Don't Dream It's Over and Fiery Furnaces

I know, there's been a slight delay in the Kiwi series, but it will continue. I've mainly been holding back until I can get more detailed thoughts on the Chills' Submarine Bells and Soft Bomb, both of which are excellent albums. I received a tip today to check out the Finn brothers' work, so hopefully I'll have a chance to do that soon (you might remember Neil Finn from Crowded House).

In other news, Slate just ran an interesting article on the Fiery Furnaces. I'm not sure I'm keen on what they're doing. I was a little let down to discover that they didn't actually sound like the Who, a comparison every single article on them has to include. Upon the insistence of a friend, I gave Blueberry Boat a second and third listen and, by golly, it's some good stuff. Even so, I'm not sure I agree with the aesthetic of embodying "failure and incapacity". I should like it, maybe; after all, it's the late 20th Century outgrowth of modernism. Art's no longer a redemptive force, but itself a self-referential mess of failed transcendence, where "l'erection tombe".

It's not doing it for me because it sounds like a copout. I like the ambition, but go ahead and match that with a magnificent failure, not an ironic one: '“A Quick One” and “Rael” are, pre-eminently, narrative art music, self-consciously debilitated; we would like you to think of Blueberry Boat as their appropriately disabled descendent.'

Still, FF, come to VA -- I'd love to see one of these live "mishmash" shows.