The Yummy Fur’s first album of new material in over 25 years is seductive and ambiguous; a fast-paced flip through scenes from art, myth, life and fantasy; a witty whole made from glittering scraps. The band’s original incarnation — fronted by singer, songwriter and guitarist John McKeown from 1992 to 1999 — morphed from making quick-hit cartoon-art songs to Eno and John Cale-influenced creepers, populated by characters from McKeown’s life in Glasgow and the films, books and poetry that he lived a parallel life through.
Yummy Fur’s brand new single ‘Wanda’ is out now A miniature portrait study, the song folds together the life of filmmaker Barbara Loden with the protagonist of her singular 1970 feature ‘Wanda’ – a meditation on identity, dislocation and escape.
The accompanying film, shot in part on Super 8 by Roberta Cumbianchera, stars fellow Argentinian actress Daniela Aita. Drifting between Hollywood Boulevard and the faded fairgrounds of Raymond Chandler’s Santa Monica, its luminous imagery mirrors the song’s spectral pull.
“Everybody Talks About The Weather” delights in using every past iteration of the band as potent collage material: a melee of sounds and ideas existing at once, revealing themselves then dipping back into hiding.
Their upbeat single ‘Headphones’. A jogger’s delight of a song musing on life’s reckonings, Carrie Fisher and tinnitus – all written outside a tanning salon in Ayr! In short… The Yummy Fur at their most spry and disarming, classic territory.
“Everybody Talks About The Weather” is seductive, ambiguous and exhilarating; a fast-paced flip through scenes from art, myth, life and fantasy; a witty whole made from glittering scraps. “Everybody Talks About The Weather” boasts ten tracks as condensed and vital as their best work, with a new clarity of sound that ushers ambiguities to come into the light.
The bands first single ‘Unity Over Europe’, a bruising stomp of song, lyrically playing host to three Mitford sisters amidst allusions to V2 rockets, Pynchon and a Bacon triptych. All this could be laboured in lesser hands, but cultural verbosity is second nature to The Yummy Fur, who transform all this source material into songs that are weird, sexy, funny and absurd. Meaning is not happily understood or flattened.
The Yummy Fur’s new album ‘Everybody Talks About the Weather’, out September 24th on Upset The Rhythm.
The Fat Angel Sings 