Friday, May 21, 2010

Song of the day

"OFYC Showcase", by The Fall.

Midlife crises. Some blokes go out and buy red sports cars. Some quit their established, successful careers, sell everything, and move to the country somewhere so they can do what they "really want to do", which inevitably will end in bitter failure. Me, I seem to be compelled, not exactly against my will but without thought, to listen to copious quantities of music by The Fall. And not only the music of their own Golden Years (and mine), but the new stuff, too. I am totally, unexpectedly, into the new album, "Our Future, Your Clutter". There is no sense of a band going through the motions. Everything is urgent, everything is the most important thing they could be doing right now. Whatever was missing in The Fall over most of the last 20 years is back.

This, the first song on the record, has the kind of incessantly rolling groove that they were capable of pounding out, as if it grew on trees, around the time of "Cruiser's Creek". It doesn't let up for nigh on six minutes. Nor do you want it to.

Curiously, around the four minute mark Smith begins to sound just like former Australian Rules champion Alex Jesaulenko singing about drinking Canberra Milk. See for yourself.