Quick Before it Melts

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Memories of the future

I caught Jian Ghomeshi’s interview with Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry of Handsome Furs on CBC Radio’s Q last week, and was impressed by how forward-sounding the husband and wife duo were about the direction they’ve been headed in.  Their last two records, Plague Park and Face Control both had a world-weary tone at times, as if the duo were throwing their hands up in frustration and at the current state of affairs in our world.  Handsome Furs are a very well-traveled band, having played in China, Indonesia and post-Communist European states that are just beginning to find their footing on the world stage.  In the interview, Boeckner noted that coming home from their travels often leaves him shaking his head at just how insular and ignorant a lot of his contemporaries in North America seem to be about what life is like for their foreign counterparts.

Sound Kapital, their new album, takes Handsome Furs on a sonic left-turn into more pop-orientated country.  It is an agrressive, vibrant sounding record the eschews Boeckner’s trademark guitars for a heavier synth and electronic presence.  Lyrically, Boeckner hasn’t softened; there’s no cooing peans of love to be had, but they avoid falling into the trap of pontificating and waving flags and telling their listeners what they should be feeling outraged by and what causes they should be supporting.  In fact, if you didn’t know that Handsome Furs spend a great portion of their time touring in places that few of us would dare to go, you wouldn’t infer it from the lyrics alone.

What you would infer is that the band don’t want to spend their time lamenting the past and crying about what has been.  Instead, they’re moving forward swiftly and boldly.  Sound Kapital may have Not-Safe-For-Work cover art, but the music inside could easily be classified as NSFS (Not Safe For Sitting).  The beats are viral (see “Repatriated”, the best dance-pop-punk hybrid tune of 2011) and the synths seductive (“What About Us”).  It’s sleek, modern, and designed to connect physically, intellectually, and emotionally.

There’s a sexiness to Handsome Furs that enthralls me, a quality that comes from their time spent together, playing their songs to crowds who’ve not heard of them before.  Those can be very tough audiences to win over, especially when it’s just two of you up on stage.  It’s the built-in chemistry between Boeckner and Perry that makes handsome Furs click as easily as they do.  On record or in performance, I  always feel like a voyeur, peeping on an intimate exchange between two lovers.  But then comes that moment, like the one in “What About Us” when the bridge reaches its crescendo and Boeckner invites the listener in to the lovefest, daring you to “come on and break my heart”.

Sound Kapital is available now on Sub Pop Records.

MP3: Handsome Furs “Repatriated”
MP3: Handsome Furs “What About Us”
Facebook: Handsome Furs
Twitter: Handsome Furs

 

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by J. Di Gioia | No Comments »

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 at 8:35 am and is filed under MP3, QBiM SPiNS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.