New Fall album.

Listening to the new album from one of the best bands in the world. It's very good. Particularly the bit with the banjo. :-)

James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem talking about The Fall:

"I love The Fall. To me, it's the best catalog in rock history. I'll take it over The Beatles or The Velvet Underground. It's really beautiful and broken, and it was the first thing I found that was completely unencumbered by bourgie tastes. Bands like Echo & The Bunnymen—when you're a teenager, that shit's great. You're like, "Oh, this is dark and mysterious and English." But it's really juvenile in terms of its aesthetic. The Fall was different. There's no candy. When you're a kid, you have this impression that things like respected literary novels are going to be like Merchant-Ivory movies, full of precious subtle things. But when you actually read books, you realize that shit's really fucked-up and dark and much more complex than your childish notion of what art is going to be like. The Fall is the first band that erased suburban-American concepts of what punk rock was going to be like for me. It's not heavy. It's not romantic. It's just broken up, and it really scared the shit out of me. It totally changed my life."

There's a great BBC documentary about the Fall on youtube. I don't understand much of what that Mark E. Smith guy is saying, but it's still great:

• The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith 1/9
• The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith 2/9
• The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith 3/9
• The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith 4/9
• The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith 5/9
• The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith 6/9
• The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith 7/9
• The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith 8/9
• The Wonderful and Frightening World of Mark E. Smith 9/9

And one of the great Fall songs... also one of the most tuneful - "Mountain Energei". It's like a small broken Zen pop song. Probably the closest thing to a Fall song suitable for a sunny spring day.:

MOUNTAIN ENERGEI:

Mr Blairstowe and Mr Partridge
They said to me
To get a mortgage
You need an income lid
I thought it was free

Dolly Parton and Lord Byron
They said patriotism is the last refuge
But now its me

And water's flowing down the mountain
But a tree is blocking the water flowing

So I went fishing
A note from a fish said:
Dear dope, if you wanna catch us
You need a rod and a line
Signed the fish

Water is flowing down the mountain
But a tree is blocking the water flowing

Went to the car rental
They said to me
You need a log book and licence, son

Water's flowing down the mountain
But a tree is blocking the water coming
Mountain energei

And water's flowing down the mountain