Freur: "Matters of the Heart"

9 June 1983

"A blissfully romantic song, graced by an arresting vocal and an arrangement that hugs like loving arms at a windy bus stop."

— Mark Steels

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose double-glazing. Choose a hi-fi. Choose vitamins. Choose Breakfast Television. Choose to purchase your council flat. Choose seatbelts. Choose a sit-down Wimpy. Choose a holiday in Tenerife. Choose nuclear disarmament. Choose to believe Hugh Trevor-Roper. Choose lucozade. Choose peace in Northern Ireland. Choose Steve Cram. Choose getting a video for the kids.

(This is a clear example of padding out an essay that I was obviously at a loss with. "Oh look," observant readers no doubt exclaimed, "Paul's nicking from Trainspotting with references to the eighties!" Double-glazing! Sit-down Wimpy! Lucozade! It's as if I raided an old copy of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole for as many references as I could manage. But if this is what you think what happened then I'm afraid you'd be wrong: I have memorized three of the first four Mole books so I didn't have to research at all!)

A couple weeks' back in the so-called "cop" piece that closes out these entries, I discussed "The Stand" by The Alarm, who I argued were at the forefront of Welsh pop due to there being absolutely no one else. Not true at all. There was Alison Statton, formerly of Young Marble Giants but this time vocalist for post-punk smooth jazzers Weekend, who enjoyed a SOTF a year earlier with "Past Meets Present". One of Britain's biggest acts of the time, Shakin' Stevens, also happened to be Welsh. But it wasn't a region overflowing with musical talent and the very fact that I keep thinking about late-eighties sophisti-pop one-hit wonders Waterfront says it all.

(The "cop" piece is now known as Also Reviewed This Fortnight. I neglected to acknowledge that Welsh pop did enjoy a renaissance in the nineties after that brief, regrettable period in which Waterfront somehow ended up being the Principality's chief musical ambassadors. That said, I'd probably take eighties' Cymru pop over it: a little Manics goes a long way in my book, I could never get past Cerys Matthews' wretched voice when dealing with Catatonia, I must be dead inside since I've never warmed to Super Furry Animals and I absolutely adore these three bands compared to Stereophonics. Gorky's Zygotic Mynci may well redeem such a mediocre scene but I really wouldn't know. Why haven't I given them a listen?)

Emerging out of Cardiff in 1983 was synth-pop gloomsters Freur. In fact, they were never called Freur, that was simply how one pronounced their name. They used a symbol and only came up with 'Freur' as a compromise with their record label. A good ten years before Prince cooked up his in-no-way pretentious "name" (with the much lengthier pronunciation of "the Artist Formerly Known as Prince"), this Welsh quartet must have really thought they were on to something with their, in the words of Kimberley Leston, "squiggle resembling a poorly tapeworm". The squiggle got them to number 59 in the charts with their first single "Doot-Doot' (either that or their eccentric name prevented them from getting any higher) and this was its follow-up. Not a great song but a marked improvement over its insubstantial predecessor. Trying for that glacial snyth sound that worked so well on Ultravox's "Vienna" and OMD's "Souvenir", it works out for them musically with a beautifully ghostly sound but it's a lyrical mess. It has lines that seem be meant to be profound but, upon closer study and thought, are mostly just nonsense. "Clowns in the street / The city is asleep / And no one hears a beat"? Hmmm, I'd be interested in investigating quite what they're getting at if I wasn't convinced they were churning out whatever sounds good. If the song's thesis is 'matters of the heart are complicated, you know' then I can't disagree but if leaves me wondering why I should care.

