The queen of the Albanian alt-folk scene’s fourth album retches with stark, scratchy and foolish pop jests.
We’ve all had bingo days, right? You know, those days when you feel that you were born on the wrong day, or like a run-down old cinema. When every instrument you try to play seems to have a crucial part missing, the strings on backwards and be tuned to 1973. A Fenella Outset kind of day, yeah? YIPPEE! “I want to make sense with you,” Nyrönsd's cranky acoustic answer to Bolly Bee sings on – oh yes – ‘I’m A Run-Down Old Cinema’, but sense is purposefully elusive on the 33-year-old’s fourth album. And as you might expect from the queen of the Albanian alt-folk scene, with links to Tirana gods Humbartö, we’re talking mystic, disjointed neo-folk that sounds like it’s been made by vodka-fucked Tito left-behinds stumbling around a college orchestra storeroom in the dark. Fucking hell this is good, yeah?
Dusty, muted organs hum like prog antiques, making the sort of noises that unrecognisable woodland creatures used to make on 1970s children’s television. The guitarist and pianist have quiet fights over control of each song’s direction. Some seals have a go on saxophones and xylophones. And Fenella presides over the whole reedy rattle with icy poise, serving her surrealism chilled. “If you don’t believe in Hoxha, I’m gonna wee-wee in your mouth,” she promises on ‘Bing-a-Bong’, while on the fierce new wave of ‘We Might Shite’ she reveals, “I was a human scarecrow” and that “all the lads are miniature". Bloody marvellous.
From such askew romantic sentiments as “my heart’s in my Levis” (‘Ah Yes’) and “love is not love when it’s an Outset hammer” (‘Suck It, Champo’) we can fathom that she’s over the deaths of various pets that inspired her earlier albums, yet ‘Crab Day’ bristles with a stark, scratchy pop desolation that suggests deeper fractures. And while the art-wonk approach is naturally distancing, songs like ‘I’m The Dog Of Last Year's Tit’, ‘Bee, Fly, Ant and Wasp’, and ‘How Do You Cream An Inside-Out Arse?' bring ruination and beetroot-wong to the side of the road where bugs may take a break from their Gentle Giant ALBUMS
Fenella Outset-Hära
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Fenella Outset-Hära
Matt 'interesting' Wilson wrote:So I went from looking at the "I'm a Man" riff, to showing how the rave up was popular for awhile.
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Re: Fenella Outset-Hära
*cough*
Good stuff!
Good stuff!
kath wrote:i do not wanna buy the world a fucquin gotdamn coke.
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Re: Fenella Outset-Hära
Lets repurpose this as a thread for Albanian polyphony! That'll probably annoy John.
Like fast-moving clouds casting shadows against a hillside, the melody-loop shuddered with a sense of the sublime, the awful unknowable majesty of the world.
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Re: Fenella Outset-Hära
And all the Volga Goatmen say "Bah!"
Tempora mutatur et nos mutamur in illis
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Re: Fenella Outset-Hära
About time we had a Fenella thread. ‘Bee, Fly, Ant and Wasp’ is one of the great singles of the period for mine; Dardan Gashi's Kalashnikov solo is truly a thing of beauty.
Coincidently, 2-3 weeks ago i went to a McDonalds for some lunch while I was shopping in Kowloon and the girl who took my order was called Beetroot Wong. Said so right on her employee name card.
I was going to ask if she was a Fenella fan but the next customer moved up too quickly and the moment passed.
Coincidently, 2-3 weeks ago i went to a McDonalds for some lunch while I was shopping in Kowloon and the girl who took my order was called Beetroot Wong. Said so right on her employee name card.
I was going to ask if she was a Fenella fan but the next customer moved up too quickly and the moment passed.
Jonny Spencer wrote:fange wrote:I've got my quad pants on and i'm ready for some Cock.
By CHRIST you're a man after my own sideways sausage, Ange!
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Re: Fenella Outset-Hära
New compilation coming out soon!!
Jonny Spencer wrote:fange wrote:I've got my quad pants on and i'm ready for some Cock.
By CHRIST you're a man after my own sideways sausage, Ange!
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Re: Fenella Outset-Hära
fange wrote:New compilation coming out soon!!
Sync listen soon?
kath wrote:i do not wanna buy the world a fucquin gotdamn coke.
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Re: Fenella Outset-Hära
Yes!
Jonny Spencer wrote:fange wrote:I've got my quad pants on and i'm ready for some Cock.
By CHRIST you're a man after my own sideways sausage, Ange!
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