The backstory goes like this: In lieu of releasing any correct singles from Blueberry Boat, the Fiery Furnaces determined to launch “Single Once more,” a extra digestible non-album single (with B-side “Sing For Me”), in July 2004. It was solely obtainable within the UK (house of their label, Tough Commerce), as had been earlier singles, so the duo determined to compile the various materials onto EP, which arrived 20 years in the past this Saturday, amid a interval of feverish creativity for the Friedbergers. Given the acclaim garnered by Blueberry Boat, which lit up the blogosphere and acquired an eye-popping 9.6 rating from Pitchfork (totally deserved, I’ll be aware), anticipation was excessive.
Whereas Blueberry Boat is the form of mind-altering masterpiece I should be within the temper to give up myself to, EP is a disc I can throw on and revel in just about any day of the week. Nonetheless, if that is the Fiery Furnaces in regular mode, it’s fairly wacky by anybody else’s requirements. The compilation kicks off with squelchy synths as Eleanor takes the lead on a zonked-out reimagining of the people conventional “Single Once more,” ornamented with clipped guitar loops and laser noises. (A far cry from Doc Watson’s take on the identical tune.)
From there, we get a few of the duo’s most indelible melodies within the type of “Right here Comes The Summer season” and “Evergreen” earlier than “Tropical Ice-Land” goes full Elephant 6 psych freakout. “Smelling Cigarettes” showcases the band’s knack for condensing whimsical quick tales into eccentric piano-pop jaunts, with Eleanor taking part in the a part of an unemployed alcoholic beefing with a newly divorced neighbor. It’s bought a delightfully threatening outro, too: “I’m gonna pack up your eyes with sand!”
“Cousin Chris” is exhilaratingly enjoyable, with a woozy melodica(?) solo and verses overflowing with alliterative tongue-twisters (“Proper increase rank rise rust; and the way she ever fussed!”), whereas “Candy Spots” is the closest these weirdo siblings ever bought to power-pop. Such tracks spotlight simply how a lot joyous weirdness the Friedbergers may cram into the confines of a four-minute indie-pop tune. It’s a flex when your B-side materials is that this good.
Of those 10 songs, I imagine solely “Sullivan’s Social Slub” was completely new, which is smart. It looks like an outlier right here, with its queasy beat loops, pitch-shifted vocals, and jarring transitions. After six-plus minutes, it closes out the EP with a snarling guitar solo and a few jittery synth breakdowns. The monitor seems like one thing that would’ve appeared on Blueberry Boat, although, as Matthew Friedberger clarified in a spring 2005 interview with a school paper, none of those songs had been recorded throughout that album’s classes. “We like all these recordings which are on EP, and none of them have come out within the US, although they got here out in Britain as B-sides,” he defined. “So we put them out and [Rough Trade] mentioned they’d do it for affordable.”
On the time of the interview, Fiery Furnaces deliberate to launch two extra albums in 2005: one already accomplished (Rehearsing my Choir, a bizarro collaboration with their grandma) and one other in progress (the devilishly enjoyable Bitter Tea). EP’s title was a strategy to sign that it was only a stopgap launch. “[W]e didn’t need individuals to suppose that that is our new report,” Matthew mentioned.