Gravity You Just Hold Me Down

Gravity
You just hold me down so quietly
You just pull me back ...

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So Oasis are getting back together for wheelbarrows full of cash? big fucking deal. I saw them on their first proper tour* and they were great, but they got less impressive with every single release. In the end they were exposed as gurning dullards with an overly-inflated sense of their own importance.

It got me thinking about that whole era and how exciting and great a lot of the music coming out of the UK was right then. So here’s a paean to a far better, Welsher, more inventive band. Plus, there’s a hamster.

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Struggling in a vortex
With my jacket made of Gore-Tex

Super Furry Animals Fuzzy Logic is a wonderful neon pink grenade of an LP, which explodes all manner of rainbows, unicorns, hamsters, moss and other beauty into your life once you pull the pin. Trust me, I’m a doctor**.

SFA channelled all manner of urban psychedelia, intelligence, sideways views, amateur chemistry and some pure 70s rock kicks into their debut; there is something decidedly Welsh about the coolness/uncoolness of this combination. Actor Rhys Ifans had already passed through their ranks before they recorded Fuzzy Logic, a fact I was utterly ignorant of until yesterday, weirdly.

Proceedings commence with the holy breakneck glam racket of ‘God! Show Me Magic’, which pulls off that trick the Stooges assayed more than once of starting so abruptly it sounds like you the listener just opened a door into the studio. 1:48 and done, like all the best tunes.

The next track, ‘Fuzzy Birds’ takes that tired age-old cliché beloved by so many bands, a dream about a bandmate’s hamster (named Stavros) generating electricity and creates a dialogue between them. Helpfully there is a picture of Stavros on the inner sleeve, as is only correct.

Then we strut along to ‘Something 4 The Weekend’ and its tale of recreational pill popping. Its as close to ELO as damnit and quite brilliantly awesomely magnificently great. This review objective enough for ya? it gets better, I warn you.

I had my frisbee sharpened and honed
I had it galvanised and chromed
Decapitate and bury your toys
My frisbee brings the noise

My favourite ever song about one of my favourite activities filters a Brit indie noise somewhere via Superchunk. It absolutely rocks. The bands wit and inventiveness have well been sharpened and honed by this point, as for galvanised and chromed? we’re getting there.

The genius 1-2-3 of ‘Hometown Unicorn’, ‘Gathering Moss’ and ‘If You Don’t Want Me To Destroy You’ are pretty dang special, even in this company. ‘…Unicorn’ being the tuneful psych glam 7″ that sucked me into all this to begin with. ‘Gathering Moss’ being tuneful folk psych of the first order with some delightful trembling strings and Ennio Morricone twang then we truly hit the motherlode. IYDWTDM is a stately, beautiful thing that I find hard to hang on to, maybe that’s gravity just pulling me down. The strings are gorgeous and stirring, in a decidedly Beatlesy manner and merge immaculately with Gruff’s voice. It moves me.

SFA rock it up on ‘Bad Behaviour’ which shows some awesome theremin widdling, unless I’m mistaken, plus some great guitar screeching. I just alarmed my cat by leaping around to it in my kitchen. The contemplatibe ‘Mario Man’ is a lesser track, apart from that quite excellent ‘Vortex/Gore-Tex‘ rhyme.

You and me
And the guy from the Sparks
Hanging out with Howard Marks

Fuzzy Logic cover star Howard Marks^ is referenced on ‘Hangin’ With Howard Marks’, there is a helpful pic of Ron Mael on the inner sleeve too – granting him parity with Stavros the hamster and TV weather girl Siân Lloyd.

It's been a funny kind of day
Sîan Lloyd says the sun will come and play
Emotive in transit, we'll be together 'til the end

Down amongst all this frippery we emerge into the rather melancholy psych of ‘Long Gone’, which despite containing a very stoned bout of answerphone giggling courtesy of Rhys Ifans and other former SFA member Dic Ben, is again really affecting and elegiac. Sadly the noisy ‘For Now And Ever’ doesn’t add anything much to the conversation.

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Fuzzy Logic is still an astonishingly good album full of the sound of a band who are still only 35% towards realising their own potential and abilities. There is more creativity, intelligence, emotional heft and hamsters than in anyone else I can think of from the late 90’s.

This really isn’t the sort of album where you end up concentrating on anyone’s playing in isolation, it is far more of a, coughs, joint effort for that. Needless to say it really is all tip-top and special kudos must go to producer Gorwel Owen who does his usual immaculate job of corralling everything thrown at him into a sparkling-sounding whole.

So, fellow travellers, treat yourself to this very special something 4 the weekend/rest of your life.

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I am of course a fake. My copy of Fuzzy Logic is a 2016 reissue that I bought whilst simultaneously and very hypocritically cursing SFA for rereleasing their LPs I already had, thereby reducing their value. Back in the day, like a true fan I bought all the singles and then taped the LP off my mate.

The reissue looks and sounds brilliant and balanced, particularly when the music gets less so. Review ends.

1243 Down.

*Leeds Irish Centre, 1994? when some idiot punched Liam off the stage.

**in a sort of unqualified, amateur, enthusiastic manner of speaking.

^if you’ve never read it I commend his autobiography Mr Nice to you.