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I want to tell you a story, a brief childhood memory that helps illustrate the multi-layered sonic idleness of Mr. Matthew Friedberger. I believe it was 1984, and one afternoon I found myself lost inside the 21-inch television, chasing the borderline exploits of a salmon. Pin the salmon was, in fact, the absolute protagonist of an old documentary broadcast on local TV. This daredevil of the waters had the unresolved look of Angelino Alfano, and a life more complicated than the immunity award for high institutional positions. Steel temper and cold blood in climbing streams and the river's harshness, amidst countless surprises, made him a champion worthy of appearing in the specialty at the Los Angeles Olympics. Before ending up on the table, of course, with coarse salt, sugar, lemon, and olive oil. Pin would cut through hydrogen and oxygen like a knife through Parma ham, pushing, continuing resolutely, and blissfully dodging fishing hooks and limestone rocks. New Yorker Matt, the mind behind the brother\ sister duo Fiery Furnaces, has an adventurous spirit equal to Pin. And he can spit out pre-established (musical) rules better than Alfano and friends...
It isn’t too difficult to get lost in the "widow city" of the Fiery Furnaces, amidst ancient alleyways and new audio buildings. The seven minutes of the opener The Philadelphia Grand Jury are enough: the drum's syncopated hammer, Eagles period Hotel California guitars, Beatles melody flirting with hip-hop graffiti in the Eighties New York of Keith Haring, and a symphonic antenna shifted to the East. The sixteen tracks of Widow City may turn out to be a disorienting and uncertain experience for delicate eardrums, almost as much as a film by Rocco that deeply touches our passionate eye. In the single Ex-guru, brother Matt and sister Eleanor Friedberger mix Beck playing with Roxy Music a cover of the Jacksons from Destiny. Including orchestrations by Van Dyke Parks, and head-splitting drum rolls by Bonzo. And all in 2' 42". The city of the Fiery Furnaces may be widowed, but I doubt it refuses promiscuity.
The liquid keyboards and cotton candy harp of My Egyptian Grammar nourish the romantic Kinks Pop (in electro clothing). Clear Signal From Cairo has a heavy beginning, heavy artillery of drums and valve amplifiers, and it mutates into the persuasive nursery rhyme refrain of Eleanor amidst avant-garde variations, percussive delirium and neurotic chants, to finally end in glory with the fleeting final gallop of guitars. The Old Hag Is Sleeping is a collage that copy-pastes Residents while escorting the funk/synthetic of Prince from 1999 to school, amidst rough beats and processed guitars; while sister Friedberger's ?femme fatale' singing continues to ?perform', and changes register as in the most insidious of noirs. Jimmy Page crushes ribs in the pastoral cabaret, between Mary Poppins and Bowie, of Navy Nurse. The restorative melancholy of Restorative Beer moves innocent riffs and baroque regret in the swamp. Uncle Charlie is a psychotic hard/blues at the speed of light, which could generate justifiable envy in Jack White of the so-called White Stripes..Wicker Whatnots, finally: a kind of Frankenstein falling apart on the way home, with the dad demiurge anxiously waiting in the Very Evil Castle of Rignano. Instruments that self-sustain in the organized (dis)chaos of an omnivorous and carnivorous musical Babel, the rock opera that finds its own center when, paradoxically, it's built on dissimilar and mirrored sound fragments.
An album by Matt & Eleanor is therefore more comfortable than the last Sanremo canonized by Pippo, more gut-wrenching (in the sense that it tears them on stage from rabbits or chickens) than Richie Benson in concert, but less approachable than trans Andreia in Rio (provided you don't use Ronaldo’s hair regrowth lotion). Now excuse me, I should take my Bobtail King Kerry for a walk.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Automatic Husband (02:08)
Thanks for asking
Yes it's true, we've been waiting for you
We've been waiting for you
Persuade your husband he should stay
at our disposal for today
and take down everything we say
About the new school bus assistant snuck in change
of leaving seven sleeping children in their seats,
in a trance, induced by air-conditioning
So I went back up to our room
And told my husband to sit down on the end-table
and that he was getting very sleepy
and when his eyes went out I put the pen back in his left hand
At phases 8 and 31 the Four Faculties are done,
the Principles are some.
