|
''Fantasy Black Channel'' is the debut studio album by British dance-punk band Late of the Pier. It was released on 30 July 2008 in Japan through Toshiba EMI and on 4 August 2008 in the British Isles on Parlophone, the band's primary label. Five tracks had already been released as singles in the United Kingdom: "Bathroom Gurgle", "The Bears Are Coming", "Space and the Woods" and "Focker" as a double A-side, and "Heartbeat". The record peaked at number 28 on the UK Albums Chart, but failed to chart in the United States. The album was recorded in frontman Sam Eastgate's bedroom in Castle Donington, England, and at several locations in London. It went through a fractured creative process that lasted for more than two years. It was eventually produced by Eastgate and DJ Erol Alkan between 2007 and 2008. ''Fantasy Black Channel'' does not contain a unifying musical or lyrical theme; rather, it is a collage of all the ideas, genres, and studio effects that fascinated the band members and Alkan, especially during live recording sessions. The record was very well received by critics. It was often treated as one of the best British albums of 2008 because of its eclecticism and spirit of invention. == Origins and recording == Having officially formed a band under the name Late of the Pier in 2004, childhood friends Sam Eastgate, Andrew Faley, Sam Potter, and Ross Dawson initially developed the sound of their first album by listening to the alternative dance music of British ensemble The Prodigy and the grunge music of American band Nirvana. They soon branched out into listening to diverse genres from the last 40 years of music, including Motown and soul.〔〔 Potter has treated their conception of ''Fantasy Black Channel'' as a reaction to "mediocre, complacent indie-schmindie bands who find a sound and stick to it; whose songs sound exactly the same", while lead writer and composer Eastgate has pointed out that they wanted to "take people past their own limits". The nascent recording stages took place in Eastgate's bedroom, where unconventional time signatures and experimental chords were performed because, at the time, no band member could play an instrument properly.〔 Late of the Pier started using the album working title ''Interesting Adventure'' in 2006 after practising in Eastgate's bedroom for about a year and previewed their new material at the Liars Club in Nottingham.〔 〕 After receiving contract offers from Parlophone and Atlantic Records, the band members signed to Parlophone because the label gave them total autonomy over the recording process without pressuring them to be commercially successful immediately.〔 The record deal was followed by the recording of an EP titled ''Zarcorp Demo'', from which a demo single, "Space and the Woods", was released in March 2007.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Late Of The Pier: Space And The Woods )〕 Eastgate has claimed that the band members were influenced by the music of the 1980s during these formative stages of ''Fantasy Black Channel'' even though none of them were born before 1986. In late 2007, Late of the Pier formally met renowned DJ Erol Alkan after seeing him play a set at the Liars Club.〔 Alkan called them "THE most exciting band around" and offered the band members help in the recording process of ''Fantasy Black Channel''.〔 They accepted and made him producer for the album because of the immediate rapport that developed between the two parties.〔 Dawson has explained the choice of producer by suggesting that Alkan is famous for playing broad genres of music and that he understands the properties and crossover of dance and guitar music. Alkan fully embraced the band members' ideas and immediately understood what they were trying to achieve.〔 "Bathroom Gurgle" was recorded by the new collaboration and was released as a limited edition single in September 2007.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Late Of The Pier )〕 The production process for ''Fantasy Black Channel'' gathered pace around December 2007. Late of the Pier usually proceeded by taking bedroom recordings into the studio, where they were refined by Alkan into "a more presentable package".〔 They tried unconventional techniques in the style of avant garde producer Joe Meek during the live studio recording sessions, including stamping in baths and reamping guitars through air vents.〔 When tracks were mixed after being recorded, the band members, Alkan, and engineer Jimmy Robertson worked in tandem and unanimously decided when a track had finished undergoing the studio effects process.〔〔 No songs changed after this point, even when one of the parties had further ideas.〔 At the time, in an interview with the band, Stuart Turnbull of the BBC Collective indicated that Alkan managed to "channel Late of the Pier's sonic attack into something more focused yet still undeniably different".〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fantasy Black Channel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|