aaamusic | On 13, Nov 2011

Eleanor Friedberger’s first solo album Last Summer is not the end of the Fiery Furnaces, and not the end of their tradition of musical hyperactivity. This record is not afraid to divide criticism, as is the case with her and her brother’s band; only this time, it will quite possibly see everyone in agreement. In fact, it would be surprising not to see this album an ubiquitous presence in every best-of-year list on the planet.

Opener My Mistakes is erratic, unsettled, and so great. You could just picture this played by Elmo and his gang, which is nothing short of awesome. And when the saxophone – yes, saxophone – comes in it’s pure Americana joy. Inn of the Seventh Ray sounds like a drive-in showing Eraserhead to an audience of stoner elves. “Watch Footloose with the biggest bottle of Vodka in the world” is a prospect that never sounded so appealing, thanks to the reverb going bananas in the background. Then to Heaven, a wistful piano/clap combo, which, although deceptively upbeat, reminds you of the finest moments on Elliott Smith’s Figure 8. Roosevelt Island features the most outrageously funky bass – it’s not even slap-bass, it’s funkier than that – and just as you think this can’t get any bigger a pop odyssey, a stomping piano comes in and drives us straight to Sunset Boulevard, so fast we feel dizzy. Eleanor’s stately, fierce croon generally dominates each track, which is possibly why she decides to casually slip in a track like One-Month Marathon somewhere in the middle; an enthralling ballad awash with wanderlust, which sees her voice shift to a soft, suave tone while she declares “for my last ensemble I will be wearing nothing at all” on top of gently cascading drums.

And those are just some of the highlights. Last Summer is a quintessentially American, deliciously pop, recklessly indie beast of a record. Every song has a trick, a twist, a shout; and just when you think it’s an acoustic ballad, in comes the synth. What anyone else would strive to fit into a category, Eleanor Friedberger likes to mix and match and mesh and reformulate, while messing with our brains in the process. We’re more than glad to let her, with a record that, narrative-wise, skips through time and space – Philly and Brooklyn and fancy inns in California, it’s all there – with incredible ease (as she brilliantly puts it in One-Month Marathon: “Let’s come back with a hand-painted tile from the 19^th century – but I need my new phone to show me the way”) . It’s quite hard to imagine Last Summer not conquering hearts at every corner like the eclectic, cocky, saxophone-blazing Casanova it so brilliantly is.

 

Chiara Amoretti