Forty Minutes Of Fontaines D.C.

Fontaines D.C. had an album out in August, their fourth, a record called Romance. It's the sound of a five piece guitar band about to go massive. They sounded a little bit jaded on 2022's Skinty Fia I thought but Romance is the band firing on all cylinders, expanding and playing around. The band said that a wider range of influences were brought to the table for Romance- hip hop, Massive Attack, Deftones, Alice In Chains, various films including Akira and Wings of Desire, the Beat poets, Dylan Thomas and on final song Favourite, Johnny Marr's c1986 Smiths guitar sound. It's a really good record and judging by the live appearances I've seen on TV they're on fire at gigs too. A friend went to an early evening album launch gig in Liverpool  and said they were superb. 

They've got themselves a memorable look as well. Vocalist/ lyricist Grian is wearing a black skirt/ kilt and big boots and the rets are mixing up vests, tattoos, green or red dyed hair, bug eye sunglasses, neon green and yellow jackets, massive platform trainers. In the guitar indie rock world the easiest/ classic look is to go fringes, skinny jeans and leather jackets, channel the Velvet Underground and the 1960s or the post punk early 80s. I like the fact they're playing around with their image, a look that is most definitely not classic or canonical and which likely makes little sense to anyone under the age of thirty.

Four albums, various remixes, a Grian Chatten solo album, a Nick Drake cover- it seemed the time was right for a Sunday mix. 

Forty Minutes Of Fontaines D.C.

• 'Cello Song
• I Was Not Born
• A Hero's Death
• A Hero's Death (Soulwax Remix)
• Here's The Thing
• Televised Mind (Dave Clarke Remix)
• Favourite
• Romance
• All Of The People

'Cello Song is a cover of a Nick Drake song from a tribute album last year, The Endless Coloured Ways. Nick's original version is my favourite Nick Drake song. Fontaines D.C. do what any good cover should- respects the original but tramples all over it too. Fontaines  version is a real beauty, a rockabilly drumbeat, grungy guitars and Grian's Dublin drawl re- interpreting nick's fragile lyrics. The words have taken on a new meaning for me since Isaac's death- I've written about them before- especially these lines...

'But while the earth sinks to its grave
You sail to the sky
On the crest of a wave

So forget this cruel world
Where I belong
I'll just sit and wait
And sing my song
And if one day you should see me in the crowd
Lend a hand and lift me
To your place in the cloud'

I Was Not Born is from A Hero's Death, the second FDC album, from 2020. It's a blast of Dublin storytelling and street poetry, twin post punk guitars, Grian declaiming 'I was not born/ Into this world/ To do another man's bidding...' Electrifying stuff. 

A Hero's Death is from the same album (obviously), a calling card and the song that really turned my head to the band. The guitars pile in, chords slashing like a beefed up Last Nite by The Strokes, and Grian's words are a series of pieces of advice, a list, punctuated by the refrain, 'life ain't always empty'. 'Don't get stuck in the past', Grian says, 'Say your favourite things at mass/ Tell your mother you love her/ Go out of your way for others' and rattles through all sorts of killer lines before concluding 'If we give ourselves to every breath/ We're all in the running for a hero's death'. Two ears ago, listening to this in the car, with thoughts of Isaac's death on my mind, this song reduced me to tears. Powerful stuff.

The Soulwax remix came out on 12", the Belgian duo spinning Fontaines D.C.  from Dublin to the Balearics. I played this out once in a bar and a young bloke came up to me, enthusing about it and asking if it was Fontaines.

Here's The Thing is from this year's album Romance, the words written following  an argument between Grian and guitarist Carlos O' Connell. The guitars are superb, distorted and crunchy. Favourite ends the record. Romance starts it. I included them both here and switched them around. 'Maybe Romance is a place for you and me' Grian finishes the title track with. Here the line segues into All of The People.

Televised Mind is from A Hero's Death and is here in remixed form by techno don Dave Clarke, a enthralling, synth squiggle, bottom end heavy remix that shoves Fontaines into new places. 

All Of The People is from Grain Chatten's solo album Chaos For The Fly, released last year, a record that showed there was life beyond FDC with electronics, acoustic guitars and strings and a sombre, melancholic feel. 

