Fanfarlo’s Celebration of Eerie and Enchanting Difference

Fanfarlo College Radio Sessions EP by Atlantic Records UK

Fanfarlo’s a band that’s been on my radar since June of last year when they announced the digital download sale of their record for only $1. I’ve watched them assemble physical copies of Reservoir in their living room back in May. I kept up as they toured and Cathy fell to Swine flu! In September they signed to a major label and a few months later they came to Chicago (their first stop on their first American tour) and I missed them! It was sold out!

This time around I was determined to not miss them. “I’m a Pilot” made my list of top 50 songs from 2009. It was #7 in the Festive Fifty of the Contrast Podcast too. The band has made a harrowing winter tour of the US, made a beautiful new video for “Harold T. Wilkins.” They’re in the major press, listed among the “top 100 bands you need to know” and “emerging artists” and “Bowie-beloved.” Yes, that Bowie.

So I kept my fingers crossed and was gifted with a pass to see the show and some moments to chat with Cathy Lucas, the lovely, female, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist in this male-dominated quintet. Cathy and I talked about the importance of staying grounded amidst all this success. I had come to this meeting with the very distinct feeling that Fanfarlo wasn’t simply Simon and his band. It felt much more like a solid group of five people who worked together at music. I could sense that from how they looked onstage, how the music itself came together, collective instrumentation and backing vocals in tandem with Simon’s most obvious lead singer persona. Cathy confirmed my hunch, although she was the last member to join the band, I doubt she feels it much. “He writes the songs, definitely, but in terms of everything else, it’s pretty collaborative. We arrange together, we make decisions about music videos, art work, all of those things together.”

Tart: So you feel that you have a lot of input in terms of the direction of the band and so forth?

Cathy: “Yes definitely, and every member has different strengths. Some people are very active in the studio, some are more active in terms of online blogging, etc.”

And here, I told her how they make fun of her on the online tour diary. I’ve been a fan of this blog for a long while, I hope she’s looked it up by now, Cathy look at that online tour diary! You’ve got some revenge to take! But seriously, staying in touch with one another and recognizing each others’ strengths has surely allowed Fanfarlo to retain its DIY flavor despite moving to a major label. In the indie world, that is nothing short of a herculean task. As I looked over the crowd last night I noticed so many familiar faces, faces of people who I’ve seen at every single indie show I’ve attended in the past year. Making it to the “big time” hasn’t cost Fanfarlo any of their fans, if anything, it’s had an additive factor.

But that decision to move to a major label, was it difficult?

C: “We definitely discussed it at length, we all have different levels of…. comfort with that part of music and different ties to the indie community as well. Some of us are very much still involved with that and want to continue to be. Just recently we’ve been thinking about what London promoters we can use and we’ve actually gone back to our old friends who promote smaller shows.”

I tell her of my recent ranting about ticking monopolization and how it affects not only us, as fans, but the industry and its support of new music. Cathy and I have very much found common ground on the issue.

C: “It’s so impersonal, with the bigger promoters. [insert hated company name here] is a huge, huge corporation. They standardize music; they drive up prices. It’s just not good. We don’t have to work with them if we can avoid it.”

T: It’s great to be able to have a choice, at least!

C: “well yeah, it’s good to give promoters the opportunity as well, I’m not saying this is going to be this amazing thing for them to do, they can do it if they want, and some small promoters never get an opportunity to actually go to a bigger venue.”

(Cathy continues…) “It’s hard, once you go to that world, in terms of the label’s input it becomes very much about who’s at the top, the big thing, the big promotion companies, big directors an so on. We felt it really important to push from the other side, have input from the smaller, maybe more interesting, more experimental people. and that’s where we come from, we all grew up with that stuff and learned to be in bands with those people, and they helped us putting out 7” on their labels and we definitely want to stay connected in that way.”

And Fanfarlo is very committed to staying aware of what’s going on and of staying connected to its roots. In six years this group has transformed from a single man sending his files to a friend, into a solid body of five working musicians who travel together, seemingly endlessly. It’s the typical story of small band made big and famous in many ways. Yet Fanfarlo has, at this point, still managed to retain that “island of lost toys” feeling, a sort of collection of odd people who’ve found a home with one another.” All five, as I look at them onstage, have a distinct identity or costume, only Simon and Cathy seem to fit together. And as only those two come out on the first song, singing to each other as much as to us, I can’t help but think that they do that because they are the anchor in this group. This dyad dress the most alike, haircuts match in a sense, vocals compliment one another, and Cathy sings as loudly and as often as Simon. She’s his wingman, in 1940s jargon. Their chemistry is very strong. In our interview, Cathy is relaxed and composed even though she’s waiting for her sister and brother and family to arrive, (they live here in Chicago.) On stage Cathy is vibrantly alive, totally focused on Simon, handing him his clarinet when needed and ready for the handoff when he’s finished, completely poised and singing perfectly into the mic, loudly with him throughout the show. Picking up her violin, she’s even more alive than ever, and totally on her own. She’s a joy to watch and hear.

The rest of the band each have their own place in this thing. I wish I’d have had the time to spend with them. They’re all interesting characters, and they do project a real character, each of them. There’s no pretense of uniformity in Farfarlo. Justin’s style shines through with not only his fashion sense but in his bass playing and occasional flash of smile at the audience (even to us up in the top layer.) He loses his mic towards the end, having pushed it away and then realizing he needed it for one more song. Oh well, after attempting to replace it so that it could be sung into, he gives up with a wide smile. We don’t mind that he doesn’t sing harmony in that song anyway. Amos is an endearing drummer and vocalist, and Leon’s trumpeting brings to mind Beruit and quickly buries that band’s memory as Fanfarlo’s image takes precedence – the crowd loved him! With each of these characters, Fanfarlo impresses, there’s no homogenizing factor here. Simon’s personality definitely holds sway as the lead, but even after so much time on the road together, this band has not become a brand, “Fanfarlo.” If anything, it benefits from the difference of its members.

I’m struck by how achingly beautiful the album is. Like much of 2009′s music, it calls out from a sweetly sad place.
T: Something that comes out of the music, and and I know this comes out of not just the writing but also out of the performance, is that magical trick of sounding joyful and infinitely sad at the same time:

C: “Especially on this last record, we really tried to make it sound beautiful…. there’s many sides to [beauty], it encompasses the all of these aspects of humanity, both the melancholic side and things that are uplifting, and joyful. And also it relates to the lyrical content I think, because Simon tends to choose darker subject matters, whereas a lot of pop music tends to focus on everyday human things, he’s very interested on what’s on the periphery of humanity, on things that are slightly inhuman and strange about people. Performers especially are interested in that way of operating, in this liminal space that kind of brings out something that’s different, that accentuates the differences between people. I think that probably relates to our artwork as well. The two girls on the cover, they kind of embody that difference that is eerie and at the same time enchanting.”

And dear readers, that is exactly what I take from Reservoir. It enchants. It is the celebration of those differences in people that I hear in songs like “Luna,” where Simon’s fluid, swerving voice contrasts so dramatically with the percussion and handclaps and yet holds fast until the whole song slows down to accommodate it. That is the key to this band’s success.

See the review of the Chicago show at Gapers Block.