I'm a bit sad that there won't be slower numbers as I do like the slow songs. That said, it's the Furries so I've no doubt it'll be a work of pure genius.

Plus, Fowler is back! Which is great news. I knew they couldn't stay away from him for long. He'll be collaborating with Tanaami, who produced the artwork for Hey Venus! The result may just be so psychedelic that my brain explodes... which wouldn't be a bad way to go out.

You can read all the glorious details on their website here;

New album announced

They're even teasing us with the idea that there will be more surprises announced closer to the release date. They tease me but I love it. Fantastic!

I'm so ridiculously excited at the prospect of a new tour to promote the album that I may just have to go and lie down.

Viva Zwei

There's a Super Furry (Gruff again, I know, I know...) interview on You Tube that I haven't seen before and it's only been up since the beginning of January so I thought I'd post the link here. It's an interview with Viva Zwei, a German music channel, and Gruff, talking about Rings Around the World in 2001. It's an in-depth, good little interview with Gruff even touching on my other obsession, films (albeit briefly!). Well worth a look. A relaxed and good-humoured interview but with depth. Although... it did leave me thinking that he must get fed-up with being asked to analyse his music all the time.

Anyway, I highly recommend it;

Viva Zwei, 2001
Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four
(NOTE:These links will take you direct to YouTube)

Gruffalo Goodness

It's the new year and I'm aching for a few more pictures. Stumbled on some great ones of Gruff. Very photogenic this man. They're from 2005, when he was playing at the Marquee Club in London.

All images are copyright to Andrew Kendall and you can see other bands (but, really, why would you want anything more than Gruff?) on his website http://www.andrewkendall.com/

It's a nice set of images with everything Gruff-like present and correct; curly hair, rough-and-ready beard, chunky rings and watch, groovy instruments (I've just noticed that one of his Fowler guitars has a Mork-style rainbow strap) and that lovely, slightly bemused expression...