Friday, September 18, 2009

New Fast Automatic Daffodils - Stockholm

I suppose you could consider the New FADS the dark side of "Madchester". They were around at the same time and certainly had some of the same characteristics - being a good band to take Es and dance to all night, if you were into that sort of thing - but they were a lot more serious than their contemporaries in that scene, the ridiculous name notwithstanding. Actually, I think the ridiculous name might have been their downfall. People weren't really prepared for quite how serious they were, and a lot of those who might have appreciated their more somber approach never really gave them a hearing on the assumption that they were a cartoon band. Or maybe I'm just talking shite.

Anyway, their debut Pigeonhole was a work of absolute genius; the difficult second album, Body Exit Mind, was much more of a slow-grower. I took to it eventually, but it did require a certain amount of effort. This particular track didn't, though, I loved it right away.

And just to finish this off with a great story, I'm pretty sure I remember reading that the second album was delayed as a result of the master tape going missing when the vehicle it was in was hijacked by Basque separatists. But I can't seem to find a reference for that anywhere.

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