Although British band Fanfarlo is named after an autobiographical
novella by French writer Charles Baudelaire, all that Fanfarlo’s music
really has in common with the 19th-century French symbolist are a love
of language and a heightened sense of form.
Fanfarlo’s lyrics may be poetic, obtuse and fanciful, but the focus
is less on thematic lyrical content than on a certain musical approach,
explained lead singer Simon Balthazar.
“I definitely had a vision of what I wanted to do,” explained
Balthazar, who started the band in 2006 after he moved from Sweden to
London. “It’s just about an approach to how you put together your songs
and how you perform them. It’s hard to explain in words. We really like
to arrange our songs in a particular way; it’s quite orchestrated, and
we like to play around a lot with instrumentation.”
Fanfarlo’s music is often described as being bookish and literary,
but what’s more interesting about Fanfarlo is their expert use of
acoustic instruments to create deeply textured and layered songs. Take,
for example, “I’m a Pilot,” the first song on Fanfarlo’s debut album,
Reservoir: What sounds like a delicious combination of kick
drum, tambourine, hand claps and foot stomps form the percussive
backbone of the song. Piano and bass enter with Balthazar’s voice, and
the chorus builds with strings and glockenspiel. All the while, that
blend of drums, tambourines, hands and feet rocks steady.
“We didn’t want to be just a guitar band with a traditional lineup,”
said Balthazar. But, he added, “There are a lot of bands that use
‘unconventional’ instruments, and I think it’s important for us that
it’s not, like, a gimmicky thing. We just love using acoustic
instruments in a sort of way that makes sense, and we explore that a
lot.”
One of the best explorations of acoustic instruments is on “Luna,”
where at the end, the guitars, ’80s-pop drums and strings give way to a
melodica, which is joined by a saw, and then horns. Sure, the guitar
and drums are still present in the background, but the instruments
telling the most interesting story are front and center.
This happens continuously on Reservoir, a fact noted by
New York Times music critic Jon Caramanica: The instrument with
the most appropriate narrative voice tells the story through a melody
that pops in and out of the song. On “These Walls Are Coming Down”
(inspired by the story of a Benedictine monk, Pellegrino Maria Ernetti,
who claimed to have invented a time machine), it’s a trumpet; on
“Harold T. Wilkins, Or How to Wait for a Very Long Time” (which pays
homage to a British journalist who became obsessed with flying saucers
in the 1950s), it’s an acoustic guitar blended with a mandolin.
Understandably, the members of Fanfarlo are big fans of recording,
where they can experiment with different combinations of sounds and
different instruments. If they decide a certain instrument is needed,
one or more of the band members will learn to play that instrument.
This love of the recording process is evident on Reservoir, but,
explained Balthazar, Fanfarlo also loves touring.
“We really love both recording and touring, but they’re two very,
very different things. It’s almost like two different bands, in a way;
I mean, not in terms of how we sound, but just in terms of what it is
we’re dealing with,” he said. “When you record, it’s that real
enormous, introspective, abstract process, in a way. It’s guided by
music and emotion, but it’s like a real kind of exploring thing, and
that’s where you start learning, playing your instruments, and you
learn about different recording techniques or different vintage
keyboards, different ways of making sounds … whereas touring is so
much more about meeting people and connecting with people. It’s much
more about adding a theatrical element to what we do.”
On the Web, there are endless videos of Fanfarlo playing songs
(including several covers) in outdoor gazebos, backyards, alleys and
living room after living room. They arrange themselves around one
microphone, which picks up each instrument and voice in a near-perfect
mix.
“We get together in a living room a lot and just kind of set things
up and play around and do different versions of songs—we’ll just
pick up an instrument that we found or borrowed or whatever,” explained
Balthazar. “We like that stuff, like setting up our stuff in different
spaces and hanging out and playing music together—it’s like a
video diary.”
Even at their most stripped-down, the songs are unmistakably
Fanfarlo: Violinist Cathy Lucas sings backup and plays a variety of
instruments, as do the other band members. Live, the songs are less
orchestrated, but definitely multilayered and interesting.
“We don’t try to replicate what we’ve done on the record, but we try
to do an interesting version of that, and it does involve a lot of
swapping instruments midsong, and we have a lot of pieces to our songs
at any point,” said Balthazar. “But it’s fun; we like to challenge
ourselves like that.”
Balthazar admitted that with so many people and instruments, touring
isn’t exactly easy.
“With six people involved, it’s not the biggest band ever, but it’s
definitely enough to make it a lot of people, and we have a lot of
instruments as well to cart around,” he said. “We have so many little
bits and pieces that there’s constantly something getting lost.
Acoustic instruments are inherently just harder to work with.”
But the alchemy of Fanfarlo lies in confronting these challenges,
and finding beautiful solutions.
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2, 2009.
