Dorks And Losers

I hate to think that music by itself has become so worth­less that giv­ing it away for free is the only way to get it into the hands of fans. Sure, the first few exper­i­ments worked well, but Radio­head and Nine Inch Nails are hardly one-hit won­ders or bottom-tiered acts.

I’ve seen many no-name (at least to my knowl­edge) bands try sim­i­lar endeav­ors (mainly as free down­loads), and of course I down­loaded with­out hes­i­ta­tion. But as soon as the tracks were uploaded to my iTunes library I had already for­got­ten about them.

Maybe free music is no longer a nov­elty wor­thy of press, which is pos­si­bly a rea­son why London-based quin­tet Fan­farlo spiced up their offer for their self-titled debut album by includ­ing four exclu­sive bonus tracks all for the low, low price of one dol­lar. The catch? The deal was for a lim­ited time (I’m sud­denly crav­ing a trip to Burger King) and today is way past the July 4, 2009 deadline.

For those that splurged on the internet-only deal (you can only get the self-released LP at the Fanfarlo’s home­page) were treated with a sur­pris­ingly enjoy­able album full of indie good­ness that only an abun­dance (although not over­abun­dance) of instru­ments (key­board, vio­lin, cello, man­dolin, trum­pet, and more) could produce.

Led by front­man Simon Balt­hazar, Fan­farlo (also Cathy Lucas, Justin Finch, Amos Memon, and Leon Beck­en­ham) per­form stripped down cham­ber pop that flows as qui­etly and nat­u­rally as a stream. No, the bal­lads aren’t tear­jerk­ers and the mel­low pieces aren’t snooze fests, but there are songs of lost love (“If It Is Grow­ing”), social dishar­mony (“Luna”), and pos­si­bly a retelling of an his­tor­i­cal event (“Ghosts”).

You can blame the range of assorted themes on Balthazar’s writ­ing skills, where he explains “I always try to write acces­si­ble lyrics that peo­ple will get and under­stand, but it always ends up impen­e­tra­ble, then I attempt to write deep, seri­ous and dif­fi­cult music, and some­how it keeps com­ing out as pop” (press release).

That pro­fessed lack of writ­ing tal­ent isn’t so much a short­com­ing and is rather refresh­ing. As wrong as I could be in inter­pret­ing the music, I can’t help but be reminded of God in the uplift­ing opener “I’m A Pilot” or think about how much free­dom that democ­racy affords us in “Comets.” For­tu­nately I don’t mind repeat­ing Fanfarlo’s debut LP to under­stand other interpretations.

[pho­tos via Sneak Attack Media]
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Track list:

1. I’m A Pilot
2. Ghosts
3. Luna
4. Comets
5. Fire Escape
6. The Walls Are Com­ing Down
7. Drown­ing Men
8. If It Is Grow­ing
9. Harold T. Wilkins, Or How To Wait For A Very Long Time
10. Fin­ish Line
11. Good Morn­ing Midnight

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