Does anybody read these blogs? No? Well, this will be the last one then no more blog, I will save my fingers for the keyboard. Anyway, for the one person who might read it, below is a review of our new album 'Sonnenhuhn.'

By Assaf Vestin

New Jersey based band that seem to not take life too seriously, or at least with much humour. This is also evident in their music, but listen carefully to realize how much effort, work and emotion has been put into it.

Crazy to a certain extent, Fun Machine "produces" music which is, well… fun!
Diverse in their output, this band plays dynamic and upbeat music, quite uplifting in its mood, filled with intricacies, small quirkiness and with changes as the songs go on.
There is a sense of humour in their music, as well as a driving force that keeps the music's fast pace and changes as the tracks move on. In the noisy fast parts I started thinking of The Cardiacs; not to say they have the same sound (though it may serve as a minor reference) but in the spirit of the music, in its intensity. I was also reminded of Make A Rising and their special brand of avant-rock mingled with pop elements and Shining's and The Mars Volta's super intense and noisy music.

Fun Machine's music is accessible and catchy. It sounds familiar and yet new and refreshing. It is well played, cleverly composed and a delight to listen to. It is the little intricacies in the songs that add a special flavour to them, make them even more appealing than their basic ideas. Also, the effective interplay of guitar and keyboards, the effects that each one does, provides a wide range of sounds and evoke many different emotions – from aggressive to nostalgic, from sensual to appeasing to sleepy. The sound is very coherent and tight; the complex parts are meticulously done and are a delight to listen to. They do not, however, only focus on making complex and intricate music, but on beautiful and attractive and memorable melodies. Their music writing is very successful in this sense. This is what caught me from first listen, despite the complexity of the songs and the lengths of some. The magic is achieved by efficiently combining those two attributes in their music.

A highly enjoyable album, refreshing and familiar at the same time (at least to me); Recommended, particularly if you like any of the band's mentioned above and also if you like quirky and hyper active complex rock.

Blok People

Out on the highway ahead, statues old and dead, to the exit of the road, past it fast we go,

To the bridge away, out of here and now, seventy storey bridge, ninety degrees up and down,

In those northern lands, chaotic suburbians, fire breathing creatures, scattered street sweepers,

To the bridge away, out of here and now, seventy storey bridge, ninety degrees up and down,

They're coming to find you, and you can't hide,

They're going to hunt you down, until you die.

 Friends I do not know, feeling the fearing grow, the witches' touch awakes jaundiced fevered shakes,

To the bridge away, out of here and now, seventy storey bridge, ninety degrees up and down,

Hiding out on the porch, hidden images moving close, I fear that it's all too late, one touch seals my fate,

To the bridge away, out of here and now, seventy storey bridge, ninety degrees up and down,

 Starting to shake now, all at the sunrise, I'm starting to wake now, into my life…

 Liquid Pants

Oh, trigonometry, please calculate for me
The steep slope frustration, of opposite adjacent angles
Your fear has ceased to be, tell me what this means
The jungle is on fire from chemical sources higher
Gears are pumping steam of electricity
Embrace the acidic scrub
We are here to wipe your fucking eyes!

The time has come again, to wash your soul again

Salt mined a care or two
Hellholes evaded me
Until you dropped the bomb, stopped the song
moved along and now you're gone

And the trees are breaking, suns exploding…
Invading the silence even at depth urgency.
There's no peace here
floating on your death threads
stripped me from my soothe seas
sunken from my old sun bed

Lost in Glasgow

Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Album: Fun Machine - Sonnenhuhn
 

Album: Sonnenhuhn (That's German for "Sun Chicken"!)
BNS Sessions, 2008
Rating: ****** (6/10)

I'm slowly catching up with my reviews, but I'm still a little behind - this album was released digitally yesterday. It's not officially released on disc until January 6, though (or thereabouts - I'm not 100% certain on the date).

I already raved about my new-found love for Fun Machine earlier this month, and I was excited to hear and write about the album. But it proved a challenging task.

The tricky thing about Sonnenhuhn is that my reaction is strongly mixed. On the one hand, I'm in love. The entire record is overflowing with creativity. In fact, it doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard, and yet it totally rocks. Looking up close, there's not much I don't like - melodramtic, cheesy keyboard parts (trust me, it's a good thing here), odd, assymetrical rhythms, startling bursts of sound, tense beats, forays out of the key signature, it all works.

That the band can perform such complex, fast, syncopated pieces is astounding in itself. It's hard to actually describe the sound, but think Pink Floyd meets Queen in the year 2500 and makes robot party versions of Broadway showtunes. It's a bit like Dismemberment Plan, a bit like the Talking Heads, a bit like the Flaming Lips. Progressive psychedelic pop? Maybe?

Yes, this all sounds delicious, but when I step back to look at the big picture, it starts to fall apart. The album is a rather sophomoric effort in many ways, mostly because the band doesn't seem to know how to edit or meld their ideas into cohesive statements. Each track isn't a song, it's just a series of lose inspirations stuck together, like a stream-of-consciousness essay. The album is sprawling, and on neither a song level nor album level does the music move forward or build on itself. Specifically, I'm pretty sure you could easily take apart the phrases, rearrange them completely and have approximately the same result. In fact, I suspect the album might improve if you just put in three times as many track breaks and split up the longer songs into two or three minute segments. As it is, it's jumbled and incoherrent and doesn't reveal any larger-scale vision than "hey, this would sound cool!"

But this is still an interesting album and worth getting familiar with. Why? Because each member of this band is clearly brilliant, and I'll bet actual money they'll each go on to do great things in music, either individually or very probably, and hopefully, as Fun Machine. This band is onto something very good - their originality is outstanding and their chops are nothing to sneeze at. If their sound matures with time, they have the potential to be one of the most interesting bands of our time. (Seriously!) One day, we may look back on Sonnenhuhn and see the first glimmer of greatness. Let's hope!

http://radioflyerreview. blogspot. com/2008/11/album-fun-machine-sonnenhuhn. html

http://songwonder.com/2008/04/01/fun-machine-blok-1/