Customer Reviews

Phantom Phorce / Slow Life Ep

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This is great if you are into remixes. Just the right people get their fingers on these songs. To the uninitiated I recommend to start with "Rings around the world" or their singles compilation

Though randomly delayed and contained in some extremely difficult packaging in the fold out shape of a late seventies arcade game, this gem of a remix album is finally here featuring collaborations from many different labels among them Domino, Lex, and Wichita. The narration from supposed executive producer and album savior Kurt Stern gives Phantom Phorce an Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, childhood storytelling quality bringing the various mixes together and greatly enhancing the playfulness and fun of the album. Most of the political messages of the original have been lost but it is more adventurous musically. Some songs contain close to nothing of the original [Massimo's "Venus And Serena," Zan Lyon's electro-grunged "Out Of Control,"] and some are possibly better than their sources [Boom Bip's dark groove infused "Father Father" and Four Tet's eclecticized "Piccolo Snare"]. Of course there's bound to be a few tracks which may have been better left in the studio [Mario Caldato Jr.'s corny take on "Liberty Belle" and Brave Captain's eighties sitcom theme come Aphex Twin trashing of "Bleed Forever"] but the oddly assembled stories from Stern including wombats, HP sauce, and wounded techies more than makes up for them. As a stand alone disk this is fairly questionable but it is a great companion to the true Power.

From what I understand, this is an EP that you would rather call a single. Not really. Alothough "Slow Life", possibly the only song on the album with an influence from Electronic music, did come from Phantom Power, which got them plenty of praise. Well, I guess they figured you wouldn't listen to a 7 minute song these days on the radio. Anyway, "Slow Life" is a song from Super Furry Aminals with, like I said, plenty of electronic (and psychedelia and country) influencing. The electronis intro is just that. The intro. The point comes when you keep on listening. All of those will switch from time to time. Even judging from the video. Now, from what I understand the songs of SFA shouldn't really be judged on just music alone, but from what we knew, they have life-changing lyrics. For "Slow Life", it may be about how life can drift by when you are sucked in to the protocols of life like death and television. Well, hey. Music doesn't seem farther from the truth. No? As for their non-album single, "Motherf*kker", there is a new wave-gangsta hip-hop influence. You got to love them for trying to use eccentricity to their advantage. I can't really get this one, but chances are it triggers anger as it were. Or it just tries to push the envelope by using profanity and a gangsta persona in the song. The point in the song can be like trying to keep your hackeysack in the air. Nonetheless, enjoyable, and that is always a plus for them. They have a little something for everyone to enjoy. "Lost Control" is a little more action-influenced and has a loss of Hip-Hop influence anywhere, which may fly well for the genre fans just checking them out. Coincidentally the song is an instrumental. A darn good one that pretty much explains to you what Super Furry Animals are really about, musically. Basically the music coincides with the title to give you a view of music you'd hear on the action movies like xXx, and Phone Booth. Whoever said that Electronica sucks needs to coincide the music within their lives to get it Otherwise, their stuck in one mode, which is not at all good to begin with. Basically, the album is telling you to go buy the real album, and enjoy, but expect plenty of influences...even from life, itself.
Rating: 7.5/10