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Future of the Left

 
Artist: Future of the Left
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Pop Artists

Group Members:

Jack Eggleston, Kelson Mathias, Andrew Falkous

Similar Artists:

Shooting at Unarmed Men, Pissed Jeans, Threatmantics, Double Dagger, Giddy Motors, Les Savy Fav, Jarcrew

Influenced By:

The Jesus Lizard, Hot Snakes, Fugazi, Therapy?, Faith No More, Les Savy Fav, Girls Against Boys, Pere Ubu, Pixies, Shellac, Nirvana

Formal Connection With:

Mclusky
  • Formed: 2006, Cardiff, South Glamorgan, Wales
  • Genres: Rock
  • Representative Albums: "Travels with Myself and Another", "Curses", "Last Night I Saved Her from Vampires

Biography

Scrappy Welsh noise rock trio Mclusky was one of the bright spots in the British indie scene's post-Brit-pop hangover, releasing three appealingly noisy albums, 2000's My Pain and Sadness Is More Sad and Painful Than Yours, 2002's Mclusky Do Dallas, and 2005's The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire, before an acrimonious split in 2005, apparently due to intra-band tensions due to an incident on the trio's 2004 American tour where the band's van and equipment were stolen. During the same period, Welsh electro-punks Jarcrew released two albums, 2002's Breakdance Euphoria Kids and 2003's Jarcrew, before also splitting in early 2005, reportedly due to the drummer finding religion. While Mclusky bassist Jon Chapple went off to form Shooting at Unarmed Men, the trio's remaining members, singer and guitarist Andrew Falkous and drummer Jack Egglestone, hooked up with Jarcrew singer and keyboardist Kelson Mathias and bassist Hywel Evans to form a new fusion of the two bands.

Evans quickly left to start his own group, with Mathias moving over to bass, and after experimenting with a variety of tongue-in-cheek names, the remaining trio debuted as Future of the Left in the fall of 2006. Remaining with Mclusky's label, Too Pure Records, Future of the Left made their recorded bow with a double A-sided single, "Fingers Become Thumbs" and "The Lord Hates a Coward," in January 2007. Two more singles, "A Dead Enemy Always Smells Good" and "Small Bones Small Bodies," followed in May and September. Future of the Left's debut album, Curses, was released in the fall of 2007. A live album, 2008's Last Night I Saved Her from Vampires, became the band's 4AD debut; early the following year, the single "The Hope That House Built" signaled Future of the Left's heavier attack on their second album, Travels with Myself and Another, which arrived in summer 2009. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
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Wikipedia: Future of the Left
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Future of the Left
Origin Cardiff, Wales
Genres Alternative rock
Years active 2005 – present
Labels 4AD
Associated acts mclusky, Jarcrew, Truckers of Husk
Website Official website
Members
Andy "Falco" Falkous
Kelson Mathias
Jack Egglestone

Future of the Left is an alternative rock group based in Cardiff, Wales.

Contents

Members

Future of the Left consists of singer/guitarist Andy "Falco" Falkous and drummer Jack Egglestone, both previously of Cardiff band mclusky, alongside singer/bassist Kelson Mathias, formerly of the Ammanford-based group Jarcrew. The band previously featured Hywel Evans, who has since gone on to start one of Cardiff's only notable math rock bands, Truckers of Husk - he was also a former member of Jarcrew towards the end of Jarcrew's tenure (Evans is also credited as a writer on Fingers Become Thumbs' B-side, The Fibre Provider). The band formed in mid-2005 after both Mclusky and Jarcrew split up within two months of each other at the beginning of the year - this was due to tensions within both bands. The band were signed to Too Pure who had also signed Mclusky, however the umbrella company Beggars Group disbanded Too Pure transferring the band to 4AD; most famous for signing the Pixies in the mid eighties.

First performance

Future of the Left played their first concert at Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff on the 2nd of July 2006. They used the alias the Mooks of Passim to avoid the concert being attended by large numbers of expectant mclusky and Jarcrew fans. Further secret gigs occurred with the band using aliases such as Guerilla Press and Dead Redneck. The first official headline show (and the first show the band played under the name Future of the Left) was played in Camden Barfly to a capacity crowd on September 1, 2006 (it was also the only show of the tour - which hit Southampton, Bath, Brighton and the band's hometown of Cardiff - to sell out; the Cardiff show was inexplicably ill-attended, possibly why Andrew Falkous later went on to call it "[their] worst show so far" in a MySpace blog entry).

