For Centuries
I was very excited when I read about this release, as I am, above all, a hopeless nostalgic. As well as the now-universal digital release, Fops have opted to release a limited CASSETTE version of this EP. When I read about this, I didn’t care what was on it - I had to have it. Fortunately when I came to play the digital version (I wouldn’t want to risk the cassette by actually playing it, after all), I wasn’t disappointed.
Fops is a collaboration between Chadwick Donald Bidwell (lyrics) and Dee Kesler (vocals). They describe this EP as “mostly bedroom pop,” which I, personally, found was rather downplaying some of the material. 'Cheater Carolina', for instance, sounds like a forgotten Tubeway Army track, while 'I Shot a Parakeet' has a curiously industrial feel to it. There is a depth to the production which seems to me much more than the doodlings of someone on a laptop.
'Fops on Tour' is a particularly interesting track, with its refrain bearing more than a passing resemblance to Duran Duran’s 'Girls on Film'. The rest of the track, however, is a riot of synths and percussion, with layer upon layer of texture elevating the simple initial loop to a dizzying climax.
The centrepiece of the EP is, for me, the twenty-plus minute ''Ronald Wilson Reagan, a slow-building cybersuite, made up of electronic textures and what sound like eerie, atmospheric feedback loops. It has to be said, though, not much happens – it’s basically twenty minutes of ambient posturing which may not be to everyone’s taste.
I really enjoyed this EP, and on the back of listening to it, I have bought the band’s first album 'Yeth Yeth Yeth' (the sessions for which yielded many of the songs on this EP). The gimmick of the cassette just added to it for me – it’s refreshing to see a band doing something a little unusual, in a marketing sense as well as musically.
- Andy Cassidy, pennyblackmusic.co.uk
Fops 'for centuries' (monotreme). Now I must admit to being disappointed with myself where Fops are concerned, we had their debut full length 'yeth yeth yeth' on constant rotation last year shortly after relocating back to Liverpool and for reasons best known only to us - laziness being perhaps top of the list - we somehow failed to translate into words why it was proving to be such a special treat. Released on Monotreme (long time no hear in these pages) Fops features the collaborative head to head of thee more shallows (again another ensemble too long amiss in these pages) Dee Kesler and Ral Partha Vogelbacher's Chadwick Donald Bidwell who following said aforementioned release are set to release an uber limited cassette only mini album of cuts culled from the same sessions that unhappily missed the final cut. First hearing had us recalling Ultravox - especially via 'cheater Caroline' which with its suave sophisticated chill and sense of the monumental had us in mind of a Ure headed 'Vienna' era 'Vox colluding with a post Clarke Depeche Mode and mainlining on the alienated detachment of Bowie's Berlin trilogy. Of course it was only then that we bothered to read the press release - I see - 'Conny Plank producing a 'darklands' era JMC or a closeted Ultravox' it was happy to regale - good call. Far from being considered cutting floor cast offs or the poorer sibling to 'yeth yeth yeth' - 'for centuries' is rather more chipped with moments of rolled pop gold which for the best part seems heavily imbibed with an air of late 70's post punk cold wave minimalism with 'fops on tour' certainly sounding as though it was peeled straight from a 'movements' era New Order studio session . Somewhere else the dreamy ' countless songs' which at various moments had us scampering for our Oddfellows Casino records of yore it tripped with an insanely bobbing and yearning spectral shanty like ebb and flow that twists, turns and locks insidiously into a groove that sees it sit somewhere between a seriously minimal Brakes in a seafaring fishing trip sharing sandwiches with Arms with bait provided by Swimmer One and J Xaverre. Next up the ominously sparse 'I shot a parakeet' with its Mexicana flamenco florets has an air of the Ivor Cutlers about its wares that is had he spent the night in states of drunken wallowing miserablism thawing out to the cold negativity of PIL's 'metal box' with a healthy dose of late 70's Eno and the early concrete electroniques of Cabaret Voltaire for un-goodly measure - admirers of Arab Strap, revolutionary corps of teenage jesus and Rooney will find much to love. That said a re-tooled take of the same cut simply entitled 'I shot a parakeet too' is equipped with the advent of a gloriously uplifting dream pop swathing. 'dolive dreams' falls headlong into aural arc lights of Seeland and Dark Captain though its sense of hymnal majesty and brooding poise inclines towards a 'witches' era beatglider forged in a industrial glazed sand stormed psychotropia. With its opining lunar lush locked swirling groove seducing all its perhaps left to the parting 20 minute opus that is 'Ronald Wilson Reagan' to provide the set with its best moment as it silently navigates a lonesome path slyly dispersing and fracturing amid a pulsating and shimmering tide of dronal overtures like some dying star burning brightly and parading for one last salutary procession before solemnly succumbing to a quiet rest.
