ROCKREPORT
KÜNSTLER SUCHEN


GENRES

STÖBERN


CD-DETAILS FACE CONTROL [HANDSOME FURS]

Handsome Furs

Face Control [Rock / Alternative]


RELEASE: 13.03.2009


LABEL: Sub Pop

VERTRIEB: Cargo Records GmbH


MySpace Amazon 

Handsome Furs are not a message band and they are not political, but Handsome Furs are a message band and they are political.

The juxtaposition of cold, metronomic, electronic beats, courtesy of Alexei Perry, with the jagged, dissonant and frail, broken or breaking, guitars of Dan Boeckner portray what it is to be a human being at the bottom of the 21st century. It underlines the confusion you feel as your best friends are conveyed to you via a series of ones and zeros passing through lines and cables and microwaves; the same confusion felt witnessing the pure, wholesome thrill of a band of musicians pouring their hearts out on stage, through someone’s cell phone as pixelated streaming video; the profound and bitter frustration of your long-distance relationship with the world up against a burning, alcohol-soaked sunrise as you admit some things you never thought you would; your constant feelings of inadequacy intertwined with the omnipotence modern technology grants us all. You are there, yet somehow you never are. As we all are and are not. You are left with a rhythmic and empowering programmed beat interrupted by the warm, reverberating fuzz tone of vibrating strings on wood hit hard enough to shatter skyscrapers. Over it all a perfectly imperfect voice roars images of landscapes, maps of forgotten continents ripe with history, and you are left feeling as human and alive and wide-eyed as you should be every single morning.

These are not concept albums, but there are concepts: Plague Park was Scandinavia as the couple experienced and envisioned it, jagged and pure landscapes, the melancholy yet hopeful air of April skies shining over frozen tundra, massive pine forests and an always looming Lutheran work ethic. It was slower; evoking images of a glacier creeping over mountains, moulding valleys and fjords, at the same determined and hardworking pace at which the region became populated and that population formed its stories.

FACE CONTROL has a similar geographic appeal, moving on to Eastern Europe for inspiration, echoing through empty skies and frozen plains. We pan over a horizon and see a world rife with signs of human life; bridges, barns, moats, railroad tracks, and towering buildings. And another human element is introduced to the mix, slowly creeping over, steadfastly materializing: politics. Not in the “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” sense; this is not an aggressive activism or even calm call to arms. We rather face an examination of our current lives and values, and how our collective pasts reflect.

“I don’t know but I’ve been told, every little thing has been bought and sold.”

This is the politics of shopping—the politics of control, control, control, of life under constant surveillance, of eternally standing in line for your weekly rations. We are presented with a half-startling meditation on how Eastern Bloc methods and 20th century rationality have managed to spread, prevail and manifest in all of our lives; how there is always someone on the lookout, mostly ourselves; how we have slowly accepted and embraced self-monitoring, happily reporting our every thought and move to blogs and facebooks and myspaces and credit/debit accounts and surveillance cameras and GPS devices.

We have built and taken up residence in our own Foucauldian Panopticon. Put in the context of a Soviet surveillance state of total control, modern western life becomes outright eerie. Of course, there is always hope, and this is perhaps the point. The songs on FACE CONTROL often cast us as the young lovers in the shadow of the system, plotting their escape, revelling in their freedom as the shackles tighten around them. In the past, freedom may have meant jumping a barbed wire fence, or crossing a treacherous ocean or burning desert. On FACE CONTROL Handsome Furs show us that in our modern age escaping these constraints has simultaneously become easier and more complicated. While it once meant hanging on, it now means letting go, and drifting off, refusing to participate in the structure that shapes and dominates so many lives, eschewing traditional values, opting instead to make up their own ways.

Seceding systems, FACE CONTROL is fast and up-beat and soulful and smelly and shiny and real. It inspires movement. It is optimistic. It reminds you: we always have life, the blood pumping through our veins and an easy means of letting it out and showering the world. It is great. Thank you, Handsome Furs…

“This band is completely based, aesthetically and otherwise, on travelling, on absorbing places and regurgitating them in music,” says Dan Boeckner over a screwdriver. His wife, Alexei Perry, also sipping on a screwdriver, interjects, “We both secretly want to be journalists.” And her husband concurs, “Secretly, I want to be a foreign correspondent. Handsome Furs is compact and transportable; it allows us to travel to places a lot of fully-manned rock bands with a drum kit never make it to. And bring them to others, whether anyone notices or not. We believe good music helps you broaden your perspective without ramming things ham-fistedly down your throat.”

