It’s a mark of the affection and respect that the Super Furry Animals are afforded that the re-issue, repackage and re-evaluate the songs approach to their back catalogue is regarded with enthusiasm rather than disdain; we’re not talking Stone Roses orders of magnitude in cash in terms here, but the commercial dynamics of rock’s post Napster cold hard world haven’t exactly passed them by.
This 20th anniversary edition of Radiator – originally released in August 1997 for those of you, like us, who only made through Year 9 maths – comes with all the trimmings that made last year’s curtain calls for Fuzzy Logic and the greatest hits package a 0/10 on the ripoff-o-meter. Boasting a new mix culled from the original masters, a sumptuous booklet, new formats and a landslide of extra material, it’s more than possible that it will take you until the next re-release to listen to everything more than once.
Recorded on the tranquil island of Anglesey in producer Orwel Owen’s converted shed, Super Furry Animals‘ intent for Radiator was to shrug off any residual associations with the now mortally wounded Britpop phenomena that their debut had attracted – a manifesto, it’s worth reminding ourselves two decades later, which they realised in spades.
Some of the material remains open to interpretation, the Welshmen were afterall a guitar band, albeit beginning to playfully experiment with what that meant, but whilst the International Language Of Screaming’s rippling terrace chant was a look back at the carnage, the rest challenged you to drape any corny nationalism on its shoulders. One of the changes was practically heretical for the time; producer and band electing to plug in an Akai sampler which had lain unused during the making of Fuzzy Logic, although more crucial was the choice to search for grooves rather than riffs.
Here then, Hermann Loved Pauline to a backdrop of glam techno, whilst the warmly soulful Rhodes (the instrument bought, singer Gruff Rhys claims in the sleeve notes, from none other than jazz club impresario Ronnie Scott) of Play It Cool was unfussy but prominent, its presence underlining keyboard player Cian Ciaran’s growing thematic influence.
The overwhelming conclusion was that this was now their reservation to wander off; if Chupacabras was them sending up themselves, or their pseudo-rivals, or just plain fun, it was still thrashingly better than people trying to do that sort of stuff for real. This was the output of a happier band, more comfortable with their outlaw status, a reprise of which shows that the good stuff here remains refreshingly lovely, especially the thumping, oddball bleep-a-go-go breakdown of the otherwise pastoral Mountain People, Bass Tuned To The D.E.A.D’s torpid 70s fritz and Download’s regretful melancholia.
The extras are so plentiful that the collection even gets its own name – Clarity Just Confuses Me – and, once again deftly assembled by archivist Kliff Scurloch, they add a self contained weight to the exercise which takes them far beyond mere completist-only fodder. As with previous SFA efforts, there won’t be space here to do the depth of this material real justice; there’s a plethora of archive and unreleased stuff, including b-dides, session versions and an outing for the Ice Hockey Hair EP. An appalling dereliction of duty it certainly is to not cover everything, but with that taken into account, a snippet-sized view would be that Wrap It Up proves that they turned their back on extra helpings of post-Parklife chart action, whilst The Boy With The Thorn In His Side will disappoint Smiths fans as much it will have old ravers joyfully covering themselves in Vic just like the good old days.
It’s worth revisiting Radiator, or picking it up if you missed it first time round, for two reasons: number one being that it was at the time somewhat unjustly overshadowed by the release of The Verve’s grandiose meisterwerk Urban Hymns a month later. The other being it’s a sparklingly inventive escape chute from one band’s nightmare of conformity.
Back in the now, is there an excuse for flogging a dead horse just because every other bugger does these days? The answer when executed like this is yes – and if SFA are doing just that, the horse would probably be Black Beauty. Or Champion. Or Sea Biscuit.
That didn’t come out quite right, but you know what we mean.
