1. Lay of the Land
2. 2 x 4
3. C.R.E.E.P.
4. Slang King
5. Craigness
6. Bombast
7. Barmy
8. Gut of the Quantifier
9. My New House
10. Cruiser’s Creek [Peel Session]
11. Hot Aftershave Bop
12. R.O.D.
13. Dktr. Faustus
14. Shoulder Pads #1
15. Living Too Late
16. Riddler!
17. Entitled
18. There’s a Ghost in My House
19. Frenz
20. Athlete Cured
21. Guest Informant
22. Cab It Up!
23. Big New Prinz
For anyone unknowing who wishes to familiarise themselves with The Fall’s ‘second phase’, The Wonderful and Frightening World of… is a good place to start. If you decide to follow this line of enquiry then I advise you pick up the version I did in 1994, entitled Escape Route from the Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall, which includes the tunes found on the Call for Escape Route EP and the singles 'C.R.E.E.P.' and 'Oh! Brother'. This will be the edition you will most likely encounter anyhow: on Spotify, on CD or on the repackaged double LP that came out in 2015. Having said all that, I have included just one track on this compilation that wasn’t featured on the original: 'C.R.E.E.P.'
The reason why this album is a good place to start is not because it’s one
of The Fall’s best – although I wouldn’t take you to task if you decided that
it was – but because, in journalistic parlance, it might be their most
accessible. This can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that Brix
Smith was by now a fully paid-up member of the band. 'Slang King', 'Lay of the Land'. '2 x 4' and 'C.R.E.E.P.' are all her tunes, as is the breezily
tuneful 'Disney’s Dream Debased'. It’s doubtful she had a hand in 'Craigness',
which points the way towards the slow-tempo melancholy found 'Living Too Late'
and 'Frenz'. In any case, it is Steve Hanley’s bass that tends to
predominate on a lot of these songs regardless of who wrote it, which is not
always clear anyway.
The Fall’s next
album – 1985’s This Nation’s Saving Grace – is a very different proposition.
The record is at once more repetitive, the sound more direct. It is as if Brix
had taken the time to go over older material, or had been studying Craig Scanlon,
and suddenly got that The Fall were almost a kind of funk band, and as tight a
group as a simile like that demands.
There had also been another change in personnel. Paul Hanley, who as well
as playing drums had contributed the bouncy keys on The Wonderful and
Frightening World of… , had departed, and ‘he of classical music training’ Simon
Rogers had been drafted in on bass to cover for Steve Hanley, who was on a
sabbatical. When Steve returned to the fold most of This Nation’s
Saving Grace had been written, though there was still time for him to
contribute one of its best tracks: Bombast. (Check out the footage on
YouTube of them playing it at the 1985 W.O.M.A.D. Festival.) If pushed, I’d say
that This Nation’s Saving Grace is The Fall’s strongest work, or
certainly their most consistent. Again, more recent iterations include the
singles issued the same year, 'Cruiser’s Creek' being the most vital. (The
Peel Session is better but can only be found on The Complete Peel Sessions
1978–2004.)
Released in
1986, Bend Sinister was the group’s first album to be released on
compact disc. Like the cassette, which I purchased from Notting Hill Record
& Tape Exchange in 1993, the CD included two tracks that weren’t on the LP: 'Living Too Late' and 'Auto-Tech Pilot'. The former was a single in
its own right whereas the latter appeared on the B-side to 'Mr. Pharmacist'.
(The cassette also appended a live recording of 'City Hobgoblins' –
renamed 'Town And Country Hobgoblins' to distinguish it from the 1980 original.) 'Living Too Late' is a particularly strong tune. Written from the
perspective of a jaded, middle-aged man, I’d always assumed it was
autobiographical, but according to Smith it wasn’t. 'Hot Aftershave Bop' is on the other side, and it's a riot.
It became customary in interviews for Mark E Smith to be critical of Bend
Sinister and of John Leckie's production in particular. Music journalists
tended to agree, although nowadays you’ll struggle to find a bad word said against
it. Yet Bend Sinister might be The Fall's strangest record. It is at once more convoluted and less direct than its predecessor, and Smith's vocals more nuanced and less prevalent. The tracks of
greater duration bear this out – 'Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers', 'Bournemouth Runner' and 'Riddler!' – and the opening track too: the
oppressive 'R.O.D.'. On the other hand, 'Dktr. Faustus' is cut from the same cloth as 'Cruiser’s Creek', albeit with a Brechtian twist, while 'Shoulder Pads' wouldn’t feel out of place on The Wonderful and
Frightening World of… .
The Fall followed up Bend Sinister with three singles, none of
which were evincive of what came before or immediately after. 'Hey! Luciani'
sounds like The Fall masquerading as a C86 band, and isn’t great, but the
B-side, entitled 'Entitled', is a very pretty tune. A solid cover of R.
Dean Taylor’s 'There's a Ghost in My House' came next, apparently on the
recommendation of someone working in A&R at Beggar’s Banquet (see Steve
Hanley’s excellent book The Big Midweek). Finally, 'Hit the North',
which sounds like an outtake from 1990's Extricate.
Simon Rogers, who was by now producing alongside Grant Showbiz, needn't
have fretted because 'Athlete Cured' is the best track on the album. Why 'Guest
Informant' was left off the LP (it features on the CD and cassette) is
mystifying. Instead, we get seven whole minutes of 'Bremen Nacht' (The
‘alternative’ version comes in at over nine, so perhaps we get off lightly) and
the dirge that is 'Oswald Defence Lawyer'.
I’ve never really bothered with I Am Kurious Oranj on account of the fact that it was the
soundtrack to the accompanying ballet, I am Curious, Orange, first and
an album by The Fall second. Potentially my loss. But you don’t get away with
compiling Fall compilations without including 'New Big Prinz', so I’ve
tacked it on at the end, just to show it’s appreciated, and thrown in 'Cab It Up!' for good measure.
[Listen to here.]
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