Underneath All The Thundering There's Magic

This came my way recently (although it came out in November last year) and blew the cobwebs and the years away- you can get to a point where you think that there's nothing new under the sun and then something turns up. Kneecap are from Belfast, three young men who make hip hop, rapping in Irish and English with lyrics that make their support for republicanism very clear along with a truck load of satire, piss taking, and references to casual drug use (one of the many things they talk about that would get them kneecapped by older, more frightening men). On their debut single in 2017 they talked about C..E.A.R.T.A, (rights, as in of the human variety). On their album they have a song called Your Sniffer Dogs Are Shite. They rap about their mums and about being real. They have said they don't want to 'box themselves in with masculinity all the time'. They seem both completely irreverent and utterly serious. 

On Better Way To Live they share their spotlight with Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten, a man who has his own brand of street poetry and real life lyricism. Grian's half sung/ half spoken vocals go like this...

'Underneath all the thundering there's magic. If there's a better way to live I've gotta have it/ Because I think all but when I drink I'm OK/ It gets further away every time I try to grab it/ Underneath all the chattering there's heaven/ I gotta peak one day made me feel like I was seven/ I know it exists but I can't stop getting pissed/ One more thing I'll be adding to the list/

Much of Kneecap's verses are in Irish and though I don't know what they're saying I think I know what they're on about. The combination of English and Irish, the flow of the words and the rhythms of the grinding bass and drums, are matched by the video, the all day drinkers and the world inside the pub.

 

All Of The People

Grian Chatten's Chaos For The Fly was one of 23's albums that I kept coming back to- at first the songs, the singles aside, felt a little subdued and low key but it rewards repeat plays, something quite refreshing in an age where attention spans are shorter than ever. There's lots to enjoy in the songs, Grian's voice and words, and the music, a marriage of folky tradition and electronics and underneath it all it feels quite adventurous, like he's pushed himself outside his comfort zone.

All Of The People

The Score

Grian Chatten, singer and lyricist in Dublin punk- poets Fontaines D.C. has a solo album out and a first single from it came out last month. Grian's song The Score follows from their contribution to a forthcoming album of covers of Nick Drake songs, and their stunning version of 'Cello Song, an off kilter, thrilling, modern/ post- punk take on one of Nick's most affecting songs. 

On The Score Grian seems to have been soaking some of the Nick Drake acoustic feel. Along with the finger picked acoustic guitar part and some softly padding electronic drums, there is his voice. Grian's voice and delivery are a big part of what makes Fontaines D.C., his Dublin brogue and street poetry a very distinct part of their twin guitar attack. On The Score he's softer, more melancholic but warmer too. It's quite something, the blend and layers of those three components. 

Two weeks ago this one came out too, Fairlies, with a fiddle and loudly strummed acoustic guitar to the fore, all sots of melodies and harmonies, all summoning up some kind of dreamlike state. Pretty stunning and quite unexpected. The album, Chaos for The Fly, is out at the end of June.

Full Way Round

Leftfield have a new album out next month. This Is What We Do will be their fourth since the early 90s and Leftfield now is only Neil Barnes, Paul Daley having departed some time ago. Barnes has had a rough few years not least recovering from cancer. The album continues the run of strong guest vocalists- John Lydon, Djum Djum, Toni Halliday, Afrika Bambaataa and Roots Manuva have all stepped up to the microphone previously. This time around vocal contributions come from poet Lemn Sissay and Fontaines D.C. singer Grian Chatten. Grian's voice and words on Full Way Round add much to the track, his Dublin street poetics playing off against and with Leftfield's distorted, hard hitting dub techno. 

Which reminds me that I still haven't caught up with Fontaines D.C. album from earlier this year, Skinty Fia. I do have though a pair of remixes from last year that get pulled out round the Bagging Area way fairly often, the giddy, joyous Balearic stylings brought to A Hero's Death by Soulwax (a song I find inexplicably moving) and the full on grungy bassline, needles- in- the- red, massive kick drum, bleep techno version of Televised Mind by Dave Clarke.

A Hero's Death (Soulwax Remix)

Televised Mind (Dave Clarke Remix)