Fanfarlo sounds familiar. With all the press the band has received for its unassuming orchestral indie pop, the London-based quintet has permeated blogs and radio with its well-crafted songs ornate enough to catch your ear, but laid back enough to show you a good time.
But even if you haven’t heard the band’s name before, it’s easy to pick out sonic references: opening track “I’m A Pilot,” with its repetitive piano progression and crunchy drums, sounds like Cold War Kids doing a cover of the National. The second song, “Ghosts,” with strummed acoustic guitars and prominent trumpet recalls Neutral Milk Hotel at times, an apt comparison for a band that does such a flawless cover of “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.” Lead singer Simon Balthazar’s vocal performance is familiar too, recalling Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s Alec Ounsworth’s distinct singing — sometimes incomprehensible, but still strong enough to hold all the right notes.
While Fanfarlo isn’t the first band to bring those styles to indie rock, the amount of ground they cover is impressive. The first three songs alone utilize music boxes, full string sections, horns, synthesizers and tempo shifts. “Luna” begins as one of the punkier numbers, but its frantic pace is nowhere to be found four minutes later as the song’s dramatic build-up quickly cuts to just an acoustic guitar and a trumpet solo. “Comets” has some unclassifiable instruments, too. Before you can decide if you’re hearing creepy background vocals, a stringed instrument, or maybe a theremin, the song approaches New Pornographers territory with its male-female harmonies and spurts of power pop.
With all of this crammed into 11 songs in just over 40 minutes, it’s easy to picture the band dropping instruments and scrambling to pick new ones up while recording the album. And with the way “Comets” leads rights into “Fire Escape,” without iTunes to guide you, it’s possible to easily miss where one song ends and another begins.
The downside to Reservoir is that they cover all this ground a little too quickly. By the album’s halfway mark, the band has already shown off every quirky instrument and pulled enough tempo changes that little comes as a surprise. The songs could be just rearranged in any order and the album would feel the same. That’s not to say similarity sacrifices quality — it just means the most memorable songs will likely be the first ones you hear.
Despite the pros and cons of the cohesion, if you don’t pay close enough attention, you might miss some of the more dynamic and pleasing moments on the album. “Drowning Men,” with its hand-claps and throbbing baseline, is easily the album’s catchiest track and makes great use of the string sections. The song’s rhythm section is enough to carry the weight of the song, but violinist Cathy Lucas adds a moody color that proves Fanfarlo’s strings aren’t just a stage prop.
“Finish Line,” which starts like almost any other song the record, has a danceable but short-lived synth breakdown, while the delicate album closer “Good Morning Midnight,” a minute and a half of thoughtful guitar picking and ambient keyboards, melodically has the most staying power. With Reservoir, you’ll enjoy how it begins and how it ends — the rest will be a fond, if distant memory.
Interview with frontman Simon Balthazar
There’s a lot of mention in the press about all the different instruments featured on the album. Did you set out to be unconventional, or did those choices come naturally?
The way we arrange our songs is just something that comes natural, we’re just guided by what we feel the songs need. For our album we didn’t feel like using electric guitars much, but instead we used [a lot of] musical saw, clarinet and mandolin, as well as toy pianos, trash cans and a bunch of vintage organs.
There are parts on the record where it seems like a lot is going on in terms of all the instruments. Is it easy to reproduce the record live, or do you find you have to scale the show down with only five people in the band?
We don’t necessarily set out to copy what we did on the record, but we’ve kept a lot of the arrangements for live use, which means carting around a lot of instruments and swapping mid-song.
After being on tour with Snow Patrol, you’re starting to tour in the U.S. in support of the album. Is there a different mindset that comes with being your own headliner?
We’ve spent a fair amount of time on the road doing our own shows, so the massive arena shows with Snow Patrol were more the exception. We really prefer playing smaller shows where you can actually connect with people. The current tour we’re on is certainly different from our recent tour of big cities though. This time we’re driving through loads of small towns, which is going to be really interesting hopefully.
Your website features all sorts of acoustic covers in what you call “Laptop Sessions.” Is this an important creative outlet for the band?
It’s more a document of us hanging out, playing around, covering songs we like. So it’s almost a social thing, but yes, there is an interesting creative element to playing other people’s songs, you find new perspectives on music. It’s the most obvious, basic way of expanding what you do and how most people first learn how to make music.
A lot of the videos feature the band playing in all sorts of random locations outside. What’s the weirdest place you’ve played?
Years ago we played on this cross between a monument and a stage, this big monstrous thing looked like a big fuchsia and was sat in a square. A friend asked us to play and we were short on cash so we did it. It was a lunch time and very strange.
You guys keep a pretty extensive tour diary. As a band that’s just breaking through, do you find that you’re documenting more for yourself and the band or for new fans?
A bit of both. We were pretty good at keeping a video diary not so long ago and it was really cool to revisit stuff we sometimes didn’t even realize had been filmed.
You posted pictures of when security tried to stop you from playing outside at Glasgow University. What’s the craziest thing to happen to you on tour?
I can tell you, but I’d have to kill you.
Reservoir was for sale for $1 on your website for the first part of the year. Did Radiohead’s pay-what-you want approach to In Rainbows pave the way for this, or was it something you had been planning all along?
It was just something we did for the hell of it. I guess also we were thinking — hey, this is how much we’d make per record anyway if were signed to a major!
You’ve self-released music in the past, but Reservoir now has the support of Canvasback Music and Atlantic Records. Was there a particular point where you realized a label would be helpful?
They were just really keen and could offer us the means to go out touring properly so it made sense. It was definitely a good thing for us to stay independent for a long time though.
There are more and more bands starting to self-release music. Do you think that’s where indie music is headed? To not just be on an independent label but to have no label at all?
I’ve definitely seen this trend for a while now. In the same it’s getting easier for people to record records without spending a ton of money, it’s getting easier to get the music out there and do your own thing without needing the stamp of approval from the industry. At the end of the day it’s good for music and creativity in some ways, but it also means it’s harder to make a living as a musician because you have to take more risks.