Another new act arrives from the misty world of Irish bands, FAWS is the name and that’s about as much detail I can give you as their simply isn’t any, anywhere. But Goldenplec got a hold of FAWS first EP, Antonym, and we liked it.
The first track on the EP is called Take Notice, and it’s what I’d like to believe is played in a waiting room at a classy brothel, if such a thing exists. It’s a very distant and upbeat piece of music with a drum and piano overlapping each other, then the finger clicking starts and a woman’s voice comes into the mix. But obviously the whole thing was put together on a laptop! It’s my favourite song on Antonym and it really sets the bar for what’s to come.
Moving swiftly on to the second of the five songs on the EP we have Camille. Avid listeners of the Dan Hegarty show on RTE’s 2fm might have heard this song recently, and that isn’t bad in only the EPs second week. I don’t believe it was newbie hour on 2fm, big hitters like Interpol and Bowie also hit the airwaves that same hour. It’s a very simple piece of music, but it has an edge to it.
Paper Jam is the third track on the EP and if I had to use one word to sum it up that word would be brilliant. The song is based around a child calling her mother over and over again and leaving messages asking her to call back. Then you have a bongo drum keeping everything in order with a synth putting out haunting music to tie it all together. Yes, it sounds weird, but weird can be good, and in Paper Jam it’s great.
By the time you get to Worries, the forth song, you have an idea of what FAWS are all about; giving an alternative view to electro music. And this is displayed again in Worries. A simple string plucking and snare are all you get musically, but they’re played over some more finger clicking and some very strange Tom Waits quotes, in which he repeats the words “I don’t worry about achievement, I worry primarily about whether or not there are nightclubs in heaven.” I know, strange!
Then, after nearly 20 minutes of interesting music you come to the fifth and final song – Empty Bottles. If you haven’t liked the first four songs and are hoping this will be something different then you’ll be left disappointed. The ticking of a clock and a creaky floorboard are the bones of the song, that along with some muted lyrics and a base drum and you basically have the entire song.
It’s very difficult to write about FAWS songs. They aren’t what you or I would call normal, but that’s what makes them so good. You can hear the EP on the FAWS Bandcamp page, and I would recommend it to anyone with even a vague interest in electro music.