It's tempting to suggest that there's a basic principle of probability at work: the more that's going on in a song, the more likely there's something that appeals to me through nuance or surprise. To the extent that's true, though, there's also a risk: it may increase the probability that I come across something that I think doesn't work. Particularly since precise, complex arrangements aren't exactly easy musical accomplishments to achieve at all, much less make effective.
Fanfarlo reflects both the pleasures of craft and the difficulty of finding that complex alchemy that makes it work. Their debut album, Reservoir, consistently hit my sweet spot for arranged, nuanced pop. In "Ghosts" alone, there are a half-dozen pieces of craft that stand out as quite effective on their own terms, and even more so taken together.
1. The ability to integrate, and smoothly move between, a wide range of different instrumental tones and timbres, from the thumping bass at the beginning to the airy vocals at :46 to a mix of horns, piano, and strings for the bulk of the song.
2. Their ability, once those various layers are introduced, to combine them in varying ways to d.rive numerous dynamic shifts through out the song- the build on the bridge, after 2:30, is the most prominent example.
3. The drummer's effective use of his whole kit to support the instrumental tones of the song, relying on crisp hi-hat to support the thumping base, than switching to cymbals to support the lighter horn harmonies on the chorus.
4. The winding horn hook on the chorus, which hits a gratifying resolving chord at 2:01, but toys with expectations by spinning off into different variations on the melody line rather than overusing that resolution.
5. The singer's (and trumpeter's, a few times) effective use of controlled vibrato on his high notes, especially valuable for minimizing any vocal strain that could conflict with the bright, smooth instrumental tones.
6. The use of handclaps to reinforce the snare beat (first starting at 1:26)- subtle enough I didn't recognize them on the first listen, but very effective in strengthening the beat while avoiding any sharp rhythmic that could conflict with the smooth tones.
I could do the same for most of the other songs on the album. And 2011's follow-up, Rooms Filled With Light, demonstrated that they certainly hadn't lost that skill set; "Dig" does a similarly fine job of arranging multiple tones, and while also evolving their sound by focusing more on keyboards and synthesizers than the organic tones of Reservoir.
However, many of the other songs on Rooms Filled with Light make other arrangement choices that are significantly less successful. "Tunguska," for example, makes its slow tempo sound plodding through heavy drumming that stays almost unfailingly on plain, quarter note beats, and a zither with a strum so heavy it takes nearly a full beat to register. There's just as many different layers and tones as the songs above, but the plodding takes much of the energy out of the interplay, and the use of a low organ that fills the space between other layers also dampens that spark.
The band also tries to push the boundaries of its sound by including some overt dissonance. There's nothing inherently wrong with dissonance, but the band doesn't integrate it well enough into the full arrangement to make it work. The verses of "Tightrope" start the song off with the same kind of bouncing bass and loping rhythm that worked so well for "Ghosts," but the chorus loses much of its momentum through dissonant and monotone vocals that coexist awkwardly with the clean harmonic work underneath. And the friction sounds even more off-putting during the bridge at 3:10; while "Ghosts" worked within its harmonic structure to develop a rich, impactful build on "Ghosts," the band instead chooses to use aharmonic horns that sound more an intrusion.
The album's first single, "Shiny Things," is perhaps an even clearer example of the same issue. The band uses a dissonant guitar bend as, in effect, its primary chorus hook (starting at 1:34 the first time out), but does nothing in the rest of the arrangement to make the sound feel like a natural fit. They might have been able to achieve that integration by introducing a few dissonant tones somewhere in the verses that would establish the dissonance as part of the harmonic structure of the full song, or by using the first occurrence of the dissonance to influence the arrangement thereafter. Instead, the bend occurs just on the two choruses, and again sounds more like an intrusion.
The typical critical terminology in a case like this is to say that the second album is a "decline" or a "disappointment" after the strengths of the first, but that doesn't feel right. Fanfarlo is still trying to do right by my values; they're very clearly working to find an effective balance between maintaining an effective core sound and trying to find the variations and new ideas that make it fresh. To these ears, they just misfired a few times in trying to do so, and that doesn't make them any less of a respectable and able band. It seems a lot more fair to point out what this misfires, do so in as constructive a fashion as possible, and express a sincere hope that they can find their way back to the right alchemy the next time out.
No comments:
Post a Comment