Oh! The Fall John Peel Sessions box set! OH! you guys.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/graphics/features/0536/050907_music_fall.jpg

Is it just me, or does the cover picture (not the commentary text, the cover pic itself) of "50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong" in the back of the booklet (page 41 or 42, I think) say something subtly different?

It is one of the greatest products ever, yes.

And I should be shot for not having bought this already.

it is here

i am scared

Just dive in would be my advice.

disc 1 is pretty close to being my favorite Fall "album." so kick-ass

No need to fear - unless it's overwhelming pleasure that you're afraid of! Also, keep in mind you may not like it all at first, but with repeated listens your favorites will shift. I especially love the few times they revisited older tracks and gave them something of a new spin (cf "The Man Whose Head Expanded").

i'm not THAT scared! i will start at the beginning.

open the box, open the box, open the God damn box

Go on. Liveblog every song :)

Futures And Pasts - such a clean, optimistic guitar tone! For about three seconds it's gonna be a blissful pop song, maybe female-sung, youthful and dynamic. Then a weirdly dinky keyboard and a chorus of yammering Smiths. It's still a blissful pop-song, mind. Just one whose youth and whose dynamic are slightly more oblique than you'd expect.

Mother-Sister - I love this! Great little tune. The chorus is a Fall special, the first moment thus far that MES really leaps out and begins to pulverise one's cerebral caus...cortex. Nicely sloppy tempo-change too. Darkness begins to permeate. Atonal shriek. This is fucking classic material. Atonal howl.

Rebellious Jukebox - Nice wonky bassline, absolutely no idea what the percussion's doing here but it sounds like it's being played under quicksand by morons. I mean that in the best possible sense. Descending vocal hook is the killer. Guitarist on verge of collapse, as he should be.

Industrial Estate - An exhortation, then a rave-up. These are the most 'punk' I've ever heard MES' vocals. Possibly deliberate. It doesn't suit him quite as much as his usual hectoring denouncement. Leaves promptly.

More when I'm not dying of tired.

New Puritan still sounds like the most extraordinary thing I have ever heard

The improvement in sound/performance between the late 80's/early 90's tracks and their album counterparts is huge. perfect example Chicago Now which sounds flat and a bit dull on the album but wonderful on the Peel Sessions,

the 'perverted by language' era session is maybe my favorite fall recording of all time

The improvement in sound/performance between the late 80's/early 90's tracks and their album counterparts is huge.

Agreed! In fact, it caused me to reevaluate the quality of their 90s work entirely, which I had previously dismissed. MES really knew which tracks were the best to highlight for Peelie.

Put Away - Crisper already than the first session. He sounds youthful and there is a dinky keyboard. Little in the way of darkness manifesting itself. A major-key hum seems to hang in the air. I find myself more drawn to the keyboard. This isn't prime Fall. Towards the end the guitar picks up and does a few noteworthy things. I don't think MES had full control at this point. I've finished my review and there's still a minute left. I predict...dinkiness.

Mess Of My - Like this already. Rowdy mash of bad chords. What we want. MES sounding a little more threatening. Entire song loping sideways. Slips into weird semi-gothic groove. Everything is better planned this time out. "I probably work for a record company!" He's really going here. Modestly righteous.

No Xmas For John Quays - A faster extension, this is some vicious party of a track. "You could say he was into nicotine and acid." Again the keys are doing what they should. MES screeches. "Why is it so?" Story unfolds. Christmas is a theme. This is some brutal holiday. Bass change-up in last 15 seconds is awesome!

Like To Blow - Evidently The Fall are still punk rock. Maybe they always have been. Keyboards still dinky. Better than Put Away because the guitars are doing dark, grimy things, and because the keyboard pulse is menacing rather than benign. And because it's a tiny bit after the beat, like a radar pulse.

I had a dream once that "Put Away" was a single for Jimmy Saville in the sixties, on the old Columbia label.

One listen to the lyrics would prove that this would have been awes.

Container Drivers - Band is clearly more confident. Step forward in drumming is especially noticeable. MES is more in control, both of the band and his delivery. He sounds like a merry torturer here. This is superb, the first time so far in the sessions that I've felt I'm falling with the band, into the vacuum-tunnel of MES' vision.

Jawbone & The Air-Rifle - Awesome, much better than the album-version. Vocals are clearer, and the lyrics, of course, stand out. Not that I can still make out more than about 50% of them. "ADVERTISEMENTS TURN INTO CARNIVORES!" OK, this final verse is like some high-point of lyric-writing. Great performance, need I add.

New Puritan - OK, now MES is the Priest. NOW he speaks and we quail. And oh that bassline. I'm turning this louder. "THIS I HAVE SEEN." Holy fuck this is possibly the most violently terrifying vocal performance I've heard from a British person. How old was he when he spoke these words? About my age, actually. Shout-outs to the guitars seem irrelevant but they're worthwhile. A keyboard pulse, ugly, develops into a spew. Guitars into a thicket. To have been in this band.

New Face In Hell - How do you follow up New Puritan? With an almost ornate, albeit still slightly dinky keyboard line! Major chords, happiness, a song that slyly undercuts (and yet justifies) its title. The band can still smile. And after you've been sucked into space and back, so can you. Smile, dammit. SMILE! Fine, keep quivering on the floor.

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Middle Mass - Starts out even more promisingly than the last session! This is...unspeakably amazing. It's like the entrance music for Satan. It's like the song that invents Shellac, but with scarier and less precise production. It's frighteningly linear, and it is something that can barely be fought. It only chooses to have respite because MES knows the cruelty of respite. Go on, believe that those jaunty major chords towards the end are there to please. I dare you.

Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul - Keyboards are an alarm. Vocals are punk but by now MES has worked out his relationship to punk and so he doesn't sound like he's trying too hard, or doing anything other than what is natural. Is that a demented sax solo? NOTHING SURPRISES ME

Hip Priest - OK, now this I am stoked for, because the album version is one of the great documents of recorded sound. Drums are as mystical as they ought to be. MES' falsetto sounds sly and jokey in isolation, as if he's holding something behind his back. Lots of space in this recording and a nice hint of feedback. Feels a little more improvisational. It's going to erupt, I know. Drums are huge, and they're still lying in wait. Two guitar chords into the first explosion are perfect...then a BASS RUMBLE. Mostly unaccompanied. This band knows what it's fucking doing. This is so loose and experimental and gripping. It feels like the knight and Death playing chess in The Seventh Seal except with the knight as the guitar and Death as MES. And Bergman as the rhythm section. This is the moment I realise...that it is not going to erupt. It is erupting, constantly. It doesn't appear to be moving even until it's smothered you. Until the weird distorted mesh-on-mesh effect late in the sixth minute. By which point you are bound in the spider's web and being slowly poisoned. High-pitched screams which are plinks from the strangler. This is the antimatter to New Puritan's charging train. The charging void. The charging anti-train. No survivors.

C'n'C Hassle Schmuck - You follow Hip Priest up because you have to, and you follow it up with something similarly alien. Swirls into a different tempo without much warning, and the guitar, instead of exploring a colourful path to death or genius or whatever Hip Priest explores, remains in the same foul place. MES sounds like he's having fun, at least. They're a fun band. Gather, kiddies, and carouse.

Gonna take a well-earned break now.

Thanks for doing this! Its inspired me to pull out the box and finally load it on to my iPod!

They're all first-listens, so my feelings, usually those of astonishment, are fully genuine, and fully fresh. Sessions 3 and 4 are eerily similar in their
barnstorming-opener-followed-by-long-3rd-track-that-actually-threatens-to-damage-your-mind way.