Fanfarlo - Drowning Men/Sand and Ice

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3...according to our Business Lady on Fri 01 May, 2009.

Fanfalo are epic! I mean big! Like STRINGS big! 'Drowning men' man is the first single from debut long player ‘Reservoir’ and is available via the moshi moshi singles club. It's a lean, mean single in the vein of Coldplay, Editors and those other groups that use future indie-rock production to make them sound real famous in the monitors. It's a self fulfilling prophecy so i'm sure they'll be bigger than cheese come next week. The vocals are clear and confident and the playing is note perfect in everyway. B-side 'Sand and ice' is slightly more restrained and less ambitious yet very similar in tone and delivery.

After a year in the shade, diligently preparing their strangely-strange-yet-oddly-hook-laden pop music for maximum impact, Fanfarlo emerge into 2009 a sleeker more predatory beast, with this first double-A side from the esteemed Moshi Moshi Singles Club.
A-side ‘Drowning Men’ stands at a lean and agonisingly taut two-and-a-half minutes of propulsive drums, urgent handclaps and tightly circling violins, before the wave breaks and serenity reigns over proceedings in a coda that can only be described as sublimely lovely. Over on the AA, ‘Sand And Ice’ sees singer Simon Balthazar penning further poems without apparent meaning that nonetheless creep inside your being and build a nest in your heart.

‘Drowning Men’ is taken from the band’s recently completed debut album, ‘Reservoir’, which is currently available from their website (www.fanfarlo.com). ‘Sand And Ice’ however is exclusive to this release. Both tracks were recorded by Peter (Interpol, The National) Katis at his Bridgeport, Connecticut studios, but given the crazy high standards of the resultant record, Fanfarlo were in the unlikely position of being able to leave something of ‘Sand And Ice’’s quality off the album running order. “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.”

As aging instruments are brought back to life with a creaking aching beauty, Reservoir’s bizarre collection of characters joins our midst. Each an accidental Fanfarlo metaphor - the irrational pursuit of an otherwise intellectual mind. Howard Hughes’ decent into madness I’m A Pilot; the delusion of Pellegrino Ernetti The Walls Are Coming Down and the absurd writing career of Harold T. Wilkins, all sweep from sweet murmuring melodia to orchestral pop.

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. Reservoir is set to be one of enchanting debuts of 2009.

TRACKLISTING: A. Drowning Men AA. Sand and Ice

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