I’m tucked into the corner of a noisy London bar with Simon Balthazar (vocals, guitar, clarinet) and Justin Finch (bass, banjo), the founding two-sixths of epically uplifting multi-instrumentalists Fanfarlo.
Across the room, Cathy Lucas (vocals, violin, mandolin, saw), Leon Beckenham (trumpet, melodica, keyboard, glockenspiel) and Amos Memon (drums) are paired up with interviewers too. It’s a big day for the band. After three years of hard gigging across the UK and Europe and the release of a few limited-edition 7”s, they’ve just taken delivery of their debut album, ‘Reservoir’.
They recorded their debut over six weeks in the Connecticut studio of Peter Katis, who was behind some of Interpol and the National’s best work, and are releasing it themselves initially. With the traditional record industry looking ever more antiquated, their stridently DIY philosophy feels like the future.
How does it feel to be self-releasing an album right now?
Simon: You don’t need a label to put out a record any more. We’ve had some offers from labels, the typical five-album deal, and it’s like, why would anyone do that? So you’re going to take all our income from all our records for the next five to ten years? And we’re going to get a little bit of cash now?
Justin: We do have aspirations to get bigger. We’re all fairly willing to sell our souls.
Simon: At the right price.
Justin: We’re at the crossroads. We want it big. (Pauses) We’ll sell guns with our music.
Simon: Yeah, the defence industry. That‘s kind of what we’re aiming at.
Justin: We’ve got some written, just out the back. Songs to sell cars. Songs to sell banks.
Simon: The first album is, like, authentic songs and the next album will be defence industry songs. Or car adverts. ‘The Car Advert’ EP.
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Tonight’s gig is sold out. The venue officially holds 200, but it feels busier, buzzier; friends are dancing with strangers and most of the audience is singing along. “The walls, the walls are coming down,” sings Simon like a world-weary prophet, joyful yet wary. “The ships, the ships are coming in, the great ideas are wearing thin, and now there’s nothing left to do.” Leon’s trumpet is strident while Cathy’s delicate finger-picked violin notes flutter down like confetti. They close with an upbeat cover of ‘In the Aeroplane Over the Sea’ that draws out the song’s rollicking sea-chantey rhythm, the violin’s pure, sweet tones playing off the disquieting lyrics to devastating effect. Afterwards, in the dingy, yellow-lit backstage room, everyone is exhausted. Naturally, they had organised the four-band bill and promoted the night themselves.
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Simon: I can’t say I‘m ashamed of British promoters because I’m not British, but I’m disappointed. UK promoters are not doing themselves a favour or anyone else a favour or the audience a favour or anyone who loves music a favour. Because they are so shit.
Justin: What we found in Europe is that young people are given government grants for culture, basically. So they have a lot of money to get good bands over and put on great gigs.
Simon: It’s socialism.
Justin: I never said that. I don’t condone socialism.
Simon: I said that. You can quote me.
So what is your preferred form of government?
Justin: Pure laisser-faire capitalism. Libertarianism, really.
Simon: You’re not allowed to quote that. [To Justin] Oh ho ho, you’re joking, aren’t you. Ok, next question.
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Fanfarlo are clearly unafraid of tackling big ideas. Like Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum, who Pitchfork memorably labelled “not cool” for admitting that The Diary of Anne Frank made him feel sad (and, of course, inspired their masterpiece ‘In the Aeroplane…’), their songs evoke themes unfashionable in London’s indie-pop ghetto – joy, regret, fear, the passage of time – through impressionistic, deeply emotive lyrics and with almost painful sincerity. Pure, clear vocals, soaring strings, clarion horns and tinkling glockenspiels are piled on top of an urgent rhythm section to create a complex, multi-layered torrent of sound and emotion – an unashamedly ambitious attempt to tackle some of the hardest questions life throws at us. In the scale of its aspirations and the intricacy of its production, ‘Reservoir’ is a million miles away from the stereotypical self-released debut. It’s overwhelming, humbling and hauntingly beautiful.
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Justin: Fanfarlo, as a concept, there is so much to it. Soundwise especially, it’s so huge. But live, it’s hard, we’re only six people. It’s a fairly big band, but we’re unable to do everything we want to do on stage. So recording is a really different animal. Live, we feel confident of filling a very big area. We just literally wish we had more hands, to play more instruments, all the time.
Simon: On ‘I’m a Pilot’, we wanted the sound of 100 people playing the same simple guitar part, almost like a big school class just bashing a song out on the guitar. So we got all the guitars we could round up in the house, and all the people that could play them, and just recorded that over and over and over again. It doesn’t really sound like guitars – it sounds like a cross between a string section and marching drums.
What was it like working with Peter Katis?
Justin: The studio was surprisingly analogue. There wasn’t a modern synthesiser in that studio.
Simon: We really wanted to do a MIDI thing on one track and we ended up not doing it because he just didn’t have a MIDI lead.
Justin: There was an amp that’s essentially a bloody great oak box. It looks like a bit of 19th century furniture, with bloody great fans whirring round in it. It’s incredible.
So what do you hope people will take away from this record?
Simon: We’re not trying to change the world, we’re just trying to make really beautiful songs. I hope that people appreciate it, but I think with most musicians, you make the music because you have to. I write music compulsively, we play music compulsively, like it’s a mental disorder. When I was a teenager and I started listening to music, I would meet people through it, I would fall in love over it, I would understand the world in a different way. You can’t sit down and write a record, thinking, “I’m going to change people’s lives,” but I do think that music will always make good things happen in the world. And if that’s a side effect of us essentially indulging in what we love doing, what we have to do, then that’s great.
‘Reservoir’ is out now via the band – visit their website – and will be in stores soon; a special edition can be picked up in Rough Trade from May 25. The single ‘Drowning Men’ / ‘Sand & Ice’ will be release via Moshi Moshi on May 4. Fanfarlo play an in-store show at Pure Groove, London, on April 14, and then tour as follows…
April
30 Glasgow Hinterland Festival
May
14 Brighton Great Escape Festival
17 Colchester Arts Centre
26 Oxford Academy
27 Birmingham Flapper
28 Bath Moles
29 Southampton Hamptons
June
1 Norwich Arts Centre
2 London ICA
Words: Jocelyn Kaulks
