| Posted: 28 March 2005 at 6:15pm | IP Logged
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A
Feast of Ffabbia (glacial expansion explained)
by The Resident Panel of Experts.
All aboard the Ffabbia ARK, next stop Weirdsville; and don’t
even think about getting off. This ride’s going all the way!
Since his appearance (seemingly from nowhere) upon the
internet music scene back in 2000 Ffabbia the person and the recording artist
has almost single handedly managed to
intrigue, baffle, confuse, delight and infuriate in equal measure; and
generally mix things up for the rest of us self-satisfied, cosy, message board
dwelling mortals; with his razor edged, surreal wit, occasional flashes of pure
insight, mixed with equal measures of outrageous off-hand flippancy – all
mashed up together with a hefty does of brutal self honesty. Well known for
wearing his heart firmly upon his sleeve most of the time; before promptly
lifting off on a series of lunatic
ripping yarns that will leave you either scratching your head in sorry
confusion, or howling upon the floor, clutching your sides. There are few half
measures where this person is concerned.
The music of Ffabbia, and his aptly named ‘Delivery System’ hit the ‘net at the
same time, spluttering and spitting onto the hard drives of many bemused
listeners in the form of the Songs From
The Ice Age ep. Four dark, haunting, complex, apocalyptic tracks whose
sheer depth and scope were (almost) initially overlooked. It was only Ffabbia’s
persistence within the social scene that finally lead people to realise that
there was more to this man than surreal, indecipherable posts about marrows. As
a case to point:
“My first communication upon the internet was
something with a screaming headline called
‘Ffabbia’s Gruel Auction, Fantastic Prizes to be Won!’.
Upon actually opening the
message it went something like ‘someone nicked my gruel, who was it? I want it
back. Now offering four shiny brass buttons’
Bear in mind that I was a
complete stranger, and it was my first ever post ..like anywhere!! Actually
mentioning my music honestly never occurred to me’.
And the reaction?
“well ‘you appear to be completely mad’ was the
general response.”
But you have something more important to tell us quite a lot
of the time?; I mean, come on! you are trying to ‘deliver’ something to us here
and we need to know what exactly?
“yes, indeed and it is primarily concerned with large
vegetables, the correct number of Mexicans, the nature of fish, and the fact
that limbs should regenerate if cut off; I mean it’s ridiculous!…. Why don’t
they grow back? there’s no logical reason for it!!!”
Loving, putting up with, or trying to make light
of Ffabbia, the man (who types/talks a lot like this!!!….or sometimes like this!!) is one thing, loving his
woebegone, bastard, musical child The
Delivery System is quite another.
Do you want to use this opportunity to discuss your
music?
‘I’d prefer people to simply
listen, and judge it for themselves, bear in mind that if you are judging my
music, you are often judging me! I’m
sharing a part of my soul, or psyche if you prefer, it’s not necessarily a good
part either, but are not the best songs based upon this form of sharing?’
The Delivery System, which can be shortened to TDS if you
prefer (though Ffabbia claims to hate this abbreviation) is a snarling mongrel
of a sound, drawing influences from sources as obvious as Joy Division and
early Brian Eno, and as mystifying as The Wurzels. Throw in a hefty dollop of
electronic dance music, bhangra, industrial scores, funk and classical and you
get an idea of the general flavour. It’s a gleeful melting pot of just about
anything Ffabbia can draw inspiration from. It’s this factor that is his main
triumph, but perversely, one of his drawbacks when it comes to attracting new
listeners.
I get accused of being ‘retro’ or
‘80s’ sounding constantly! And it’s not something that is likely to go away any
time soon, even when I try my best to create pure, mainstream trance; as in People Of The Rose’, I still get the
‘80s’ influence’ comments. It used to infuriate me, now I’ve learned to live
with it.
I think that it’s almost impossible
to escape one’s influences and when composing they’ll come out to bite you on
the behind! The 80s and very early 90s were ‘my era’ for music, I was
frantically composing then as well, but more importantly constantly listening
to the music of that time. There was such energy and individualism back then!
