Fanfarlo
Nightlands, Young Man
Tue, March 6, 2012
Doors: 7:00 pm / Show: 8:00 pm
Webster Hall
New York, NY
$20.00 advance, $25.00 day of show
Tickets
This event is 18 and over
http://www.bowerypresents.com/event/86973/
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Fanfarlo
"The first 16 years of my life I spent a lot of time around lakes. You see... I get quite passionate about things for a time, like reservoirs."
The passion, the obsession, the dissolution of intellectual rigour; heart and longing colliding with mind and matter; these are the recurrent themes of Fanfarlo. As aging instruments are brought back to life with a creaking aching beauty, a bizarre collection of characters join our midst, each an accidental Fanfarlo metaphor - the irrational pursuit of an otherwise intellectual mind. Case in point: Howard Hughes' decent into madness in "I'm A Pilot;" the delusion of Pellegrino Ernetti in "The Walls Are Coming Down" and the absurd writing career of "Harold T. Wilkins," all sweep from sweet murmuring melodia to orchestral pop.
Again and again the UK five-piece find ways to mirror the impotent fury of the words. Members Cathy Lucas (violin, keyboard, vox), Justin Finch (bass) and Amos Memon (drums) and Leon Beckenham (trumpet, keyboard) all conspire to ensure that Fanfarlo eschew a defining format. Reaching for less than obvious conclusions to musical conundrums: saws, clarinets, cellos, mandolins, ukuleles, melodicas, hands clapping and feet stomping.
There is no doubt that all of Fanfarlo are clever, bookish coves, but when they come together to make music, they function on a gut level. For a band that comes from all over - frontman Simon Balthazar (vocals) is himself from Gothenburg - there is that restless, furtive artistry. A keenness to avoid the constraints of home, battling with the longing of the heart, the distant locations of a burning house "Fire Escape;" a drowning village "Ghosts;" and the uneasy sensations of urban sprawl, "Luna."
Trapped and spiraling guitars, an insistently hammered piano chord, or an ominous stomp, the fervour with which they play is stirring and infectious... Fanfarlo Baudelaire's fictional dancer, impossibly desirable, an inescapable object of obsession.
"I always try to write accessible lyrics that people will get and understand, but it always ends up impenetrable," explains Fanfarlo frontman Simon Balthazar, "then I attempt to write deep, serious and difficult music, and somehow it keeps coming out as pop."
It is a nice problem to have and Fanfarlo benefit greatly. The wonderfully bewildering array of characters and scenes on Reservoir, comes laden with memorable hooks. Recorded over a month and a half with Peter Katis (The National, Interpol) at his home studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut, it is has been a formative process for the band.
Fanfarlo's early singles, combined with winning live performances had proved a sensation in the blogosphere, both in Europe and in the US. But as good as those singles first seemed; Talking Backwards (Fortuna Pop), You Are One Of The Few Outsiders Who Really Understands Us (Fandango), Fire Escape (White Heat) and Harold T.Wilkins (Felt Tip), it was as nought to the leaps and bounds made in those few shorts weeks in New England.
Working with Peter was the first opportunity to properly explore what this full band could achieve. Cathy Lucas - the bearer of Fanfarlo's distinctive accompanying vocals - is convinced of the new ground the band has occupied, "Peter would find the right sound straight away and I started thinking that it could become much more than just a series of songs..."
"I always thought big with this band" enthuses Simon. "Wanting to make music that everyone would love, which always seemed like a realistic expectation, given the response we got to our live performances... it's an amazing relief to be able to say, yes, this is what it should sound like."
The passion, the obsession, the dissolution of intellectual rigour; heart and longing colliding with mind and matter; these are the recurrent themes of Fanfarlo. As aging instruments are brought back to life with a creaking aching beauty, a bizarre collection of characters join our midst, each an accidental Fanfarlo metaphor - the irrational pursuit of an otherwise intellectual mind. Case in point: Howard Hughes' decent into madness in "I'm A Pilot;" the delusion of Pellegrino Ernetti in "The Walls Are Coming Down" and the absurd writing career of "Harold T. Wilkins," all sweep from sweet murmuring melodia to orchestral pop.