“We have X amount of commercial potential. It’s not a lot, but enough to sustain two lives as much as two minimum wage jobs would or even more. So we can afford to make decisions like using the proceeds from an L.A. show to go to Serbia. If you look at it from a financial point of view, we do stupid, stupid tours. Then again, we’re not financially-minded. We’d rather extend ourselves as far as we can to absorb the world, life and experience.”

Alexei Perry and Dan Boeckner wrote the songs on FACE CONTROL together. The album was recorded and mixed by Arlen Thompson at Mount Zoomer. It was then mastered by Harris Newman at Hotel2Tango.

Handsome Furs live - Welttournee 2009

06.Mrz.2009 20:00
The Mercury Lounge New York
12.Mrz.2009 20:00
Mavericks Ottawa
13.Mrz.2009 20:00
Horseshoe Tavern Toronto
14.Mrz.2009 20:00
Blind Pig Ann Arbor, Michigan
15.Mrz.2009 20:00
Empty Bottle Chicago, Illinois
16.Mrz.2009 20:00
Off Broadway St. Louis, Missouri
17.Mrz.2009 20:00
Mojo’s Columbia, Missouri
19.Mrz.2009 20:00
SXSW Austin, Texas
20.Mrz.2009 20:00
SXSW Insound Party Austin, Texas
21.Mrz.2009 20:00
The Loft Dallas, Texas
23.Mrz.2009 20:00
Jackpot Lawrence, Kansas
24.Mrz.2009 20:00
Slowdown Omaha, Nebraska
25.Mrz.2009 20:00
The Aquarium Fargo, North Dakota
26.Mrz.2009 20:00
7th Street Entry Minneapolis, Minnesota
27.Mrz.2009 20:00
The Maintenance Shop Ames, Iowa
28.Mrz.2009 20:00
The Mill Iowa City, Iowa
30.Mrz.2009 20:00
Southgate House New Port, Kentucky
01.Apr.2009 20:00
Bug Jar Rochester, New York
02.Apr.2009 20:00
Spark Art Space Syracuse, New York
03.Apr.2009 20:00
Il Motore Montreal, Quebec
08.Apr.2009 20:00
93 Feet Eat London
09.Apr.2009 20:00
The Farmhouse Canterbury
10.Apr.2009 20:00
Motel Mocique Utrecht
11.Apr.2009 20:00
La Maroquinerie Paris
12.Apr.2009 20:00
Domino Festival Brussels
14.Apr.2009 20:00
Gebaude 9 Cologne
15.Apr.2009 20:00
Molotov Hamburg
16.Apr.2009 20:00
Beatpol Dresden
17.Apr.2009 20:00
Nachtleben Frankfurt
18.Apr.2009 20:00
59:1 Munich
19.Apr.2009 20:00
Rock Cafe Prague
20.Apr.2009 20:00
Stanica Zilina
21.Apr.2009 20:00
Kset Clubv Zagreb
22.Apr.2009 20:00
Rex Belgrade
23.Apr.2009 20:00
Klub Re Krakow
24.Apr.2009 20:00
Hydrozagadka Warsaw
25.Apr.2009 20:00
Roxy Klaipeda
26.Apr.2009 20:00
Fontaine Palace Liepaja
27.Apr.2009 20:00
Club Depo Riga
28.Apr.2009 20:00
Juuksur Talinn
29.Apr.2009 20:00
Kudes Linja Helsinki
01.Mai.2009 20:00
Strand Stockholm
02.Mai.2009 20:00
Garage Bergen
06.Mai.2009 20:00
Garage Oslo
07.Mai.2009 20:00
Herrgarn Linköping
08.Mai.2009 20:00
Debaser Malmö
09.Mai.2009 20:00
Vega Copenhagen
13.Mai.2009 20:00
Bang Bang Club Berlin
15.Mai.2009 20:00
Control Bucharest
22.Mai.2009 20:00
Musicbox Club Lisbon

(Quelle: MySpace Handsome Furs, 5.3.2009)


FORMAT: CD


Rate this:
  (Ø 2.97)



Zurück zur Übersicht


Diese CD weiterempfehlen
Ihr NameIhre E-Mail
Name EmpfängerE-Mail Empfänger
Ihr Nachricht:
 
Spamschutz: (Summe von 7 + 8 in das Textfeld eintragen.)


TOP RANKS

CD-WECHSLER

Townsend, Duncan
Out of the red


Roberts, Eddie
Trenta


Old Crow Medicine Show
Tennessee Pusher


Koz, Dave
Greatest Hits


V.A.
Purobeach 3


City
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!



© medienprojekt 2024 Impressum  Kontakt