The Fall – “Your Future Our Clutter”

Description

The late, great Mark E. Smith had an uncanny ability to make killer Fall records decade after decade, even as bandmates came and went. Perfectly balancing the menace and merriment of classic Fall, this 2010 album introduced wonderfully weird new originals, referenced earlier glories and even brought us a Wanda Jackson cover (“Funnel of Love”), which joins “O.F.Y.C. Showcase,” “Cowboy George,” “Chino,” “Weather Report 2” and more. This late-period gem full of thumping beats, fuzzed-out guitar-synth battles and Smith vocal rampages. . It’s hard not to associate the lyrics with Smith’s recent spell of wheelchair bound incapacitation: ‘I watched Murder She Wrote, at least five times / The cast deserved to die.’ In the unlikely event that Smith was after any sympathy, it would be for having to put up with daytime TV and nothing else. Slowly mutating into a dark electronic pulse, the sound is stately and eerie, echoing Smith’s observation that ‘The whirlpools grow wider and wider’. As the pulses start to quicken and blow fuses, Smith leans in close to the microphone and delivers a whispered coda: ‘You don’t deserve rock ‘n’ roll’