The solar period, if you look,
is like the bishop in the brook,
so it says in this book
Writ by the new school bus assistant snuck in change
of leaving seven sleeping children in their seats,
in a trance, induced by air-conditioning
And don't forget the imaginary map
of the Manifestations of Murker-Making
Owned by the undertaker's office
(Otherwise known as the Cadaverous Cosmeticians)
Local number dead-as-a-doornail in a church mouse's chin
Or so said the birth-chart I sent away to New Mexico for
It was made by a special commission of Navajo basketball coaches and blonde ladies
04 Ex-Guru (02:42)
One of those blond ladies had a certain hold on me
I went to all her seminars by the Airport in the Double Tree
I even let her use nephew’s seaplane in the Bahamas for free
But she means nothing to me now
I tell myself that everyday
She means nothing to me now
I tell myself every single day
I’m quite convinced I escaped her sway
I burned all my clothes with eucalyptus juice
Ripped out the floors and painted all the platforms puce
And I went so far as to sacrifice a second snake to Zeus
So she means nothing to me now
I tell myself that everyday
She means nothing to me now
I tell myself every single day
I’m still convinced I escaped her sway
But when she mopes in the moonlight on her mesa in March
Does she kick up a thunderstorm when she thinks of my betrayal?
She means nothing to me now
She means nothing to me now
08 Japanese Slippers (02:57)
Down at the Shell shed, the boys are picking out the pearls
The home I'm in lets the rain get in
I bought 22 ounces of the petrol, park, wait at the light
I'm never going to make it back in time
'fore Geraldine and me to begin
Mr. Rayne in his Japanese Slippers comes creeping in, saying
I sit with the fan on my face and sip shandies all day
I learn to sleep standing up so I don't have to make the bed
No tobacco for my rolling papers, warm water in my cup
But I have wait all morning, so
'fore Geraldine and me can begin
Mr. Rayne in his Japanese Slippers comes creeping in, saying
I loaded up with Turkey carpets
and green glass diamonds
I drove back and forth for 5 long rolling moons
And every day and every night I thought of back at home
And I couldn't get notion out of my head that said
'fore Geraldine and me could begin
Mr. Rayne in his Japanese Slippers comes creeping in, saying
And everything is always a little late
Mr. Rayne in his Japanese Slippers seems to be my fate.
It was my job to cut down all the poplar trees
And I'd sit on the stumps and listen to the finches
and sit out in the fields and eat honey out of a jar
and wonder why it always seemed that
'fore Geraldine and me could begin
Mr. Rayne in his Japanese Slippers comes creeping in, saying
13 Wicker Whatnots (04:27)
Emma was walking with Mandeep and JingJing on the second day of Spring.
Emma was walking with Mandeep and JingJing on the second day of Spring.
She said she was sick of her porch pillars and golden axletrees
and silver snuffers and all that sort of thing,
‘cause out of the corner of her eye she saw one cherub ten cubits high.
You can immolate all those oxen, you can sacrifice so many sheep.
You can immolate all those oxen, you can sacrifice so many sheep.
You can be surrounded by your four hundred pomegranates
and your bright brass shovels, but you still can’t hardly sleep,
when out of the corner of your eye you see one cherub ten cubits high.
How do you arrange a room around a baby grand piano?
In the Arabian-tented library guest room;
In the two-tabled dining room art gallery.
And here’s one for your party room:
An emergency cigarette behind glass.
An emergency cigarette behind glass.
On a sliding slack rack hangs the Calcutta necklace.
And the unique stone rubbings I can decorate with giant jacks:
With wicker whatnots.
With wicker whatnots,
In prettier prints with masses of chintz
And candy box fabrics.
Or the “True Meaning of a Name”
With poem in a frame.
Where blue means fair; pink, rain;
Purple, variable conditions.
Give me mirror magic in the maxi mood
And I’ll throw away my Hollywood chin band.
Ulyana, Phoebe, and Alan knew to say, “We’re here for Lucy’s Birthday
in the Rivoli Bar area lounge,” but were worried they might be late.
Then Lucy messaged, “My PA Ms. Gill will kindly deal with your queries between 6:30 and 8,
unless out of the corner of your eye you see one cherub ten cubits high.”
She was accepting cards and small gifts (before the photos) between 9 and 11.
She was accepting cards and small gifts (before the photos) between 9 and 11,
when Gharzi, Ovi, Roger, and Rachel presented her with something that just sent her to heaven:
one cherub ten cubits high that she could see out of the corner of her eye.
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