Description:	CD on Pointy
	Format:	CD
	Genre(s):	Experimental Indie
	Label:	Pointy
	Price:	£11.29
	Availability:	Dispatched within 2-5 days (on average).

4
...according to our Phil on 08 January 2007.

Flotation Toy Warning return with a new single of madness on Pointy recs. Starts off like a mellower Quickspace with the crazy warbled vocal harmonies. The rest of it is pretty crazy....hard to describe in fact. Its very listenable and poppy in a quirky way. Rammed with tune and a trumpet pops in as well which is a pleasant surprise. It's very good and I'd recommend picking one up if you can be arsed.

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What their label says...

 1. Happy 13  2. Popstar Researching Oblivion  3. Losing Carolina; For Drusky  4. Made From Tiny Boxes  5. Donald Pleasance  6. Fire Engine On Fire Part 1  7. Fire Engine On Fire Part 2  8. Even Fantastica  9. Happiness Is On The Outside  10. How The Plains Left Me Flat

Reviews
"Buckled but beauteous, psychedelic Victoriana with beats"
Time Out



At once fascinating and bizarre, Flotation Toy Warning combine traditional folk instruments, murky breakbeats and a hyper-appealing pick-and-mix vocal style in their captivating sonic stew. Plenty of world-weariness and a wistful nostalgia abound too, making this album sound as if an ageing, drunken sailor recounting his past has had a fair hand in the creative process. Where harpsichords delicately twinkle, accordians sway, and thunderous beats collide, you can detect a real emotional charm in this noisy, semi-antiquated formula, and to deny its uniqueness would be to do the band an overwhelming disservice. The only problem is that 'Bluffer's Guide To The Flight Deck' wields a bit too much mournful dirge-like balladry to escape from what is a rather limited musical recipe. Still, this is lovely, albeit slightly stodgy listening. McGill
Rocksound



Cast in a similar light is the Bluffers Guide To The Flight Deck set by Flotation Toy Warning. (Pointy) Here an archaeology of invented histories and half imagined narratives are pasted together into peculiar collage visions with a glue of electronics, charity store instruments and a wealth of warped imagination: Flotation Toy Warning make ten soundtracks for movies you never saw anywhere outside of your minds’ eye, or at the very least from the corner of the reality afforded by afternoon autumnal daydreams of hidden pasts and forbidden futures battling for attention over the sounds of woodworking and junior operatics. Bluffers Guide is one of the most naturally strange accompaniments to the onset of morning mists and eye searing sunsets imaginable
Tangents



The affected quirkiness of the press release accompanying this record gave almost nothing away; but if it is to be believed what we are dealing with here is a collaboration of flying machine test pilots and quirky inventors. Wouldn’t be my obvious choice of personnel for any band I was starting, but after a couple of listens to Flotation Toy Warning their recruitment policy doesn’t seem so strange after all. “Bluffers Guide To The Flight Deck” (great name) is a Flaming Lips/Mercury Rev-esque mix of electronica, real instruments and vocals which (to this reviewers ears) seem to range from sounding like the moon faced choirboy frontman of Keane to the faintly irritating whine of that bloke who sings in Muse. But it’s better than it sounds – the secret weapon here being tunes with melodies that deliver a piledriver to the heart, melting on the ears like an aural foxes glacier mint, so lovely in places it almost lets you forgive them for the ropey lyrics. Stand out track is “Happiness On The Outside”, a crackly vinyl hymn to sadness and loss that possesses the ideal kind of melody for morose alcoholics to sing as they stagger their way home after being thrown out of the pub. “Fire Engine On Fire Part II” sounds like something Granddaddy would have knocked out on a day off (and I mean that in a good way), and features a warbling sound so close to the one that Mercury Rev used on “Holes” that a less charitable reviewer might accuse them of borrowing ideas. The quirkiness of The Flaming Lips with a bit of Granddaddy Americana and the production values of Mercury Rev circa “Deserter’s Songs”, left to stew in its own dolor just long enough to turn gently maudlin and you have some idea what flying machine test pilots and quirky inventors get up to when they aren’t flying or inventing things. A good record, but definitely not one to listen to before you head out to the pub.
www.soundsxp.com



