I recently bought a pair of posh Sony headphones! Let's talk about Finitribe. They didn't sell any records but they had a consistently interesting sound. I was going to do one of those "classic or dud" threads but it wouldn't work because they were neither good nor bad. I'm not even sure if they were really real. They formed in the late 1980s, released five albums of variable electronic dance music in ten years, briefly entered the UK charts, *existed*, but Ilxor barely mentions them and they are still very obscure, not helped by the fact that on the first album they were Fini Tribe.
I can't tell if the band was a proper band or a kind of studio house band, or an ad-hoc project, or what. The line-up briefly included Chris Connelly but he left after the first record, leaving behind a couple of producers and a vocalist; they played live with backing tapes. They were Scottish but sounded European, which technically they *were* - Scotland is in Europe - but you know what I mean. They sounded Belgian or French or whatever. I first became aware of them from listening to An Unexpected Groovy Treat (1992), which a friend of mine loaned me in 1995 or so. In 1995 the echoey drums and random samples sounded incredibly badly dated, but the first track, "Forevergreen", was pretty good, and the rest of the CD was at least catch. And it sounded good on headphones.
The band's musical development paralleled The Shamen - clattery industrial drums and angry shouting at first, gradually evolving into smoother, ecstasy-fuelled dance-pop. They were briefly on the same record label, One Little Indian, but judging by the incredibly cheap-looking videos they were given a promotional budget of nothing. They toured, but I don't recall them having any kind of live following (this was the age of faceless dance acts that didn't tour). I can see why The Shamen were popular whereas Finitribe were commercial non-starters. The Shamen had neat little tunes with hooks and their lyrics made sense, whereas Finitribe had grooves and the lyrics were just stream-of-consciousness ecstasy-fuelled nonsense. Also they didn't rap. They didn't even try. And their early hook was that they were vegetarians, which is fine but doesn't feel very rock'n'roll.
I remember when Sheigra (1995) came out. I bought a copy! I still have the CD, and it's awesome. It sounds incredible. The lyrics are nonsense but the production is fantastic, thick and lush and analogue-sounding. Very synthetic in a way that was falling out of fashion at the time (this was a time when bands were starting to use live-sounding drum samples). I've always loved the bit at 1:57 with the squelchy grindy bass noise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hugcs1fp6AY
Most of the tracks are instrumental. It reminds me a lot of contemporary Underworld, but Finitribe's singer has a less irritating voice. Compared to e.g. The Chemical Brothers and Future Sound of London, Orbital etc it's less adventurous and has a sound that dated faster, but it has always bugged me that Jam & Spoon were popular and Finitribe weren't. The record sold nothing and the band vanished for three years. They came back three years later with Sleazy Listening (1998), a kind of trip-hop drum'n'bass record that I hated at first although it has grown on me since. I have the impression they just gave up at that point. David Miller's linkedin profile lists a lot of events work and project organising for charities etc. I imagine whole years go by during which no-one asks him about Finitribe.
Also, for ages I wondered where the samples in "Forevergreen" came from. It has a big chunk of dialogue from a documentary TV programme about the Japanese real estate bubble - an academic-sounding man listing off a bunch of failed Japanese building projects, "Alice City, Geofront, Teletopia" etc. The internet let me down until recently Archive.org transcribed the British sci-fi magazine Interzone, which revealed that it was all taken from a programme broadcast by Central TV called Viewpoint 91: Japan Dreaming. I feel I can die in peace knowing that I know this.
So, Ilxor, that's my question. The medication is starting to wear off so I'll stop typing. Finitribe, question mark.
― Ashley Pomeroy, Monday, 10 December 2018 22:47 (five years ago) link
Connelly was about for much longer, he's on DeTestimony and I Want More for sure and maybe Make It Internal? Can't remember which side of the Wax Track deal that was, but CC stayed with them. You're right to draw Shamen connections, kind of, but there was a whole New Beat and EBM scene in Edinburgh that doesn't really get talked about with clubs where you could hear Borghesia and à;GRUMH and they definitely wanted to connect with that even if they failed to.
We recorded a demo in the space they rehearsed and I think borrowed some of their kit for it.
They really wanted to be much more like Crass on the first ep than came across.
I didn’t know that the dialogue in ‘Forevergreen’, was sampled. I always assumed it was written by them.
They’re still going, after a fashion, as Finiflex. I saw them supporting Sparks in Glasgow and soon after they released an Orbitalesque album in the summer which is well worth investigating.
― Dan Worsley, Monday, 10 December 2018 23:46 (five years ago) link