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Jet pets >>
The fuzzy logic of Welsh exports Super Furry Animals
by LORRAINE
CARPENTER
Mirror: So you had 15 directors for the DVD’s 18 films, from your longtime cover artist Pete Fowler to your hairdresser—
M: Correct
me if I’m wrong, but Fowler’s organic/mechanical, cute/sinister
creatures seem to mirror your music. Is this what keeps him on the payroll? CC: Well,
if it’s not broken, don’t fix it, know what I mean? It would
be difficult to follow up on, very easy to fuck up. We don’t want
it to turn into Iron Maiden’s Eddy, but I think his work is always
changing, and there’s so many outside influences on the last album.
But we wanna keep using him if we can. M: What’s
up with Paul McCartney’s contribution to “Receptacle for the
Respectable”? CC: Apparently,
he was in the studio when the Beach Boys recorded “Vegetables”
and they had a pile of vegetables in the room that he started chewing
in time to the music. So we managed to get him to do it again, for us. M: Mmmm.
So your Welsh language album Mwng [pronounced “mung,” means
“mane”] broke the U.K. Top 20. That’s amazing. Any plans
for a follow-up or a bilingual album? CC: Well,
because we speak in Welsh primarily, amongst ourselves anyway, it’s
natural for Gruff [Rhys, singer] to write in Welsh and English so it’s
just a matter of when he’s written enough Welsh songs. We try to
make an album as coherent as possible, so it’s better, in my mind,
to have the Welsh songs all in one batch. M: And I
assume Welsh doesn’t freak out the label at this stage? CC: At the beginning, they were wary. “They’re a good band but can they sing in English?” Blah blah blah, because record companies want to sell records. It’s not a problem now, for us anyway. I think Mwng proved a point in that respect—aye. : With Cex
at Cabaret on Sunday, April 21, 9pm, $15
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Nu-psychedelia,
Britpop, Welsh-core, call it what you will, but this scruffy quartet
has felt their way around Technicolor, techno-savvy guitar music for
six years now, consistently pushing their own limits and other people’s
buttons. Their latest release, Rings Around the World, is the first-ever
simultaneous CD/DVD release, a Furry flurry of upbeat Beach Boys harmonics
and mushy, ELO-informed ballads accompanied by remixes, films and all
the high-tech fixings. The same band that brought a “peace tank”
and several giant, inflated monsters to their festival gigs continues
to thrill fans with their colourful eye candy, both in the comfort of
their homes and, thanks to a hired VJ, in the ramshackle rock environment
that is a Super Furry Animals show. The Mirror spoke to keyboardist/knob
twiddler Cian Ciaran about SFA’s use of Welsh, art and a veggie-munching
Beatle.