The Fiery Furnaces
are a U.S. indie rock band formed in Brooklyn, New York, in 2000. [1] They played twice in Brooklyn as The Suckers
before performing as The Fiery Furnaces (with an unchanged line-up). The band's primary members are Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger. The brother and sister are originally from Oak Park, Illinois, a near-western suburb of Chicago.
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Band biography
They signed with the
Rough Trade music label in 2002, and recorded their debut album,
Gallowsbird's Bark
, the same year. Released in 2003, it was often compared in the press to
The White Stripes [2] due to the
garage blues elements of the band’s sound and the fact that the members are siblings (although, unlike The White Stripes, the Fiery Furnaces are actual and not pretend siblings
[3]).
Matthew is primarily responsible for the band's songwriting and studio instrumentation, while Eleanor handles the majority of the vocal duties.
Drummer Andy Knowles and
bassist Toshi Yano both joined the band for live performances in time for their 2004 tour. Beginning with a performance at the April 2004
All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in
Camber Sands, England, the band's live performances took the form of hour-long, continuous sets of music featuring snippets from most of their recorded songs. Many times, several songs were melded together to create a conglomerate song that encompassed material from previously released songs, this producing similarly complicated set lists for the band to follow.
[4]
The Fiery Furnaces released their second album,
Blueberry Boat
, in the summer of 2004. It is also often interpreted as a multi-layered
concept album. "Quay Cur," the ten minute lead track on Blueberry Boat, switches from dirty, gurgling
organ to
slide-guitar-fueled ditties, pulsing electronic beats to abstract
lullaby within a few minutes, highlighting the Fiery Furnaces' variety in songwriting. Some critics, however, interpreted this type of material as evidence that the album is unfocused. The epic nature of the majority of the songs made them unsuitable for radio play so the band prepared "Single Again," a take on a traditional folk song as a substitute.
This single, along with their previously released ones, was mostly only made available to the
UK audience, so in January 2005 the band released a 41-minute compilation disc named
EP
(this confusingly being a
designation commonly reserved for shorter discs).
EP
featured two new songs, all of the band’s singles and
b-sides (with the exception of an alternate version of "We Got Back The Plague" found on the "Tropical Ice-Land" single), and was for this reason a contrast to the epic and, according to some, inaccessible nature of
Blueberry Boat
.
Their following album,
Rehearsing My Choir
(released in October 2005), saw the band return to an experimental sound once again. A
concept album featuring the Friedbergers' grandmother, Olga Sarantos, narrating stories about her life,
Rehearsing My Choir
was met with widely differing opinions from both the
press and the band's fans, being branded "difficult" even by those who rated it highly.
[5] Sarantos previously worked as choir director at a
Greek Orthodox church, and her croaked reminiscences form the backbone to this peculiar, piecemeal storybook of an album.
[6] Jason Loewenstein of
Sebadoh and
Bob D'Amico took over band duties for the supporting tour, replacing
Toshi Yano and
Andy Knowles.
The band released their fifth LP, entitled
Bitter Tea
, in April 2006. In interviews they stated that the album was influenced by the sound of
synthpop group
Devo, and Eleanor Friedberger stated the album was "definitely the poppiest thing we've done."
[7]
Matthew Friedberger released
Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School
in August 2006, two separate albums which were packaged as a
double album. According to a press release,
Winter Women
is "intended to be a summer record, full of memorable, catchy, and un-ironic pop songs," while
Holy Ghost Language School
is like "
Faust,
the Residents, or the most 'out' moments of
Brian Eno's solo records."
[8] Eleanor appeared on neither album and Matthew did not tour in support of his solo releases.
The band did a short tour in October and November 2006, supported by San Francisco
experimental rock band,
Deerhoof. This tour saw Matthew on keyboard, Eleanor on vocals,
Jason Loewenstein on
wah-wah pedaled guitar, Bob D'Amico on drums and the addition of
Michael Goodman on percussion. The songs had a
tropical/
salsa feel to them, and most of the tracks from
Bitter Tea
were played as one long song, lasting 30 minutes—a medley format the band previously used while promoting
Blueberry Boat
.
[9]
In June 2007, it was announced in
The Chicago Reader that the band had signed with Chicago label
Thrill Jockey and their album
Widow City
was later released on
October 9,
2007. Unlike their two previous efforts, this album lacks a central concept and has a 70s
album rock feel. The band toured in support of the album throughout the later months of 2007 and early 2008.
A live compilation album,
Remember
, was released on
August 16,
2008.
In April 2009,
Thrill Jockey announced the upcoming release of
I'm Going Away
, the band's seventh studio album, on July 21, 2009.
Discography
- Gallowsbird's Bark
(2003)
- Blueberry Boat
(2004)
- EP
(2005)
- Rehearsing My Choir
(2005)
- Bitter Tea
(2006)
- Widow City
(2007)
- Remember
(2008)
- I'm Going Away
(2009)
References
- "The Fiery Furnaces |Biography". thefieryfurnaces.net. Retrieved on July 12, 2007.
- BBC Review of Gallowsbird's Bark (dated March 11 2003). Retrieved on 8/22/2008
- "White Stripes Divorce Certificate". Glorious Noise, 2002. Retrieved July 12, 2007.
- "Fiery Furnaces Setlist (dated September 18th, 2004)". http://homepage.mac.com/mr.gilbert. Retrieved on 12 July, 2007.
- "AllMusic Guide Review, retrieved on 22 August 2008"
- Pattison, Lewis. "Amazon.co.uk: Rehearsing My Choir Review". Amazon.com. Retrieved on 12 July, 2007.
- "Stomp and Stammer - Bitter Tea review, retrieved on 22 August 2008"
- "Matt Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces readies solo debut, by Force Field PR, retrieved on 22 August 2008"
- "Tall Poppy Interview: The Fiery Furnaces. ''The Torontoist'', October 31, 2006. Retrieved July 12, 2007.