I'm Going Away with The Fiery Furnaces

i've done a 360 on this album, i bought it so i have spent some time with it. it's a fantastic album that is quite different than most Fiery Furnaces albums. when you finally get the groove of what they are trying to do then it becomes rewarding. the lyrics stand out as it was a good move letting Eleanor take over the Fiery Furnaces lead.

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/ffcov452.jpg

http://www.fina-music.com/catalog/index.html?id=104510

Take Me Round Again: The Friedbergers cover the Friedbergers.

The Fiery Furnaces have been reworking, rearranging, and rewriting their songs live since they first started touring in 2003. They have taken this practice one step further on their new record, Take Me Round Again. Recorded separately this past July in Michigan and New York, Matt and Eleanor each recorded 6 songs that originally appeared on I'm Going Away. All that remains the same are the words.

Eleanor: "I've gotten into the habit of rewriting songs Matt has written, just as a way of practicing and singing at home. Originally, I had wanted to record a folk-style record called Eleanor Friedberger sings the songs of the Fiery Furnaces. I thought it would make a nice greatest hits record, but reworking I'm Going Away before it even came out seemed a lot more exciting."

Matthew: "After asking people to send us their re-write of I'm Going Away before having heard it http://www.thefieryfurnaces.com/site/deaf-descriptions/ , I thought we owed it to them to make an actual alternate version of the record. And not just leave all the new arranging for live shows."

for the most part their live show versions really suck so i don't know what to make of this exactly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVSstQ8_dHA

Is this album like their other stuff? I've never listened to this band before but thought I'd give them a shot. Maybe I picked the wrong album to start with.

I still haven't heard this! Got put off by all the reviews. I can tell you now you picked the wrong one though. Blueberry Boat is absolutely the one you should start with.

i think all you need is BBoat, the EP, and Bitter Tea,

and Widow City, and I agree with you

first album is crazy overrated

*awaits butthurt*

I got into Fiery Furnaces via Widow City which I think is outstanding - like it more than Blueberry Boat, which I heard later. I'm Going Away is not good. Widow City and Blueberry Boat are both more guitar-oriented, have a harder edge, and are more unpredictable. If this were the 90s I'd say they were "mathy," though not as cold as that term might suggest. The one thing all the albums have in common is that the FFs are always a little grating and awkward... but when they do it right, it's super terrific.

WC and BB are the only out-and-out BRILLIANT albums IMO and yeah Scott's right; you CANNOT overlook Widow City. The songwriting and narrative on both is amazing. Bitter Tea, if edited, would have been at the same level. There's a lot of *great* music there but it's far, far, far too much for one sitting. You really ought to hear it though because the (numerous) highlights are sublime. Just uh...take it slowly - it's much more exhausting than the ostensibly more impenetrable (but actually really fun and coherent) Blueberry Boat.

I never got into BB that much. I love WC though.

i think all their records are way too long. i have Bitter Tea on vinyl--2lp--and it's great that way, in chunks.

I think they're intentionally too long - just another extension of their M.O.

first album is crazy overrated

*awaits butthurt*

― Mark Ronson: "Led Zeppelin were responsible for hip-hop" (acoleuthic), Friday, June 18, 2010 10:56 AM (2 days ago)

u r crazy dumb

*awaits hi-5*

i feel like there's been a real narrowing-down of their ambitions since BB and the grandmother album. is this bad, who agrees, etc

Grandmother album is most ambitious, I guess. I haven't listened to that in a long time, but I liked it pretty well at one time. I should pull it out again. I still have never heard I'm Going Away - was scared off by comments in this thread and underwhelmed by the 30-second snippets I heard.

"drive to dallas" is gorgeous

― what a disaster for 1p3 (k3vin k.), Saturday, June 20, 2009 1:34 PM (7 years ago)