Is it important to recognise a concept album as a concept album when you listen to it? Fazu-ulian Exiles isn't just a concept album, but a sequel to a concept album, but I'll be honest with you, I don't think I would have realised that when listening to it had it not been explicitly stated in the album notes. It's an exploration of the dark underbelly of a whimsical world and the minds of the exiled, it would seem.
Perhaps that whimsy explains the tape warbling, the speeding up and slowing down of tracks that's particularly prominent in the opening tracks. When the second track, Desperate Dan started pitching down before pitching back up for the final chorus, it was such a neat twist on what was already a pretty catchy post punk track. As we moved onto TTTT, the third track, the constant pitching up and slowing down started to grate. It's a pity too, because I quite like the drum machine and disenchanted Damon Albarn-esque vocals. I was worried that the whole album would lean really hard on the tape speed gimmick and that I'd be pretty annoyed by the end.
But it doesn't, and I wasn't!
A Wave Crashed on the Rocks opens with the tape speeding up, but past that it's mostly a pretty and jangly rock song that sounds like the kind of thing you'd find signed to 4AD in the 80s. In my opinion, the album is far more enjoyable from this point on. Salt on Ulcer is a woozy track that seems to exist somewhere between Daydream Nation era Sonic Youth and Mac DeMarco's 2.
I found myself thinking of Daydream Nation a lot, actually. That's no bad thing, it's one of my favourite albums of all time, but several songs will have these jangling and droning guitar parts that are simultaneously beautiful and discordant, and it's just something I really get a kick out of. Even the rockier tracks like Sweet-Filtered Wish and the grungy A Hallway to Another Life have that energy to them.
The jewel in the crown for this album, however, is Sunkeni. Opening with some pretty scary ambient sounds accompanied by screaming and banging and generally causing a ruckus, it eventually becomes an introspective and dreamy ballad. The vocal style here is pretty different, too. Where previous songs have had vocals that are multi-tracked, and slightly apathetic in their style, here the singer almost sounds like they're channeling Morrissey and it's great.
The album closes with the wonderfully titled The Road to Greatness is Paved with Scarred Taints (Nude Jazz Den pt.2). I'll try not to think too hard about the scarred taints. It's creepy, with its feedback and keyboard loop and demon childlike chants of "I love you, yes I do". It sounds kinda like if you took Bowie's Ashes to Ashes and removed all the fucking normal stuff. In a delightful throwback to a simpler time, there's also a secret track at the end. A cute little ditty with just vocals and keyboard, and it's another high point for me.
Do I understand the story? No, not at all really. Half the lyrics I can't even make out if I'm being honest. But there are bangers here, lots of them, and as an album it holds together pretty well. It helps that I think I have the same taste in music as ololon themselves and I can hear those influences all over this thing, but either way, I really enjoyed this one, enough to apparently write nearly six hundred words on it.