(Yeah, I stand by the above. Songs like "Matters of the Heart" work well when you're not paying attention but come undone if even the slightest bit of thought is put into them. But the melody is nice which I brushed over (checks notes) just over five years ago)

It is perhaps with this musical proficiency/lyrical ineptness in mind that Freur would gradually shift towards techno ambiance. Not strictly instrumental nor with a particular emphasis on samples and/or guest vocalists from the pop/rock "scene" but with certainly less importance placed on vocals. It's not an especially big leap to make going from synth-pop to electronica but it was something very few were able to pull off (indeed, it was a shift not many seemed interested in attempting). Dave Nonis, Mark Almond's mustachioed cohort in Soft Cell, would eventually re-emerge in nineties techno boffins with banjos The Grid but, by and large, your Vince Clarke's and Chris Lowe's who headed up the technical side of their acts avoided going full-on big beat. Freur embraced changes in the musical landscape and ended up as Underworld.

(Clearly lacking anything else to say, I wrap things up with a look at how some synth boffins chose to move towards house and dance music and away from pure pop. I clearly wasn't aware of Colourbox's similar shift when they evolved into into M|A|R|R|S in 1987 or thereabouts. I even sometimes wonder if members of JoBoxers ended up forming the basis of The Orb or if members of It's Immaterial eventually formed N-Trance but, sadly, neither of these things happened. I imagine I'll discover another seemingly random transformation but it will be from a pair of acts I would never have thought of. And that's the beauty of this "trend")

Choose life. Choose success. Choose film soundtracks. Choose rave. Choose hardwood flooring. Choose Michael Eavis. Choose credibility. Choose the Full Moon Party on Ko Pha-ngna. Choose New Labour. Choose lad mags. Choose ecstasy. Choose authenticity.

(I have to say these passages that nick from Ewan McGregor's Renton from Trainspotting are really what save this review from utter worthlessness. Yeah, it's pads out an admittedly empty and analysis-free review but it serves a purpose. The nineties weren't all that great for many of the above reasons. The Adrian Mole books even started to suck during this time. Except for The Wilderness Years because all we ever wanted to see was out Aidy become happy. There's hope for all, you see) 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Durutti Column: "I Get Along Very Well Without You"

"Snap", to quote Steels in full. Oh the grief he must be assaulted with every time this "review" gets shared on social media. This hippest of bands with no songs anyone can name and a roster of anonymous members sure has a loyal following of people I don't know. Mojo even did a 'How to Buy' feature on them. A pity, then, that they just weren't all that good. I don't know of a single Durutti Column record that doesn't sound better in my imagination than what they actually recorded. I dig plenty of hipster pop but only on the condition that I would wish to listen to it. A big ask, I know. I suppose I will have to prepare for an eventual "assault" if and when this piece gets passed around on social media. I'll be ready.

(Oh what a sad little paragraph. I shouldn't try to take anything away from Ivor Vini Reilly. He's a deeply talented figure in his own right. I've just never been fussed by anything he's ever done — and that's more on me than him. And let's not take anything away from his nibs either: as Brian Eno said, only 10,000 people bought the first Durutti Column album but everyone who did went on to form bands who sold 1,000 copies of their debut release. Nothing to sneeze at, readers)

(Click here to see my original review)

Simple Minds: "Waterfront"

10 November 1983

"An iron fist in a velvet glove."

— Mark Steels

I have a pair of anecdotes from my adolescence to share this week. First, I used to aspire to being a pop star. I began plotting this career path while living in England. A year's worth of Smash Hits issues and Top of the Pops episodes gave me the idea that fronting my own group was the thing for me. We returned to Canada and these goals were put on hold as my then friends weren't similarly interested. I eventually did join a group and I tried my hand at singing poorly, playing the bass guitar almost adequately and writing some embarrassing lyrics. Songwriting was probably the one area I might have had some talent for but I was never inclined to collaborate with someone of musical competence and tended to give up on ideas too rapidly. During the lovely summer of 1990, I had a couple of tunes floating around in my head (the moody, soulful "Underground" and the techno rave-up "The Flight") both of which were abandoned due to my inability to make anything of them beyond vague a melody or a chorus without much of a song behind it. If only someone had told me...

