Fall Monday Playlist #09 - The 3 Rs

 Fall Monday Playlist #09 - The 3 Rs

We dig repetition

Repetition on the drums

and we're never going to lose it.

This is the three Rs

The three Rs:

Repetition, Repetition, Repetition

Although 'Repetition' (from 1978's Bingo-Master's Break-Out!) felt like a statement of intent, it wasn't actually a particularly repetitious song. Throughout their career, however, The Fall frequently used repetition as a strategy. Here are ten of the most notable examples...

The nature of the selections means that this is the lengthiest playlist yet, so you'll need to set more than an hour aside to do it justice. 

The Spotify list is here; the YouTube version is here.

Reformation

It's easy to see how this became one of the few Fall songs to be played live over a hundred times. Its simplistic structure frees the group to lock onto the mammoth groove and leave Smith to contribute as, when and how he sees fit. There actually is a Falls Motel in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, the state that produces a quarter of the cheese consumed in the US.

I've Seen Them Come

After 20 seconds of what sounds like Melling settling himself down for a soundcheck, ‘I've Seen Them Come’ locks onto a brutal, simplistic three-chord motif and doesn't let go for six minutes. 

Auto Chip 2014-2016

‘Auto-Chip’ is frequently cited as Sub-Lingual Tablet's highlight. Michael Hann described it as 'a tide washing up on the same beach over and over and over again. It’s magnificent.' Stuart Berman thought that its '10 exhilarating minutes' saw the group 'for once, casting out with a clear destination in sight, gradually applying pedal pressure on a sun-bound motorik rhythm until it achieves lift-off'. There's an extravagantly long (19 minute) version here.

Slates, Slags etc.

‘Here’s the definitive rant.’

Bremen Nacht Alternative

A pugnacious, unforgiving slab of oompah-krautrock, Simon Wolstencroft described it as ‘always great to play live – you’d see some of the crowd almost going into a trance’.

C'n'C-S Mithering

Smith never captured his irritation with life in general better than with the expression ‘the things that drain you off and drive you off the hinge’. In addition, the repeated refrain of ‘see ya mate; yeah, see ya mate’ is one of the most fondly-regarded moments of humour in the Fall canon. 

Fortress/Deer Park

Like ‘The Classical’, 'Fortress/Deer Park' was recorded on the Regal’s stage with the two drummers facing each other, but on this occasion Burns and Paul Hanley go for enhanced power rather than contrasting complexity. This gives the song a remarkable potency (‘Karl and I not only spurred each other to greater heights, but the rest of the group were similarly galvanised by the thumping groove behind them’) which results in perhaps the best example of the group capturing the very essence of the ‘3 Rs’. The song that I was in the middle of reviewing for the Fall in Fives blog on the night that the death of MES was announced.

Youwanner

A heads-down no-nonsense guitar assault that Alexis Petridis described as ‘a riff that could strip paint’. It charges along with savage force, threatening occasionally to break into a chorus of some description, but always resisting the temptation. 

Age Of Chang

Uncompromising and bloody-minded; the language has a strange elegance: 'into the flower duct, into the lowlands, the flower drum awaits'; 'contractual land and laptop survey, a dam of vast proportions'.

And This Day

The very definition of 'repetition, repetition, repetition'. Utterly apocalyptic. More than ever, Smith appears to be venting his frustration in a myriad of random, unrelated directions: ‘no matter what and never who fills baskets or who's just there’; ‘the surroundings are screaming on the roads’; ‘the body's like a US football player's / blades make presence felt / worked three weeks nearly full solid’. The final song to be reviewed on the Fall in Fives blog (and what a set of five that was!)

The next playlist will be 'We Are The Fall'.

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