Singles

The band released their debut single, the double A-side "Fingers Become Thumbs/The Lord Hates A Coward" (along with B-side The Fibre Provider) on 7" vinyl on 29 January 2007 in extremely limited quantities. A Too Pure newsletter sent out in March announced that the Future of the Left live set-closer "adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood..." would feature on a split 7" alongside Fierce Panda Records' Winnebago Deal on May 10. However, Falco stated that it would only happen "over [his] dead body". [1] The song was released as a 7" single on June 4 2007, however it was not split with Winnebago Deal, or anyone for that matter; the B-side was a BBC Radio Wales session track entitled "March Of The Coupon Saints". On September 10, the band released Small Bones Small Bodies as a single on 7" vinyl (with The Big Wide O - a former MySpace demo - and I Need To Know How To Kill A Cat as B-sides).

Debut album

Their debut album, Curses, was released on September 24, 2007 in the UK and October 1 in Japan. A surprise to some fans of Jarcrew and mclusky was the band's occasional move towards songs with a synthesizer, namely a Roland Juno-60, in favour of Falco's guitar - this has been met with mixed reactions both live and on record, but reviews[2] and discussions on the band's messageboard have, on the whole, been extremely positive (including some lucrative - and favourable - coverage from the NME, who have been surprisingly complimentary about the group when considering their apathy towards the members' prior groups). On August 8 2007, Too Pure released a podcast of Falco discussing Curses - as well as his opinion on a number of other topics - with Radio Wales DJ Huw Stevens.[3]

After Curses and Travels With Myself And Another

Falkous revealed in an early 2008 online blog entry that work had commenced on the second album - new material began to creep into the band's live performances, including a number of songs that feature distinctively more ambitious use of Falkous' synthesizer. The band's bolstered profile with the NME led to the group being invited onto the bill of the NME Awards tour, supporting Les Savy Fav at London Astoria.

On April 8 2008, their fourth single "Manchasm" was released (with album track "Suddenly It's A Folk Song" and new recording "Sum Of All Parts" as B-sides), receiving a single of the week recommendation from the NME. The band toured extensively during 2008, and even surprised audiences in Australia with a cover of signature mclusky track Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues - the performance was recorded and a video appeared on YouTube shortly afterwards[1]. They appeared at the Reading and Leeds Festivals on the NME/BBC Radio 1 stage on Friday 22nd and Saturday 23rd of August. The band then toured in the United States with Against Me! and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists till the end of October 2008.

On the 21st November 2008, Future Of The Left cancelled the remainder of their tour of the UK, China and Australia to concentrate on recording the new album. In a statement the band said,

We have been unable to write the second record and we are increasingly aware of the need to do so. We want to get it out before summer so we can spend next year playing it to people. It is against everything the band stands for to pull shows, or anything that we have already committed to doing, and we apologise to everyone who had bought a ticket or was going to come along. We will be back as soon as we can next year and we promise to make it worth the wait.[2]

They released their second album Travels with Myself and Another on 22 June 2009. However, the album was leaked a month before onto the internet, singer Falkous mentioned his anger at this in a series of blogs [3]. Regardless the album received critical acclaim from reviewers, gaining 9/10 from Drowned in Sound[4] and 8/10 from Pitchfork Media[5]. The band are currently touring various dates in the United Kingdom and America to publicise the album.

There has been no word of what the next single will be from the album, however Falkous has mentioned in an interview with planet sound that the b-side will be "the bad guys song" from the film Bugsy Malone[6].

Discography

Albums

Live Albums

Singles

Compilations

  • "Small Bones Small Bodies" - 2000 Trees - Cider Smiles Vol.1" , (Hide & Seek Records, June 2008)

References

  1. ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHZxDJKfXcA
  2. ^ NME.com http://www.nme.com/news/future-of-the-left/41208
  3. ^ http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=62653487&blogId=485944356
  4. ^ http://drownedinsound.com/releases/14435/reviews/4137028-
  5. ^ http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13115-travels-with-myself-and-another/
  6. ^ http://www.teletext.co.uk/planetsound/news/f6447b180b25433e674fffa722cdba55/Bugsy+of+the+left.aspx

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

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