We had a dedicated target in Margeret Thatcher and what she represented, and it
was like a polemic attack against a polemicist!…in other words music had
something to say!. The bland, consumerism of Thatcher, and the soulless
creeping onset of the millenium is a lasting testament to blandness and
conformity that was initialised in that time; and it’s lasting triumph.
Now music is dead..and I mean utterly dead! I want nothing to do with
such mindless lip service to sterility and decay. Pop music, in all it’s
manifestations; especially indie, was
more ‘phased out’ than actually killed, and replaced by a facsimile. They
looked and dressed the part, but were not indie. Blindly churning out
compose-by-numbers semi-cover versions
of 60s hits……and people accuse me of
being retro!!!…..and there is no alternative now….well except me (laughs) but
nobody is listening anymore. Remember how people used to actually sit down and listen to music? Now it’s just background
noise,
As you may have gathered, Ffabbia is no stranger to speaking
his mind or articulating his thoughts, however controversial they may be.
The Delivery System is perhaps nothing less than an attempt
to ‘reclaim music’ as it should be,
for bored, angst ridden, frustrated listeners everywhere. An ambitious
programme in itself; but oh, there’s much more; there’s Ffabbia himself to
consider.
As one of the people lucky enough to have heard a preview of
the forthcoming Delivery System album, somewhat puzzlingly entitled ‘DRUNK,
PUNK, GOB KILL!’ it is pretty obvious that musically at least, TDS is an
evolving, self improving thing, gaining constant creative insights, and
learning from previous experiments. Some of the orchestration, synth work and melody on the new album is hauntingly beautiful, as
it is hauntingly familiar to many of us who share Ffabbia’s passion for ‘the
lost sound’. Ffabbia’s personality will not settle for simply being stamped
upon the music however, there’s that ‘love it or hate it’ voice to come to
terms with; a daunting prospect for many:
“It’s essentially a Northern voice,
and that’s about it really. I often say that I’d rather have an emotional
performance than a technically note-perfect one, I have something pretty damned
harrowing to say much of the time, I’m taking a scalpel to myself; and
attempting to sing that like some sort of classically trained pop wannabe is
hardly going to let all that poison out! It needs to come out shrieking and
howling, and yelling in pain and fear.”
Listen closely to just about any Delivery System song, and
the same references will pop up time and again, The author’s personal past (or
what seems to be the past) takes centre stage, containing a portable selection
of symbols, concepts and metaphores which are seemingly interchangeable, and
crop up with alarming regularity. These dark, surreal and baleful references
seem to be Ffabbia’s personal signs,
omens, portents and totems, and a point of reference that frames and
endless tirade against ‘something’,
fate? the past? Some grimly imagined future?
Are you really depressed most of the time then?
“I suppose people would expect me to
be really deep, and melancholy most of the time, but the truth is, I’m smiling
as much as I’m frowning. I’m just sort
of fuddling through life waiting for something that probably will never
happen….I’ve no idea what! My own past concerns me within my writing, but it’s my past! having said that I write on
several contrasting levels of meaning at once, I don’t analyse…it just comes
from some inner place; and what seems to be about some ghastly childhood
mistreatment…well it is…but it can also mean ‘other things” .
Such as?
“In truth I hate attempting to
explain what my lyrics mean, I find the idea really frustrating. If I read an
old interview with Ian Curtis, explaining all his songs, I wouldn’t listen to
them anymore! Obviously they are going to be personal to each listener from
their own perspective, but there are several across-the-board truths, and they are points of reference. The sea crops
up in some form or another quite a lot, as does a lot of, I suppose, elemental
imagery, fire, ice, water…and the concept of a terrible loss of some massive
world foundation; a falling moon, a fading sun….dying stars..that sort of
thing. Suffice to say, I had a nasty time of things at one point in my life,
I’m not out just to come to terms with it all…anyone can do that…I’m after
revenge!”
Revenge?
“Oh yes, they took a large part of
me, and I want it back”
Fair enough, but to ask who ‘they’ are is, I sense, futile.
