Super Furry Animals sound exactly like a band should. Their appeal is simple – they cover all bases from the cathartic three-minute guitar thrash, to the head-spinning techno anthem and all points in between. They make you jump about and they make you think.
In the world of Super Furry Animals, ‘no’ translates as ‘do’. It’s this attitude, as permeated through their approach to the peripheral aspects of their music as well as the music itself, that has made them one of the few truly original and inspirational bands of recent times. Not to mention one of the best dressed.
An example: the Super Furry Animals album Rings Around The World was the first ever album to be released simultaneously on DVD. Furthermore, each track on the DVD features its own specially commissioned accompanying film – 12 different films for 12 different songs. Even furthermore, the album has been mixed in 5.1 Surround Sound. So not only does it sound amazing, it looks amazing. And no doubt when we hold it in our hands, it feels amazing too.
Super Furry Animals started life as a techno group around 1993. Various members had already played in ‘proper’ bands since their early teens. It was an unusual apprenticeship, playing the small but vibrant Welsh gig circuit, the odd gig in England, appearing at cultural festivals across Celtic Europe and becoming fixtures of the alternative, anarcho-squat scene in Germany.
By the time they were old enough to vote, they were getting used to seeing themselves on telly, making their own videos, releasing their own records. The Super Furry Animals debut album, Fuzzy Logic, was released in May 1996 and it was the first time the band had recorded vocals entirely in English. From then until 1999 Super Furries released an album a year with Fuzzy Logic and third album, Guerrilla, containing several rafts-worth of sublime songs and their second studio album, Radiator, completely re-writing the rulebook proving once and for all that Super Furry Animals are truly groundbreaking.
Back in 2004, after finishing their UK tour in April Super Furry Animals released their latest album Phantom Phorce , which has already been well received. A collection of reworkings of tracks from last year’s much acclaimed Phantom Power, Phantom Phorce features remixes by Four Tet, Boom Bip and Minotaur Shock amongst others.
As is usual in the weird and wonderful world of the Super Furry Animals, they are doing things a little different with initial copies of the album also including the Slow Life EP, comprising of a new edit of Slow Life and new tracks Lost Control and Motherfokker (featuring Goldie Lookin’ Chain) which once again prove that the Super Furries are a force to be reckoned with!
