Fonda 500 – ‘Spectrumatronicalogical
Sounds’ (Gentle Electric)
(reviewed Nov '04)
Long, made-up word in the title; long, made-up album. Lots of short songs. Some of them:
‘Arigato’ – live
favourite!
'Un Elephant' - lyrically minimalist indie-glam.
‘Digital Space Pop’ – a bit like a – (bad joke) - Black Robot Motorcycle Club in its computerized vocals and lumpy, fuzzy music (and, when they use pre-programmed beats instead of their actual human drummer or their actual human beatbox they always leave their drum patterns running long after the songs have actually finished, which sounds messy and good).
‘I Am A Drummer’ – it’s all about the music.
‘The Shallow End of the Zoo’ – this acoustic number sounds like it’s being sung out of a children’s book. “The young girl cycles around the photographer, and the young girl smiles.” It’s delicately crooned like a modest Kings of Convenience.
‘Le Jue de Poche Has Great LEDs’ – this sounds a bit like ‘Babies’ by Pulp, but played by babies.
‘This Sound Will
Break Your Heart, Not Your Stereo’ – this made a hip-hop-lovin’
friend of mine want to cry.
I think this album must've been a lot of fun to put together. The recording
- the playing a few notes on a keyboard and a xylophone and sampling
a screaming crowd - and the listening back to it. It's fun to listen
to although it is longer than this review might suggest.
live reviews of Fonda / www.fonda500.com / www.gentle-electric.com