Songs like the ravishing/menacing Far & Wee are like cryptic puzzles for the listener to solve,
filled with tantalising, half translated symbols that hover upon the edge of
meaning.
I need to check / that you’re never coming back / just in case the case
arises / from the sublime to the abstract / I need to be sure / that I’ll never
see your face again / the presence levered / the link severed / left with
prayers / gasping for rain.
Far from being a song about some long lost love, Far & Wee apparently deals with
(among other things) “‘persona displacement’ - attempting to create a mirrored
personality doppelganger upon the shoulders of an unwitting and innocent
bystander who has rashly fallen under the shadow of his personal curse, to be
used as a sort of reluctant, portable wailing wall, before seeming to switch
sides and becoming his nemesis. Needless
to say, this imagined ‘bystander’ may or may not exist, and may, in fact be
Ffabbia himself.” (that’s almost a direct quote from a prior review by the
way, and that’s just the start of it…
The changes in perspective and motive are like some obscure shifting of the
tides.)
The same ‘rain’ that seems to be half yearned for, half
awaited with morbid fascination within achingly potent songs like Coldspell and Not
Invented Here.
I feel that attempting to dig forcibly any deeper into the
mysterious, otherworldly depths of Ffabbia and The Delivery System will be a
pointless exercise. Instead I want to know his thoughts on that other Great
Unanswered Question, “why are you so (to quote reviewer Steve Gilmore) ‘criminally overlooked’ when it
comes to comparisons with similar recording artists?”
“I tend to isolate people, and put
off potential listeners, for many reasons. Most obviously, my material tends to
force you into a headlock, you have little choice but to go with it all the
way, however uncomfortable the journey… or simply switch off. Many choose the
latter; I can’t say I blame them either. Listening to a four chord indie tune
with a nice refrain about a failed relationship is easy! Listening to something
that digs unpleasantly into areas of yourself that you had rather not explore
is harder by far!
You make people think?
“well, it’s not just that, I mean,
obviously, I’d like to do that, if it happens, I’ve won! my revenge is
underway, but more to the point, it’s obvious that commercial record labels
will be put off immediately, they would not even give me a second of their
time! So what? I’m attempting to (as you so eloquently put it) ‘reclaim music
as it should be’; they don’t want that! It was them that killed it in the first
place. But in terms of ‘net based listeners, it’s largely a case of my attempt
to shoulder something upon them..share something that it’s simpler, and easier
to refuse! That and the fact that I tend to deliberately underpromote myself,
and refuse to trumpet my ‘achievement’s all over the net,
I’ve noticed, why do you do that?
“If people want to listen, then that
is a beautiful thing. The ones that do
listen are beautiful people! They are the ones that dare to face the real
world, with all it’s pain and futile struggling. It’s like coming over to my
side. I only want those who are willing to share the dream, however frightening
dream can be, they are still dreams, and a such beautiful things, because
anything is possible.
Jim Morrison claimed a similar thing with his ideas about
‘opening the doors of perception’, and although I quickly sense that Ffabbia
would be horrified at such a comparison, it is perhaps not an unworthy one.
Just as The Doors baffled, intrigued, infuriated and elevated people during
their short reign, before imploding, The Delivery System is, in his
distinctive, personal way, attempting the same monumental task. The fact that
this is carried out in the microcosm of the internet should not lessen this
dream. And if you bear in mind the fact that one planted seed within a small
clearing can rapidly take root and flourish, then the sky really is the limit
for Ffabbia – that is, when it’s not falling down upon his head.
“If it happened though, with my luck
I’d be one of those poor sods that survived. But ultimately I need that. My
muse is like the angel of destruction, something ravishing, and yearned for,
but at the same time dreaded. Take away the pain, and very little remains that
can inspire me to create. Do you know that part of me was horrified when Mrs
Thatcher finally resigned?…it was like ‘who’s going to be my hate-goad now?’
All I had left to turn to was myself, and my experiences, all unpleasant.
Luckily there’s enough other horror
going on in the world to keep my back catalogue nice and heavy for a long time
to come”
RPE
2005
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Topic: A Feast of Ffabbia
