Super Furry Animals’ Dark Days/Light Years – our LIVE reaction!

Over here at Muso’s Towers/Mansions/Palazio/Galleria, your Reviews/Features Editor is sitting on the edge of her chaise longue awaiting the Super Furries’ gig webcast. Novel, isn’t it? Yes, yes it is.

Gruff Rhys et al are premiering their new album Dark Days/Light Years by playing it live in its entirety to a virginal audience. And we (i.e. ‘I’) are (am) going to be offering you our (my) reactions to each of the tracks as they hit our (my) reflexes!

Said tracklist looks like this:

‘Crazy Naked Girls’
‘Mt’
‘Moped Eyes’
‘Inaugural Trams’
‘Inconvenience’
‘Cardiff In The Sun’
‘The Very Best Of Neil Diamond’
‘Helium Hearts’
‘White Socks/Flip Flops’
‘Where Do You Wanna Go?’
‘Lliwiau Llachar’
‘Pric’

Step aboard! We’ve nine minutes left and counting…

19.53: Where’s it going to be on the site? There’s two options. I’m fretting.

19.56: I’m excited again. Despite the last-minute nature of this liveblog/webcast (er, wibcog – sounds Welsh enough), it’ll hopefully be quite fun. And I am one to trust my reflex reactions… most of the time.

19.58 Oh no Internal Server Error has occured. OH NO.

20.00 I’ve got www.superfurry.com open on a laptop and a PC and in two brower windows on each. Still not happening. Shall I tell you a joke?

20.04 Am using Twitter to establish if what I’m viewing is in fact aforementioned webcast. It’s in split-screen. It may well be. I think it is.

20.06 Some well distorted guitars going on, ‘cept screen keeps freezing. Bums. So, you heard the one about Jade Goody?

20.08 Yes, you have. Oh that’s lucky. Anyway… there’s no, like, compereing. Compering? None of that at all. I haven’t really a clue what’s going on.

20.10 Some very SFA sounding e.brite. With something that sounds a little like a cowbell being shoved through terrible audio quality into my ears. Easing itself into something strangely Led Zep-sounding.

20.11 Couldn’t tell you what track this is but it’s turning out to be pretty multi-faceted. Going through sections of heavy distortion followed by schizosonic (new word?) guitar streams. Of course with some delightfully distant harmonies.

20.15 “switch your love…” – we think that’s what the refrain is. It’s a bit jazzy in’t it.

STILL 20.15 Is this in their living room, do you think?

20.17 Pretty sure we just heard a mobile phone ring. Tut tut. Um maybe we’re not watching the right thing. Oh my god I’ve been watching the trailer. Or something that wasn’t the webcast. FUCK.

20.19 Totally on the right page now. D’oh. Crystalline synth work, loads of facial hair. And even a little graphic telling us that we’re now listening to ‘Moped Eyes’. Oh well, missed the first two.

20.21 Well these harmonies are springy. Quite maudlin sounding though, by all accounts. They’re all looking ace though. Bit of tweed, some hairwear…

20.23 Totally just got interrupted by advert for portable doors. Maybe I made that up. I mean, portable doors? Like a portal to something? Narnia? SFA? Who? Anyway… it’s ‘Inaugural Trams’ now, the one with the Franz Ferdinand chap. Sounds a bit Neon Neon.

20.30 ‘Inconvenience’ was the sound of real music pissing on lad rock.

20.36 I’ve not given you much value for viewings. But I am tweeting from two accounts as I type. Follow @natalie_shaw and @musosguide for more fun. I think I’ve got epilepsy. ‘Cardiff In The Sun’ is playing now. Sounds very… digital. Thus far, that is.

20.38 Maybe if Arthur Lee was born in the ’80s he’d have sounded like this.

20.39 Loads of “sha la la”-ing. Down to elementals really, how do they make it sound so involved though? This is atmospheric. I’ve never been to Cardiff, have you?

20.41 Amazing sounds. Falsetto kicking in. Hysterical, euphoric, trippy – and that’s just me.

20.43 ‘Mountain’ is about to start. It just has. HAWAY… “here come the cavalry”. Insubstantial sounding, is this. Also – this is totally not live, is it? There’s a perfect five seconds between each of the offerings. Liars and cheats. I’ve been lied to. Who do I tell off?

20.46 Another lyric: “it was a big fucking mountain”. Just a snapshot. Too much of the old strings. But Cian on vocals! How unusual.

20.48 ‘Helium Hearts’ now. Shuffly. Straight-up. So much funk I thought I just spotted Prince. Turned out it was just my own reflection. Talking of which…

20.50 Some admirable work on the tambourine there. Their ear for a melody is unmistakeable. And can you believe it’s 13 years since Fuzzy Logic was released?

20.52 ‘White Socks/Flip Flops’ – the hook is from something else. What is it? This sounds like a fugue in parts, it’s lovely.

20.54 You know when lazies describe something as ‘Vintage Blahblah’? Well this is it. This song is flagship SFA. It’s really sunny. Delightful. Highlight thus far.

20.56 Oh it’s ‘Where Do You Wanna Go?’ and ‘Lliwiau Llachar’, apparently. Like a duo or something. Groove has continued from the last few in segue-like fashion and this sounds astoundingly psychedelic.

20.59 Unexpected quasi-a capella section. And now in Welsh. Hot hot hot.

21.01 Little step back: lacking in wow factor. Super Furries are instant for those that don’t delve, but the glory does come from repeated listens… so I’m after too much. And besides, am in head-flurry.

21.02 No no, correction. This one is wow. It just went Beatles and now it’s gone electro-pop. And now it’s ended. Breath=gone.

21.03 ‘Pric’. Oh no, the last one! Does this mean that the album’s over an hour long? Need more listens, for sure. Sounds like a bird got stuck in the Roland.

21.04 Dunno, is this just SFA-by-numbers? Or do all of their records sounds like this the first time if listened to by force-feed?

21.05 Too much jam.

21.06 Said jam has now whipped itself up into 2009’s Pink Floyd. I’m not happy.

21.07 Are there or are there not only so many things you can say to this much extension? Don’t answer.

END.

A full review will follow but for now, we’re feeling a bit dizzy and confused. Underimpressed, too. We liked
‘White Socks/Flip Flops’, ‘Cardiff In The Sun’ and ‘Lliwiau Llachar’ the most, though ‘Pric’ will be removed from our memories. At least for now.