Starting off in the post-punk scene, Simple Minds were one of those acts who didn't sell many records but everyone who did ended up going into music journalism. Their early string of albums from Real to Real Cacophony to New Gold Dream (81-82-83-84) are essential to everyone who likes to think about pop music, even if enjoying their work is an altogether different matter. Like most of their contemporaries who found themselves similarly trapped in a critically acclaimed bubble, they wisely began giving it all a big rethink with big eighties drums, choruses with which to punch the air and so much bombast. (But while their sound changed, my disregard for them has been a constant. From post-punkers to rock gods and further down to well-intentioned do-gooders with their creative eyes taken off the ball, one element of ver Minds that has been a constant is their dour, irony-free earnestness) Sparkle in the Rain, the accompanying album that would follow the present single a few months later, isn't my sort of thing but at least I can appreciate that they finally seemed content to allow their work to be listened to and not just furrowed over. Which is for the best really since "Waterfront" doesn't do much on the contemplation front.

"Get in, get out of the rain / I'm gonna move on up to the waterfront": yeah, it sounds pretty good, my thirteen-year-old self would've been dead chuffed to have come up with an opener like that. Of course, I would never have been able to expound upon it but that's precisely the point. It's easy to imagine Jim Kerr and his fellow Minds being impressed with what they'd come up with and, after struggling for a good while on some kind of song story, just resigning themselves to repetition — but the kind of repetition that works wonders in the arenas and stadiums they were beginning to fill (but less so in the tiny Glasgow clubs in which they and a whole generation of budding music journalists cut their teeth). Musically, too, it's kept simple with a bass line so comically easy that even this humble blogger could work it out. Mark Steels is blown away by "guitar chords that will take your head off" and "haunting keyboard lines" and he's not wrong but they're hardly challenging parts.

And now for the second anecdote from my youth. In the midst of joining a band and dabbling in songwriting, I took it upon myself to expand my musical interests somewhat. Figuring that rock music was important and was still attaching itself to worthy causes, I decided that the Greenpeace: Rainbow Warriors compilation was just what I needed. Well, at least I felt good about supporting a charity I respect. One of the cassettes was of poor quality with frequent dropouts and the music I was able to listen to I could only get through the once due to boredom (I couldn't imagine wanting to hear John Farnham's "The Voice" again and it was one of the reasons I bought the bloody thing!). Rainbow Warriors was promptly filed away in a junk box in my closet in favour of Pet Shop Boys' Behaviour and The Beautiful South's Choke. I'm only relating such a forgettable part of my music collection because the second tape kicked off with a live version of "Waterfront". A passionate performance, it goes over a bomb even if the Minds sacrificed what little subtly the original had. Better yet, its presence on a Greenpeace album meant that fans could connect it to oceanic pollution or rising sea levels or acid rain: a meaningless song suddenly meant something.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Julian Cope: "Sunshine Playroom"

A jam-packed fortnight of singles with the likes of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Relax", The Stones' "Undercover of the Night", The Smiths' "This Charming Man", The Style Council's "A Solid Bond in Your Heart", The Thompson Twins' "Hold Me Now" and Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart" all up for consideration, so at least Simple Minds didn't grab Single of the Fortnight by default. To opt, then, for the recently solo, increasingly irrelevant Julian Cope might seem to be the ultimate in contrarian buggery but for the fact that "Sunshine Playroom" is the most thrilling of the lot — and by some distance at that. A psychedelic/progressive bit of quintessentially Copeian madness, it abruptly darts between various genres, a aural complexity which contrasts with a lyrical simplicity not unlike that of "Waterfront". Stupidly wonderful but surprisingly sophisticated, no one could have merged Arthur Lee, Keith Emerson and Iggy Pop all into one figure and still managed to be so original. All hail Julian Cope!

Freur: "Matters of the Heart"

9 June 1983

"If you name looks like a worm and is pronounced like someone being a little unwell, you should have no chance, but this is a suede-skinned, juicy peach of a record."

— Mark Steels

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose double-glazing. Choose a hi-fi. Choose vitamins. Choose Breakfast Television. Choose to purchase your council flat. Choose seatbelts. Choose a sit-down Wimpy. Choose a holiday in Tenerife. Choose nuclear disarmament. Choose to believe Hugh Trevor-Roper. Choose lucozade. Choose peace in Northern Ireland. Choose Steve Cram. Choose getting a video for the kids.

