THE FALL: TECHNO

"Techno" wouldn't be the first word I'd use to describe The Fall's sound - hell, it probably wouldn't be in the top 10!

But when we played 'with' (uh, a couple of bands 'before') them at Narnack's CMJ party last October, and my untarded friend Judd ended up sticking around for The Fall despite not really knowing or caring much about them one way or the other, he said, afterwards, approvingly, "they're kind of like techno." Which is to say, in a Juddish fashion, that he was impressed - and correct, especially coming fresh off the monolithic, relentless closer, the justly-acclaimed new Fall composition "Blindness" (coming up in a post or two, don't worry).

The Fall's recorded output embraced beats and textures from the UK dance music scene even/much more directly * from time to time during the '80s and rather extensively throughout the '90s, bringing electronic sounds to the indie rock community a good 10 years ahead of schedule.  And keeping it extremely real in the process - Out Hud would kill ** for some of these loops, really nice sounds here, and MES adapts his inimitable vocal style seamlessly to the new arrangements.  In fact, he kind of takes the Fall/dub reggae hybrid formula covered a couple of posts ago and transplants it into a dance music context - "monochromatic, endless beats with some dude saying incomprehensible stuff over top of them every now and then, plus weird vocal treatments and random tape effects."  Lots of interesting sludge thrown together in pristine ProTooledness. 

I hope he comes back to this stuff in a more focused way at some point, b/c it works really really well I think - although the beats are not that amazing or anything, they kind of get obscured by the other nice/weird sounds anyway, and the digitality allows MES to really sound-collage the fuck out.  And his voice sounds great in digital detail, especially as he gets older and more, ah, 'wizened' - like when old people wrinkle well, the wrinkles actually become really beautiful, that's MES's increasingly lich-like voice.  Will keep the commentary short on these, a few of my favorite technotronic Fall moments:

CD Win Fall 2088 AD, from the I Am Kurious Oranj ballet 'score', lyrics here. In retrospect, the freedom of doing a not-exactly-a-Fall-album album seemed to give Mark a chance to do some valuable genre tourism, as he dove into reggae with "Kurious Oranj" (as posted in the aforementioned reggaefall post) and into acid house *** with this track. I LOOOVE the cyclic, ascending synth riff, and although some of the samples are kind of annoying, the collage works well overall, with Mark crooning - yes, crooning! - "wiiiin Falllll CD..."

THE FALL - A PAST GONE MAD, off 1993's The Infotainment Scan, lyrics here. Much like 'rappers' MES has never been shy to aim his lyrical scalpel at other, lesser artists. This song has one of his greatest slices - "If I ever end up like Ian McShane slit my throat with a kitchen tool / and if I ever end up like U2 slit my throat with a garden vegetable". Mark and I are both LOL on that one!

THE FALL - CITY DWELLER, off 1994's Middle Class Revolt, lyrics here. Mark defends his Manchester from the Olympic selection committee - "get out of my city / you mediocre pseud / and take those red-tie bastards / who put up the Olympic flags / with you". Steely atmospherics, with two separate vocal tracks a la Devolute and some real poetry too -

avoid the dismantled old heads stuck in bloody plant pots
all looking at them
forgetting the endless drive against nature
city dweller

THE FALL - SHAKE-OFF, from 2000's The Marshall Suite, lyrics here. MES is cooler than your dads - " Your dads arrive and your dads play guitars all night" ****. Also, some wise words on drug prohibition:

if you deny that strong pot or ecstacy imbibed you will end up
eyeball injecting with Domestos or household using chemicals

THE FALL - SUSAN VS. YOUTHCLUB, from the confrontational UK single/EP The Fall Vs. 2003, lyrics here. THICK synthage, great, halting vocal line, and even a bit of a chorus hook - "and it was / all and all / safe and warm."

THE FALL - RECOVERY KIT, from 2004's Real New Fall LP, the UK version (a slightly different version, "Recovery Kit #2" appears on the US release) lyrics here. Nice sparse, looping bass, great synth lines, and check out those extended drum rolls, this is some serious Mikey Colin-level shit!  "How can you leave your house / how can you leave your money / and guilded land".  Mike, how can you leave America / how can you leave your bros / and your awesome band?  Anyway, I love this enigmatic, pregnant ending to the song, and the album -

complete recovery kit four parts of it if you want it's free you open it

* than the more traditionally 'rock' instrumentations MES is favoring these days, always going against the grain our Mark

** if they were capable of such acts of realness, which I doubt

*** I think? wherever James Murphy stole his hi-hats from

**** I am guessing maybe he is referring to the pale UK "dadrock" that was popular around this time, Oasis, Ocean Colour Scene, et al