This is an archaeology of invented histories and half-imagined narratives, pasted together into peculiar collage visions with a glue of electronics, charity store instruments and a wealth of warped imagination. Flotation Toy Warning make 10 soundtracks for movies you've never seen anywhere outside of your mind's eye. Or, at the very least, from the corner of the reality afforded by lazing on the sofa on a late summer Monday afternoon, with daydreams of hidden pasts and forbidden futures battling for attention over the sounds of woodworking and junior operatics. The most naturally strange accompaniment imaginable to the end of the season. Alistair Fitchett
Plan B



'Look a bit further than what you are force-fed on a daily basis,' says Donald Drusky of the intriguingly-titled Flotation Toy Warning. 'Our drummer nearly drowned on a lilo. So we formed a band with a nmae that would inspire people not to use toys as life aids.' Add to the mix a certain je ne sais dontknowwhatwe'redoing and the overall effect is a sultry and deviously harmonic debut album. 'So-called because we are not musicians and we don't know what we are doing. The lyrics are spontaneous and not improvised. There's profundity in that.' So is liking things on television and singing in the shower to inspire the musical force that is FTW. It's a Flaming Lips-sheltering-Wizzard-in-a-Buggles-rainstorm of an album. It's magical and orange-trousered. And quite startling...
The Fly



Like Kitchens Of Distinction, here's a band you can't not buy, even if only for the name. And their music's even better. Imagine you were to mix the sultry space rock of Granddaddy and Mercury Rev with the public-school baroque of early Genesis, Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite, the melancholy of Tindersticks, a Northern colliery band, some archival snatches from Radio 4, opera samples, spine-tingling church organ intros, a bowed saw, all tinged with a Victorian vaudeville sensibility and recorded on valve instruments — then you'd be some way towards understanding their debut's special charms. They've yet to make much impact over here, but the French are going mad for them, apparently.
Sunday Telegraph



Bluffer's Guide to the Flight Deck (CD, MISRA, Soft progressive pop) The debut album from London's curiously-titled Flotation Toy Warning. To put it bluntly, Bluffer's Guide to the Flight Deck is going to stump most listeners. The five gentlemen in this band aren't going for any normally defined or easily categorizable sound.While the music might best be described as progressive pop, the confusion sets in when one tries to determine exactly what other progressive pop bands these guys sound like. Some appropriate comparisons have been tossed around by others...The Flaming Lips, Van Dyke Parks, and Sparklehorse...but in the end, this album doesn't really sound much like any of these...or anyone else for that matter (although on some tracks we hear definite traces of The Frogs...particularly in terms of vocals). The band members assemble their tunes using technology, found instruments (?), and traditional instruments...but it is ultimately the songs themselves that make this album such an unusual spin. Dreamy, classic, atmospheric, puzzling, and funny...Bluffer's Guide to the Flight Deck isn't like anything else currently on the menu. As such...we can highly recommend this disc without reservation. Unusual, imaginative, and very cool. (Rating: 5+++)
Babysue



It's a muted pulse and gleaming sheets of guitar. It's a human chorus channeling the great cosmic mouth of Brian Eno's "2/1", slowly chewing on humming organs and live drums. It's the Flaming Lips imitating Scott Walker. But no, it isn't about Britney Spears annotating David Foster Wallace. The sonics are so sensual that it takes a minute for the grim lyrics to make an impression. Paul Carter's been "collecting little lies" to "put on the special tape," the one he plans to play the day you croak. What a bastard, right? Forming life's forgotten fragments into a patchwork language, Carter drops details in an answering-machine palimpsest: "You seem to live with fingertips/ wrapped around your face." But before you make like Cleanth Brooks and start gluing together these vignettes, take Carter's refrain to heart: "Trying to understand it all...just makes your head hurt." So: Here's a lovely flugelhorn flourish instead. [Brian Howe & Brandon Stosuy]
Pitchfork