Again and again the UK five-piece find ways to mirror the impotent fury of the words. Members Cathy Lucas (violin, keyboard, vox), Justin Finch (bass) and Amos Memon (drums) and Leon Beckenham (trumpet, keyboard) all conspire to ensure that Fanfarlo eschew a defining format. Reaching for less than obvious conclusions to musical conundrums: saws, clarinets, cellos, mandolins, ukuleles, melodicas, hands clapping and feet stomping.
There is no doubt that all of Fanfarlo are clever, bookish coves, but when they come together to make music, they function on a gut level. For a band that comes from all over - frontman Simon Balthazar (vocals) is himself from Gothenburg - there is that restless, furtive artistry. A keenness to avoid the constraints of home, battling with the longing of the heart, the distant locations of a burning house "Fire Escape;" a drowning village "Ghosts;" and the uneasy sensations of urban sprawl, "Luna."
Trapped and spiraling guitars, an insistently hammered piano chord, or an ominous stomp, the fervour with which they play is stirring and infectious... Fanfarlo Baudelaire's fictional dancer, impossibly desirable, an inescapable object of obsession.
"I always try to write accessible lyrics that people will get and understand, but it always ends up impenetrable," explains Fanfarlo frontman Simon Balthazar, "then I attempt to write deep, serious and difficult music, and somehow it keeps coming out as pop."
It is a nice problem to have and Fanfarlo benefit greatly. The wonderfully bewildering array of characters and scenes on Reservoir, comes laden with memorable hooks. Recorded over a month and a half with Peter Katis (The National, Interpol) at his home studio in Bridgeport, Connecticut, it is has been a formative process for the band.
Fanfarlo's early singles, combined with winning live performances had proved a sensation in the blogosphere, both in Europe and in the US. But as good as those singles first seemed; Talking Backwards (Fortuna Pop), You Are One Of The Few Outsiders Who Really Understands Us (Fandango), Fire Escape (White Heat) and Harold T.Wilkins (Felt Tip), it was as nought to the leaps and bounds made in those few shorts weeks in New England.
Working with Peter was the first opportunity to properly explore what this full band could achieve. Cathy Lucas - the bearer of Fanfarlo's distinctive accompanying vocals - is convinced of the new ground the band has occupied, "Peter would find the right sound straight away and I started thinking that it could become much more than just a series of songs..."
"I always thought big with this band" enthuses Simon. "Wanting to make music that everyone would love, which always seemed like a realistic expectation, given the response we got to our live performances... it's an amazing relief to be able to say, yes, this is what it should sound like."
Nightlands
Nightlands is the recording project of Philadelphia-based multi-instrumentalist Dave Hartley. The music he creates in his bedroom is itself a bed of delicate, chiming strings and bubbling synths beneath a blanket of choral vocal arrangements. It's dreamy in the literal sense -- the seeds for the album were sown when Hartley began archiving musical ideas that occurred in his sleep with a simple bedside tape recorder. As a result his debut album Forget the Mantra is, in essence, a field recording of Hartley's dreams -- a travel journal through pop music and a collection of psych-hymns from the first human lunar colony. The songs sound both huge and intimate, breathy and cavernous like massive echoes of a faraway concert. It's the big, shadow music from just across the lake.
Young Man
Young Man’s Colin Caulfield On…Young Man
> It materialized during my sophomore year of college. I wasn't very interested in playing coffee shops or smaller venues. Instead, I spent my time recording. > I was a bedroom musician from the very start, I guess. > Boy used the perspective of a kid to get out some of my immature/naive ideas. There's an element of hindsight in there, but it was just meant as an introduction.
> When I got to college and couldn’t bring my drums, I picked up piano and got a guitar. I always liked playing drums, but it became apparent that I'd be primarily interested in writing songs. > I drummed in some half-baked blues bands, some woefully overambitious prog-rock projects, and a surf-punk band. Once college started, I wrote Americana tunes with one of my oldest friends. Those songs will definitely see the light of day, but nothing else was ever released.
