Customer Reviews

Super Furry Animals - Rings Around The World

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've been searching for 'Rings Around the World' for a long time now, in record stores and bookstores. I finally chanced upon a copy today.

The DVD in the front room would not play the songs along with the videos. Being upset, I went to 'Settings', then to 'Audio Settings'. Not only is there a Dolby Digital Surround Sound option, which I chose and found the ENTIRE DISC TO BE FAULTLESS (so the people writing articles about defective audio seem pretty stupid to me) but there is a default setting of DTS, which most players from pre-2000 can't deal with. If you can hear it's default DTS setting, then I imagine you're in for a real treat.

The music videos themselves are all very pretty stylised visual experiments by companies like Broad Snout and that Peter Fowler guy. It's all very neat.

It's an acquired taste however, as the tracks are all very different, and the moods change frequently. The moods are all helped along by the spanky clean animations and videos matching style of the band.

The whole DVD is fun to navigate, I enjoy just flicking through it randomly without any song selections. *grin*

All in all, I'd suggest this DVD be given to adults and SFA fans, the content is, in places, a little naughty; the furries are in touch with all their senses, and the music reflects a sound knowledge of every medium. You can't go wrong here.

This is, hands down, the favorite DVD in my stash. It sounds the best (even better than DVD-A and SACD 5-channel mixes on other discs such as Talking Heads' Brick), and I use it to test out my stereo or to annoy the neighbors. The most inventive use of 5+ channels I've ever heard, and one of my favorite albums t'boot. Some of the videos are better than others, but the overall quality is tip-top. The remixes are pretty great too. Sometimes the menus hang up and the remote takes awhile to convince them to move along, but all is forgiven when the music starts -- the clarity of the highs and lows are exceptional in DTS. Hope they make another album this good, and I hope they slap it on DVD when they do. (For another transporting musical DVD experience, try "Point" by Cornelius.)

If you ever wondered what the potential of the DVD medium was when it came to presenting an album , the Super Furry Animals will show you on this DVD .

It is nothing less than a complete set of songs each with their own supporting piece of video .

If you like your music with a lot of creativity , then you will find that here . If you like visually stimulating images , then this is the DVD for you .

If you really like the songs , you can buy the CD too .
Perfect - pick it up today and you will see your TV turn into a strange reception device .

I'd seen the brilliant mechanical puppetshow video for "It's Not the End of the World" on the 2002 Siggraph reel. After reading rave reviews for this DVD, I picked up a copy. On it, the visuals for "End of the World" consist exclusively of mushroom cloud archive footage - a major letdown. On my first attempt I couldn't hear any music on the disc, which further crushed my expectations, but reading the reviews here, I tinkered with my player's settings and was finally able to hear the entire disc.

The visuals are experimental to say the least. The music is genuinely brilliant, and creates a wonderfully reflective mood. The imagery is best suited to ambient background dressing at a party, though a couple of the videos become surprisingly thought-provoking. The music is first rate, the visuals a bit less so. Though if that other brilliant video by Partizan/Midi Minuit ever turns up, by all means watch it. THAT was absolutely fantastic animation, and was a much more powerful accompaniment to the song than even the best this disc has to offer.

The "Rings Around the World" DVD is another "Fantasia." But the music is from Super Furry Animals. That means it is psychodelic, innocent, young, cute, sensual, and a little insane. But the innocence is weighted down by fire in "Run! Christian Run!--a song that may be a sequal to mentor Paul McCartney's "Run! Devil Run!," and the sexual dance of sperm fertilizing an ovum. The DVD is a rich and continuous collection of simple-looking animation, animated space images, colorful location photography, and montages of cut out images, forms and colors. It is an hour-long serenely animated art-film musical.

I didn't have any trouble playing all of the title and chapters on the DVD, although other reviewers say parts won't play. My computer's DVD player ran everything, but my Windows Media Player did not play the music tracks on the main titles.

If you have trouble playing with abstract DVD menus, you might have trouble with this DVD. But if you love exploring space stations and being suprised at every turn, you'll like this DVD.

Although satelites and rockets seem to me to be images of the 1960's, they have caught on this year after the world trade center attack. I made a film myself images of "Apollo 13" this year, and the same kind of images were a theme on the Academy Awards this spring. And I saw a space shuttle fly over my midwestern home a couple of weeks ago. Space takes us away from the horror on the ground and promises a "secret" new way to defend our selves.

"Rings Around the World" begins where the "Apollo 13" launch sequence ends. A satelite leads the viewer through a cold gray metalic space scene--but a heavenly ride in the safe haven of the animation and Super Furry Animals' music.

This a music anthology and a cartoon anthology. The DVD credits a long array of innovative animators, some from England and Wales. And the music, of course, has the oriental accent of Wales, I think. If you like animation festivals, you might like this CD.

I wasn't always sure what the songs and the animation meant--in that way the DVD is not like "Fantasia." You can appreciate the animation if you like abstract visual art. And in some cases, the animation was simple enough to make me wonder if I should watch it much. But if "Rings Around the World" is an art film, that's okay--it's minimalist.

After a trip through space stations and Saturn-rings around the earth, the colorful location images of people will surprise you. It's like a "National Geographic Society" sequence in the middle of a "Disney" animated film. The look of the people will warm your heart--especially if you see the sequence as a sort of tribute to George Harrison... "Rings Around the World" is a post-2001 "Fantasia."

I had problems accessing the extra stuff on the DVD, but a friend sent me this link and the label replaced my old one with a new one with everything working!!! ...

super furry animals - often referred to as "the most sonically aware band playing today" - have put out a DVD that truly overwhelms the senses. Rolling Stone magazine called it "an information age Sgt. Pepper's" which is no small praise! with the fantastic music mixed in true surround, artistic and compelling videos, and a strong message throughout, this DVD will certainly entertain.

Paul McCartney has a cameo on the album, he does backing percussion by chewing carrots and celery during "receptacle for the respectable".

some of the viewpoints expressed in the videos are anti-political, anti-religious and in some cases there's a definite anti-american-capitalist bent. also the animated "(a) touch sensitive" is almost pornography, but certainly very exciting.

without question the coolest DVD in my collection. if you don't have 5.1, however, just buy the CD. most of the excellence of the DVD will be lost without the surround sound.

What could have been some brilliant videos wound up being just an odd mish-mash of stock footage and clunky animation. And would it hurt them to actually let us see the band in at least one of the videos? Juxtaposed with U is the only possibility, but the entire cast is disguised so we'll never know.

I've been a Furries fan for a while now and considering how creative their songs are, I was let down by how quickly they've pasted this DVD album together. I would have rather had a few very well done videos for a few of the songs rather than one mediocre video for every song on the album.

This is the ultimate head trip. I don't know how these guys came up with such an original and crazy material, but the DVD complements the already-unbelievable album perfectly. I'm just shocked that something this creative could even exist. It's the sort of thing that restores your faith in humanity. Wow.

actually, the album gets five stars. the dvd only one star since i am able to access the bonus material on either of the two stand alone dvd players that i have. it plays just fine on my mac, but at the end of the day it's not the same. i'm tempted to buy another copy and trade my other one in. we'll see.