| Artist |
Super Furry Animals |
| Album Title: |
Phantom Phorce |
| Album Cover: |
 |
| Primary Genre |
Pop: General Pop |
| Format |
CD (2) |
| Released |
04/19/2004 |
| Label |
Beggars Banquet Records |
| Catalog No |
BBN045CD |
| Bar Code No |
6 07618 50452 6 |
| Packaging |
Special Art Thang |
| Tracks |
| Phantom Phorce |
| 1.
|
"My Name Is Kurt Stern..." (0:31)
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| 2.
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Hello Sunshine (Weevil Mix) (4:22)
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| 3.
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Liberty Belle (Mario Caldato Jr. Mix) (2:58)
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| 4.
|
"Well, The Band Said That They Wanted To Be Challenged..." (0:08)
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| 5.
|
Golden Retriever (Killa Kela Mix) (2:32)
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| 6.
|
Sex, War And Robots (Wauvenfold Mix) (3:22)
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| 7.
|
"It's A Lovely Little Number Here..." (0:16)
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| 8.
|
The Piccolo Snare (Four Tet Mix) (7:08)
|
| 9.
|
"I Think The Band Will Have A Tough Time..." (0:05)
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| 10.
|
Venus And Serena (Massimo Mix) (2:57)
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| 11.
|
"I Have To Smile Here..." (0:22)
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| 12.
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Father Father (Boom Bip Mix) (4:53)
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| 13.
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"Something Truly Odd..." (0:20)
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| 14.
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Bleed Forever (Bravecaptain Mix) (6:11)
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| 15.
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"Lately A Fire Brigade Of Bands..." (0:44)
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| 16.
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Out Of Control (Zan Lyons Mix) (4:55)
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| 17.
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"On Such A Lovely Song As This One..." (0:24)
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| 18.
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Cityscape Skybaby (Minotaur Shock Mix) (5:54)
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| 19.
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"This Is Daf's Turn To Get A Bit Loopy..." (0:23)
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| 20.
|
Valet Parking (High Llamas Mix) (5:05)
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| 21.
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"And Uh, Coming Up Here You're Gonna Hear..." (0:20)
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| 22.
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The Undefeated (Llwybr Llaethog Mix) (3:43)
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| 23.
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Slow Life (Sir Doufous Styles Mix) (5:06)
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| 24.
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"OK This Is Rock Star Time..." (0:23)
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| 25.
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Valet Parking (Force Unknown Mix) (5:06)
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| 26.
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"This Song Worked Equally Well We Discovered..." (0:13)
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| 27.
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Hello Sunshine (Freiband Mix) (10:30)
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| 28.
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"It's Always A Battle Collaborating With Someone Else..." (0:17)
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|
| Phantom Phorce ([Disc 2]: Slow Life EP) |
| 1.
|
Slow Life (6:59)
|
| 2.
|
Motherfokker (5:41)
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| 3.
|
Lost Control (4:41)
|
|
| Date Acquired |
11/12/2010 |
| Personal Rating |
 |
| Acquired from |
Atomic Records (Amazon) |
| Purchase Price |
7.37 |
Web Links |
Picthfork:
Discogs Entry:
All Music Guide Entry: |
| Reviews |
Pitchfork Review:
Super Furry Animals showed their first grey hairs on last year's Phantom Power. It wasn't quite a Humbert Humbert freakout, but the signs of aging had finally become visible. For me-- and if you check the archives here you'll find the opposing point well-represented-- Phantom Power showed a band giving into time. Continuously pushing boundaries throughout their decade-long run, it seemed the band had finally worn themselves out, and maybe grown a bit too content with their resting place.
A full-fledged return from the polyester soul nadir of Rings Around the World, Power saw the band massaging their trademarked Beach Boys glow into pastoral psychedelics and warm, salty epics. But even so, its moments of unbridled experimentation and musical excursions were far less common than on their masterpiece, 1999's Guerilla. The tacked-on electronic bewitchery at the end of "The Piccolo Snare" exemplified the change: In contrast to its fellow album cuts, it was detectably forced-- just a tossed-off nugget for the tech-heads that SFA has always depended on. So, following Phantom Power, perhaps it's only proper for a band so dependent on rebirth to allow others a chance to succeed where they've failed: in distorting the past.
First released last year on their own Placid Casual label, Phantom Phorce is narrated by Kurt Stern, the original's executive producer. Using glib allusions to fictional turmoil during the recording sessions-- complete with a reference to the whole debacle eventually appearing in Mojo-- Stern attempts to fuse these very separate, individual tracks together into a cohesive whole. Unfortunately, he gets in the way more than he helps, and by album's end, you're likely to consider redubbing it without his contributions.
Though far less dynamic than its predecessors, Phantom Power was still home to a number of remarkable soundbytes, which offered this record's remixers plenty of manipulable material through which to embolden the original works, yet also retain the Furries' signature wit. Killa Kela turns "Golden Retriever" into a spastic funk jam, choked-up with thudding glitch-beats and carnivorous beat-boxing. High Llamas rebuild "Valet Parking" as a Beatlesque symphony, sifting past soft Day-Glo flutes and clouded strings, and channeling four orchestral transitions. Perhaps the best cut-and-paster of the lot, Four Tet, applies his apple-coring talents to "The Piccolo Snare", so that the resulting track stumbles on funky, lock-step rhythms and a repeated chime-loop to combine the moonlight-boxed psychedelics of his own work with the plump grace of the original.
Yet, when the remix artists lose track of the Furries' source material, the results often bear more resemblance to faceless IDM than any of the band's untreated songs. Wauvenfold's take on "Sex, War and Robots" falls in love with its own glitch-cutting, and winds up a jarring, unrecognizable mess that makes the most frenzied Mouse on Mars' tracks seem tame by comparison. Likewise, Mego noise terrorist Massimo's "Venus and Serena" ditches every scrap of the original song except slight vocal fragments, falling flat with gurgling electro beats and a grinding guitar. Any song titled after America's favorite tennis twins can't afford to lose that sense of humor. Here, Massimo freezes it into a Martian soundscape, and thus allows it to escape his grasp in an unremarkable skyjacking.
In the end, how much you make of Phantom Phorce will be related to your love for Super Furry Animals. It's the burden most remix albums have to bear. To hear the group's material tweaked into schizophrenic tantrums and hymns to the echolalia of technology is certainly worth enduring the album's more watered-down inclusions-- even Kurt Stern's boring narration. Plus, there's always the hope that seeing their material in the hands of some of the world's young contortionists might prove to be just the jolt the Furries need to send them back into the throes of prime creativity. But then, does anyone really want to hear them as inspired by Boom Bip?
— Derek Miller, September 19, 2004
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| Cover 1 |
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| Cover 2 |
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| Cover 3 |
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| Cover 4 |
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| Cover 5 |
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| Cover 6 |
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| Cover 7 |
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| Cover 8 |
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| Cover 9 |
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