(from bumblebeetree, Dec '02) / home / reviews index
Fonda 500 - 'Number One Hi-fi
Hair' (Truck/ The Village)
"and if there's a god above, then let there be sprinklers"
Some bands can't capture their live sound on record, lacking spontaneity
and freshness in their product (see many post-rockers and most local
bands). Others can't recreate at a gig the intimacy that home listening
brings, and shamble estranged through their concert sets (early Belle
& Sebastian). Fonda 500 can't quite do either (or more likely just
don't want to), and the fact that most of the songs on this third album
are never performed, while live favourites remain unavailable (Arigato,
Jiro), is either testament to that or just to their ever-present eccentricity.
They're almost so perverse that they should be locked up. Live, Fonda 500 plain bastard rock, but here they'd scare the hardcore with their twee recorder parade. 'The Magic Sunshine Butterfly' squelches around with a spritely xylophone, 'R-U-A-Robot?' demands like the demented Beta Band, while buzzing experiments are dashed off quickly. The album's worth sticking with, however. Fonda still believe that it's fun to make computers talk like Stephen Hawking… and secretly they're right (although we all making them swear is just immature). One such robot voice even guides them through the opening title track, commanding "UP...DOWN" as warm keyboards hum accordingly. Like the Flaming Lips' puppet-assisted swoons, this shouldn't sound as deep as it does, but seven-minute centrepiece 'The Mexican Swimathon' tugs like Mogwai's Helicons without apparently meaning anything. The song's built around samples of waves and the basic thud of a record needle hitting the last groove of old vinyl, a sample that should be annoying or pretentious - but is honestly beautiful. And what are the chances of hearing it live?
In contrast, should-be-classic 'Computer Freaks...' is Hull's analogue answer to the Beastie Boys, and uniting the Beasties and Beach Boys is a good thing if downright weird. While 'Hi-fi Hair' is more cohesive than the previous two albums, it still flits from beatbox buffoonery to falsetto epics like it's got ADD. It could have been more beefed-up, but it couldn't be more Fonda. Fonda 500 are like* art students who've completed a masterpiece, gone out to celebrate and, on their return, fallen over said work and smashed off its head. This means they're graded only by their prep sketchbook doodlings. Bulging beautiful books of random crap, these still deserve an A.
*but are not