> The idea of being “self-taught” is increasingly vague with the Internet. I can get in-depth vocal lessons for free on YouTube, so to say I learned everything on my own is kind of inauthentic. > A lot of people get surprised when I mention Rufus Wainwright as a huge influence. Also: Wolfgang Voigt, the Fiery Furnaces, the Cinematic Orchestra, Destroyer, Nobuo Uematsu, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Owen Pallett. > Being an English major had a big impact on Young Man. I make records as though they're papers, a collection of cohesive parts that presents an argument.
> I’m not too interested in forcing my problems on people; making them sit through 40 minutes of whining. > Everyone falls in love and deals with distance in their own way, whether it's literal or figurative. The goal was to create something people could draw their own interpretations from—some death of the modern author shit.
> Because the mixing process was so in depth and drawn out, the songs changed a ton over time. Most people would laugh if they heard the unmixed versions.
> There are moments when the album is much more effective on a nice set of speakers—when you can really feel the song change—but the subtleties and samples were definitely intended for headphones. > I decided to take on music full-time over a year ago now, so finishing school was more or less an obstacle, rather than an impetus, for a career path. > I was planning on moving to New York, but realized there wasn't really a feasible way of doing so with all the projects I had going on. I had this vision of being really depressed in a completely new city; not having any free time to explore and meet people. Luckily, I moved into an awesome house in a very different neighborhood. I realize now that I hadn't really experienced Chicago while I was in school. > All the songs lead up to “Felt,” a 10-minute piece that reprises and elaborates upon everything that has come before it. I think that's the best song on the record, but a lot of that has to do with having an understanding of what precedes it. > I'm actually in the studio with a full band working on the first of those two studio records and we're hoping to record the next in a couple months. If I have it my way, the two additional records will come out within a year of Ideas of Distance. > I didn’t always nail my papers, but I feel like I tried something different every time. The same applies to my music.
> It materialized during my sophomore year of college. I wasn't very interested in playing coffee shops or smaller venues. Instead, I spent my time recording. > I was a bedroom musician from the very start, I guess. > Boy used the perspective of a kid to get out some of my immature/naive ideas. There's an element of hindsight in there, but it was just meant as an introduction.
> When I got to college and couldn’t bring my drums, I picked up piano and got a guitar. I always liked playing drums, but it became apparent that I'd be primarily interested in writing songs. > I drummed in some half-baked blues bands, some woefully overambitious prog-rock projects, and a surf-punk band. Once college started, I wrote Americana tunes with one of my oldest friends. Those songs will definitely see the light of day, but nothing else was ever released.
> The idea of being “self-taught” is increasingly vague with the Internet. I can get in-depth vocal lessons for free on YouTube, so to say I learned everything on my own is kind of inauthentic. > A lot of people get surprised when I mention Rufus Wainwright as a huge influence. Also: Wolfgang Voigt, the Fiery Furnaces, the Cinematic Orchestra, Destroyer, Nobuo Uematsu, Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Owen Pallett. > Being an English major had a big impact on Young Man. I make records as though they're papers, a collection of cohesive parts that presents an argument.
> I’m not too interested in forcing my problems on people; making them sit through 40 minutes of whining. > Everyone falls in love and deals with distance in their own way, whether it's literal or figurative. The goal was to create something people could draw their own interpretations from—some death of the modern author shit.
> Because the mixing process was so in depth and drawn out, the songs changed a ton over time. Most people would laugh if they heard the unmixed versions.
> There are moments when the album is much more effective on a nice set of speakers—when you can really feel the song change—but the subtleties and samples were definitely intended for headphones. > I decided to take on music full-time over a year ago now, so finishing school was more or less an obstacle, rather than an impetus, for a career path. > I was planning on moving to New York, but realized there wasn't really a feasible way of doing so with all the projects I had going on. I had this vision of being really depressed in a completely new city; not having any free time to explore and meet people. Luckily, I moved into an awesome house in a very different neighborhood. I realize now that I hadn't really experienced Chicago while I was in school. > All the songs lead up to “Felt,” a 10-minute piece that reprises and elaborates upon everything that has come before it. I think that's the best song on the record, but a lot of that has to do with having an understanding of what precedes it. > I'm actually in the studio with a full band working on the first of those two studio records and we're hoping to record the next in a couple months. If I have it my way, the two additional records will come out within a year of Ideas of Distance. > I didn’t always nail my papers, but I feel like I tried something different every time. The same applies to my music.