A couple weeks' back in the so-called "cop" piece that closes out these entries, I discussed "The Stand" by The Alarm, who I argued were at the forefront of Welsh pop due to there being absolutely no one else. Not true at all. There was Alison Statton, formerly of Young Marble Giants but this time vocalist for post-punk smooth jazzers Weekend, who enjoyed a SOTF a year earlier with "Past Meets Present". One of Britain's biggest acts of the time, Shakin' Stevens, also happened to be Welsh. But it wasn't a region overflowing with musical talent and the very fact that I keep thinking about late-eighties sophisti-pop one-hit wonders Waterfront says it all.

Emerging out of Cardiff in 1983 was synth-pop gloomsters Freur. In fact, they were never called Freur, that was simply how one pronounced their name. They used a symbol and only came up with 'Freur' as a compromise with their record label. A good ten years before Prince cooked up his in-no-way pretentious "name" (with the much lengthier pronunciation of "the Artist Formerly Known as Prince"), this Welsh quartet must have really thought they were on to something with their, in the words of Kimberley Leston, "squiggle resembling a poorly tapeworm". The squiggle got them to number 59 in the charts with their first single "Doot-Doot' (either that or their eccentric name prevented them from getting any higher) and this was its follow-up. Not a great song but a marked improvement over its insubstantial predecessor. Trying for that glacial snyth sound that worked so well on Ultravox's "Vienna" and OMD's "Souvenir", it works out for them musically with a beautifully ghostly sound but it's a lyrical mess. It has lines that seem be meant to be profound but, upon closer study and thought, are mostly just nonsense. "Clowns in the street / The city is asleep / And no one hears a beat"? Hmmm, I'd be interested in investigating quite what they're getting at if I wasn't convinced they were churning out whatever sounds good. If the song's thesis is 'matters of the heart are complicated, you know' then I can't disagree but if leaves me wondering why I should care.

It is perhaps with this musical proficiency/lyrical ineptness in mind that Freur would gradually shift towards techno ambiance. Not strictly instrumental nor with a particular emphasis on samples and/or guest vocalists from the pop/rock "scene" but with certainly less importance placed on vocals. It's not an especially big leap to make going from synth-pop to electronica but it was something very few were able to pull off (indeed, it was a shift not many seemed interested in attempting). Dave Nonis, Mark Almond's mustachioed cohort in Soft Cell, would eventually re-emerge in nineties techno boffins with banjos The Grid but, by and large, your Vince Clarke's and Chris Lowe's who headed up the technical side of their acts avoided going full-on big beat. Freur embraced changes in the musical landscape and ended up as Underworld. 

Choose life. Choose success. Choose film soundtracks. Choose rave. Choose hardwood flooring. Choose Michael Eavis. Choose credibility. Choose the Full Moon Party on Ko Pha-ngna. Choose New Labour. Choose lad mags. Choose ecstasy. Choose authenticity.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Lotus Eaters: "The First Picture of You"

They had a good name for a band, a melody that implants itself in the brain (and not just after a night out, as Steels suggests, even though I totally get singing something tragically romantic when stumbling home alone from the bars...that was basically my twenties), a lead singer with no apparent shyness for mugging for a camera and a song that probably got them a shag or two. So why does "The First Picture of You" feel a bit off? Well, as Steels says, there's a little too much preciousness here but maybe that's to be expected. This was their first single and it's nice but it smacks of dreamy sixteen-year-old idealism. (I keep thinking back to all the rubbish poetry I wrote at that age which does provide perspective: given that I wrote something called "A Fortnight Away She Shall Be", I would've traded my left nut to have composed "The First Picture of You") While it took Freur more than a decade, not to mention a much-needed name change, to build themselves into a success, The Lotus Eaters may have hit it big way too fast. This pleasant but unremarkable song should have been a sign of things to come.