Curses (2007)
Curses is not a drat, a damn, a bugger, or a shit. It's not an oath to be tossed out idly, nor does
it take the names of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha or Lord Xenu in vain. No, Curses is a spell, a
summoning. Fourteen pocket-sized, acidic incantations that trip off the tongue and scatter all
manner of charms, jinxes and hexes around your person, your living quarters, your friends and
your work colleagues. Songs about cats, Tories and the skeletons of tiny children. Guitars that
jerk and spark like cattle prods refashioned into impromptu ECT electrodes. Basslines that
impact like a deft flurry of feet, like being kicked to death by the cast of Riverdance. Drums that
march, bound and turn on the head of a platinum pin. Two heads that sound like they've
sprouted from the same neck, thrashing a collective mane, screaming as they hurtle round the
Moebius curve of some lyrical enigma. All fashioned into a single, gleaming CD. A CD that will
henceforth be referred to in speech and written word as "the debut album by Cardiff's Future Of
The Left".
It is neither good nor healthy to tease through the bones of the past, but for the edification of
future generations, now we must. Future Of The Left are composed of two thirds of the now
defunct Cardiff rock band Mclusky, singer/ guitarist Andy Falkous and drummer Jack
Egglestone, and one-fifth of Ammanford rock band Jarcrew, wild-eyed frontman Kelson Louis
Matthias. Both bands shared a mutual admiration; both bands bit the dust in their own special
way. Jarcrew released one album [1], got lost in their confusing maze of great ideas, and finally
disintegrated shortly after their drummer decided he wanted to spend more time following his
faith as a Jehovah's Witness. Mclusky released three albums [2] and finally fell to pieces under
largely acrimonious circumstances, the gory details of which the curious can doubtless find
recounted somewhere other than here [3].
Like one of Planet Earth's larger land mammals, the group that would eventually become
Future Of The Left would be some time in the gestation. It began just as Andy and Jack,
chiselling out new directions in Music Box studios in Cardiff. For a while, they were four, for a
while rehearsing with Hywel Evans [4]. "It definitely took a while for us to get a sound together,
but the writing process got a lot easier when we got back down to three. Everything came
together when we wrote “The Lord Hates A Coward,” but we'd been writing for over a year
then. That song really set a standard for the rest." Kelson's instrument of choice was bass - not
an instrument he played, necessarily, but then that's not always the Future Of The Left way. "I
play a bass like I fronted Jarcrew," explains Kelson. "Just thinking percussively - sort of
Neanderthal, if that doesn't make me seem more stupid than I appear." Somewhere along the
way, Falco acquired a synthesiser [5], which makes its way onto several album tracks. Before
long, the band had a name - Future Of The Left [6]. And finally, they made an album.
Recorded across three weekends at Monnow Valley Studios in Newport with longtime
associate Richard Jackson, Curses is an altogether broader, more devious, more detailed
record than anything that's come before. There are songs about revenge (“The Lord Hates A
Coward”) Tories (the self-explanatory, Shellac-inflected “Fuck The Countryside Alliance”), and
sausages on sticks (“Wrigley Scott”). But there's also “Manchasm,” a song about Falco's cat,
and how it misses its owner when he's off on tour [7]. There's “Fingers Become Thumbs,”
which is about evolution. There's “Suddenly It's A Folk Song,” inspired by a biography of Peter
Sellers, which explores the chasm between an actor's role and his private persona. There's
“Real Men Hunt In Packs,” conceived as an alternative theme tune to The Sopranos. Or
perhaps most surprising of all, the closing “The Contrarian,” a gentle Noel Coward-esque tale
of social mores which came together when Andy and Kelson found a piano in the studio and
decided to write a song on it, each playing one handed.
In short, Curses finds Future Of The Left further trying to stretch and bend the boundaries of
what a rock band should be [8]. "It's about something more than three guys coming onstage
and yelling ‘Rock!' down the microphone," explains Falco. “I wouldn't want people to see three
guys onstage and think that all that brought them here was guitars and disagreements with a
variety of authority figures. There can be a fuller, rounder, slightly funny picture to it."
That's Curses. You'll swear on it.
FOOTNOTES
[1] 2002's mighty, scattershot 75 minute disco punk riot “Breakdance Euphoria Kids.”
[2] Mclusky released three albums: 2000's My Pain And Sadness Is More Sad And Painful
Than Yours, 2002's ‘obscene pornographic romp of a record’ Mclusky Do Dallas, and 2004's
murky, abrasive The Difference Between Me And You Is That I'm Not On Fire. The latter two
records were recorded in Chicago with Steve Albini who once referred to Mclusky as "the only
good band in Britain.”
[3] Falco: "Some bands split up because of musical differences. Mclusky split up because of
differences. There's meanness and there's unbridled bitterness, but that would be a fair and
accurate reflection of where all the hard work and love came from. I realise that sounds far too
glib and convenient but it also happens to be true."
[4] Formerly of Jarcrew, now in the band Truckers Of Husk.
[5] Falco: "I have what we'd generously call basic levels of skill when it comes to playing the
keyboard. It's basically along the same approach that I have to playing the guitar - that is,
hitting it in a certain way. The principle is, whatever works. Plug in, play and see what comes
out of your heart and your mind."
[6] Falco: "It came from an article in The Guardian about the future of the left wing in France in
the lead-up to the prime ministerial elections of a couple of months before. I think it's fair to say
we're all left leaning individuals. It's not an explicit political mission of the band but I suppose
it's kind of important to recognise that a band doesn't sit totally apart from the social and
political position you find yourselves in. It's not explicitly polemic. But there are songs that touch
on it, just as though there are MySpace blogs that touch upon it, or arguments you have with
friends or enemies in the pub about it."
[7] The "Mark Foley" referenced in “Manchasm” is not the Republican politician who resigned
from Congress after sending sexually explicit instant messages to teenage boys. It refers to the
owner of Music Box studios in Cardiff, who might share Senator Foley's name, but thankfully
does not share his extra curricular hobbies.
[8] Some non-musical influences on Curses: The Wire (series one and three), The Shield,
Sunday Roast, Curb Your Enthusiasm, red pesto, and 'I'm From Hollywood' - the biopic of
famous woman-wrestling Saturday Night Live comedian Andy Kaufman.
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