Emerging out of Wales at the tail end of the much-celebrated Britpop era, the Super Furry Animals have distinguished themselves from most of the bands of that period in one crucially significant area-SFA are still making great records a decade on from their critically acclaimed 1996 debut, Fuzzy Logic.
At a time when most of their more famous contemporaries have either broken up (see The Verve and Pulp), or devoted their careers to retreading past glories (see Oasis and Suede), SFA (their name came from T-shirts that singer Gruff Rhys’ sister was making) have managed to continually produce dazzlingly innovative and consistently excellent albums.
“We just try to never repeat ourselves,” is keyboardist Cian Ciaran’s simple explanation for SFA’s incredibly varied discography. “That’s what keeps the excitement going.”
Ciaran and SFA guitarist Huw (‘Bunf’) Bunford (the other members are vocalist Rhys, drummer Dafydd Ieuan, and bassist Guto Pryce) are sitting on the second floor of the Beggars Banquet (their record label) office on King St. The main topic of discussion is the band’s latest record, Love Kraft, which some critics (including indier-than-thou online bible Pitchfork, which gave it a high 8.5 rating) have hailed as their best yet. Mostly recorded in Spain, Love Kraft is the first Super Furries record to showcase the songwriting talents and vocal stylings of four of the band’s five members. After more than ten prolific years and seven full-length albums, what accounted for this reorganizing of songwriting duties?
“It wasn’t a contrived thing-it just happened that that was the collection of songs that we wanted to record…to me it wasn’t really a big change; going to the studio was still the same shit,” Ciaran offers.
In light of their new approach to songwriting, Love Kraft is somewhat surprisingly one of SFA’s most musically cohesive records and perhaps their most straightforward. Where in the past the band was prone to use a number of album tracks to delve into various genre experiments, Love Kraft maintains a similar feel throughout.
“We organized ourselves a bit better this time when we went in,” Ciaran explains.
“We kinda went back to trying a good-old fashioned way of doing things, like, ‘This is the beginning of the song, it goes like this, this is the middle and this is the end,'” Bunf adds, pointing out that producer Mario Caldato (sometime Beastie Boys producer) encouraged them to keep things simple (though that didn’t preclude a string section on more than half the tracks and the appearance of a full Catalan choir).
As for the choice to relocate to Barcelona for recording, “[It had to do] more with the weather and the wine than it did any musical influences,” Ciaran says with a bemused smirk. “We had a pool and it was hot…it’s not like there are any flamenco dancers clapping on the record or anything.”
So after releasing seven critically acclaimed albums in 12 years, consistently charting in the British top 20, making a Welsh-language album, and recently releasing a singles compilation, what could the Super Furry Animals possibly come up with next?
“We haven’t gotten bored of recording and writing and making new albums, so I think we will keep on doing that, really,” Ciaran replies.
Based on their past successes, that simple strategy should be good news for those who consider themselves enthusiasts of quality British pop music.
