Not Every Beginning Has An End

A Small Spot On The Fall Harry Prenger 15 mei 2004 Aantal reacties: 2

The Fall in their past 20 years (and almost twice as many records) made a habit of annoying the listener. The group from Manchester has a certain idea about songs that is self-opinionated to say the least: they look like they were made up at the spot and with a little bit of luck might sound like rejected demos from the Stooges. Or, on their first records it even sounded like madness kept barely under control, a solution in search of a problem. At their best The Fall is emotion, context and chaos at the same time.

Bandleader Mark E. Smith usually ups it by - preferably mumbled - ranting his associating lyrics. Reasons enough to conclude anyone to avoid Fall records like the plague but not so. As on their records there are sudden moments of informal, surreal and playful beauty. The band have had a loyal fan base for years. One of the most well known fans is John Peel. The BBC dj must be highly pleased with The Falls latest albums The Unutterable, Are You Are Missing Winner and Country On The Click, all three undoubtedly the best Fall records of the past ten years.

Which isn't so hard regarding the series of dogged recalcitrant records in which The Fall emphasized their own motto during the nineties. Objectively the nineties albums were apathetic, half-hearted and messy. The last three Fall studio albums however are dynamic, solid and astonishingly good. Gone is the band which bit themselves in the tail with endless jangling songs. All albums are on the one hand modest but none the less much detailed and rich works. Take The Unutterable. Almost everything on The Unutterable has been excitingly colored one way or another, like 'Dr. Buck's Letter' with its driving industrial rumble, a highly exciting techno variation. On the same album we hear finger popping swing in Pumpkin Soup and Mashed Potatoes, while Way Round revolves around a James Bond-like guitar riff and the dance pop of Serum is frankly infectious. What the hell is going on? Of course Mark E. Smith opens his trap at the more impossible moments en we do meet old contrasts at the end alas. Das Katerer ends unsatisfactory and they never even tried to make a song out of Devolute. Cool.

Mark E. Smith

As ever inescapable is the performance of Mark E. Smith. His presence cuts the room like a knife - a knife that does not need sharpening. Also unexpectedly great was the Fall concert I attended about three years ago, although it took place in a miserable Dutch village called Vaals. In spite of Mr. Smith’s ultimate trademark, looking utterly bored, the band was in great shape. And indeed Smith threw a beer can to a just on time ducking roadie. Because of the guitar playing leadership of Ben Pritchard the new Fall played tighter than ever. Not only on stage.

The latest bunch of Fall albums sound on a first spin more of the same, and after a few more spins not much has changed you might think. Well, not really. Again on their newest album Country On The Click it’s Smith who works up his band like a high priest at a ritual gathering. Most songs seemingly follow a tight songlike structure which amazes more with every extra spin. In his lyrics Smith is the rhetoric destructionist and at the same time entertaining metaphorist as ever. But despite this he makes his anger very clear. Mountain Energei is a comment on the politics of Tony Blair, while prestigious soccer team Chelsea is sarcastically beaten in Theme From Sparta FC. Even Mike Love of The Beach Boys gets the middle finger for his court case against the other Beach Boys: in the worm in the bacon of BB/His name was Love/ But how were they to know/Mike's gift was only poison (from Mike’s Love Xexagon). Furthermore The Fall surprise with a unrecognizable version of the Lee Hazlewood song Loop 41 Houston, once performed by Dean Martin.

And when finally the tight but euphoric playing (the band) and the razor-sharp knife (the singer) have closed their pact, all words become superfluous.

Not every beginning has an end. In the new century The Fall still sound amazingly fresh, timeless and as good as new. Their first album was released way back in 1979. Ah, yes, 1979. The year of Fleetwood Mac’s long awaited follow up to Rumours. The year when Johnny Rotten definitely entered a new reality as Public Image Ltd. with a 3lp set in a film can. The year when Led Zeppelin released an lp in a brown paper bag and called it In Through The Out Door. 1979, when Bob Dylan took a new road but went into the wrong direction. A lot of these people are still around these days, but The Fall kept holding on to it’s own reality, stepping in and out of it’s own matrix. They don’t need a comeback album, nor do they have to hide behind a myth, simply because they know that
“reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away” - Philip K. Dick

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