Musical Notes: A Personal Musical Dictionary by Foster John

Musical Notes: A Personal Musical Dictionary by Foster John

Author:Foster, John [Foster, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-22T16:00:00+00:00


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New Fast Automatic Daffodils, Neon Neon, N-Joi, Nirvana, Northside, Paolo Nutini

New Fast Automatic Daffodils

I’ve already described how the New Fast Automatic Daffodils were the first band I saw live when they supported the Charlatans back in 1991. I can’t remember too much about that performance, which is a shame because it would be the only time I’d see them play.

It must have been my friend Jamie who introduced me to the New Fast Automatic Daffodils just like he had with most of the other indie bands of the period. However, if other contemporaries like Northside were quirky, then New FADs were militantly, uncompromisingly eccentric.

Their first album Pigeonhole is a strange mix of unlikely constituent parts, liberal percussion, unnatural noises, jangly yet droning almost angry guitars, abrupt tonal shifts, quick rhythmic pacing, and unfathomable lyrics delivered in earnest yet urgently insistent and vaguely threatening tones. Overall, there’s a punk feel to the final product and a hint that things could easily unravel. None of it should work. And yet, once you finally accept the madness and let it all wash over you it does begin to make some sort of sense, but only on its own terms. You have to meet it, not vice versa. The somewhat disjointed and confused elements of opening track Get Better sound almost conventionally mundane by the time second track Fishes Eyes has reached its outro and, just as you’re wondering whether your hi-fi is playing up, you’re confronted with a bizarre church interlude. What? Working for Him , is up next and, for a moment, you might even begin to think that the lyrics are comprehensible. You can identify the words. But what do they actually mean in this context? And what is with that vocal sample which almost drowns out the rest of the song? Why can you hear it inside your head? What does any of this mean? And why is it all looping and getting louder and even more unsettling? What is going on?

I love Pigeonhole with the sort of affection you can only give to a slightly odd and unnerving pet. It might baffle you occasionally and you might pick up a few cuts and scratches along the way, but it never actually meant to hurt you and is just as perplexed about things as you are. Eventually you begin to better understand its foibles and then, once you’ve decided it’s not that dangerous after all, you begin to see its true beauty. It’s a loyal album is Pigeonhole . It’s not flash and it won’t run away with the milkman. Well, it might but you won’t hate it for it. Just on the off-chance, I’ve checked inside the case liner of my CD copy and found the receipt. To replace my old cassette copy, I bought the CD from the Cumbernauld Our Price at 13:41 on 17th April 1992 for the princely sum of £10.99. Bloody hell.

Did my love for Pigeonhole expand to encompass other materials by the New Fast Automatic Daffodils? Yes.



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