The Fall - Bend Sinister POLL

Tough choice, gonna have to think about this. (Saw this tour in Atlanta, of all places. Good show.)

"Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers" is goth. I know people will want to argue with me about this, but you're not getting anywhere with me. That is goth.

If we were talking about the CD version with 'Living Too Late', I'd vote for that. As things stand here, 'Bournemouth Runner'.

Bimble, I'd never attempt to argue anything goth with you.

This has always been a favourite of mine - so much better than the wonderful and frightening world of, in my view. Am gonna go with R.O.D. but Gross chapel a close second. Hide! Hide!

Riddler!

Caught them on this tour twice around this album and it's a favourite Fall period of mine.

Much of this record is pretty goth. Voted U.S. 80s-90s.<p>My first Fall album, purchased at Woolworths in Basildon for £2.99 in 1989. <p>"Doctor Faustus, horseshoes splacking, swallows hay cart, cart horse, of the peasants blocking his path."<p>Music was never the same after that day.

Shoulder Pads!

My first too, also purchased in '89, after the suggestion it was a good place to start. Only on the middle of my list for Fall albums. 80-90s is the one that really got me into the MES aesthetic of tangentially topical sprechgesang.

'couldn't tell lou reed from doug yule'

this is maybe my 15th-place Fall album, not even top ten, still very good.

between Dktr Faustus and US 80s-90s for me, voted US.

'couldn't tell lou reed from doug yule'

I know, god, this is like my fave Fall lyric ever.

REALM OF DUSK

only smith could link the shoulder pad madness of the age with mephistopheles

God "Riddler" is so scary isn't it? Goodness I haven't heard this stuff in years. It's like it's almost new to me. Here's another one off this album I'd dare call "goth".

Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers. The sinister half heard tale accompanied by the spidery, interweaving guitars and finishing off with one of the more obscure verses from The British Grenadiers is just wonderful. So atmospheric without being self-consciously spooky. Wonderful

I do love the way he goes ZOOOOOOOM on Riddler! though. And Dktr Faustus is a stomping jangling medieval woodcut masterpiece. The session version of R.O.D. is wondrous too.

But yeah, GC - BG

agree w bimble: one of the best best best of all possible fall records. v hard to pick a winner. "shoulder pads" probably has the best lyrics, but i love the doomy sound of "GC-BG" and "US80s90s".

also, song order for US version was completely different, AND "bournmouth runner" was cut in favor of single trax "there's a ghost in my house" and "hey! luciani", both of which are at least as good as anything on the UK LP. i vote for ghost.

that US version released as Bend Sinister: the "Domesday Pay-Off" Triad-Plus!". other favorites: grotesque, wonderful & frightening world, witch trials, frenz experiment, kurious oranj, infotainment scan, real new fall...

Is it "Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers" where they leave in the mistake (I think the bass comes in at the wrong time)?

I ...

... well that's that cleared up then

I have heard this about the mistake, although, frankly I've never really noticed it. The session version is probably preferable overall, but the album version still stalks the land like a nightmare colossus. imho.

Session version is better. First side of this album is fantastic, last 4 tracks let it down somewhat.

Agreed, I'm not so keen on side 2, except for shoulder pads 2

gross chapel, one of my top ten fall songs ever. and yeah, the mistake is in there - bass or gtr player is off a beat during an entire progression then corrects. i like the effect, actually. it's a long song and the variation is nice

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Can somebody remind me again, which is that Fall song where they leave out all the mistakes? Thank you very much.

HAHAHAAHAHAH exactly

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Damnit! I knew Mr. Pharmacist would win! Come on, we couldn't have got two more votes so US 80's 90's could have won?

That was a mistake? I assumed it was done on purpose.

am beginning to suspect that Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers may not just be one of my favourite Fall songs but also one of the greatest songs ever written by man

it is elementary, precious, astonishing and complete

and I think it took the Peel Session to push me over the edge - although it's not my favourite Peel Session track, the three songs ahead of it aren't so much songs as acts of nature - GCBG was *written* and performed as a definite thing - it didn't come together by alchemy, chance or sheer prophetic will, it was DRAWN UP. it was plotted. it is controlled, it is not chaos. its mastery is of form.

I know you were saying that.

My response is more "Really?"...

Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers may not just be one of my favourite Fall songs but also one of the greatest songs ever written by man

this is v real talk

GCBG seems to have a strong following hereabouts. baffles me a little, but just a little. off bend sinister, i'm at least as fond of u.s. 80's-90's, dktr. faustus, riddler! & r.o.d.

Bend Sinister is definitely in my Fall top 5 - it's a fabulous, overlooked record. All of the songs you just mentioned (especially the Peel Session versions of the ones that have them) are brilliant, and the go-to tracks on that album for me. Riddler! is especially underrated (not least on this poll) although how Dktr Faustus got 0 is beyond me too

should really did up those peel sessions. the fall are well named, in that their discography is this seemingly endless well down which one could simply vanish forever.

plus, mortified, i retract what i said earlier about the cuts added to & subtracted from the u.s. version (retitled "domesday pay-off"). my affection for it was an obsolete artifact of youth. the proper u.k. release is far superior. though it's nice to have hey! luciani included, there's a ghost in my house and haf found bormann hardly make up for the omission of auto-tech pilot, living too late, bournemouth runner (!) and dktr. faustus (!!!). fucking americans...

"Domesday" pay-off is a trilogy comprising the "Hey Luciani!" single, Bend Sinister and summat else I can't remember. Tied round some Michael Clark darrrrnce stuff iirc.

And yah all the tracks you named are thoroughly dope but Mark's head nodding into his chest and mumbling circular mania a la "Gross Chapel" is a favourite Fall trope for lots of peeps I think. See also "Mark S will S Us" whatever that was b-sided to.

Mark'll Sink Us

This is not about Mark E Smith...

from memory I kinda feel like the lyrics were about Mark E. despite the titular nod to our own boy

It's about Marks everywhere...

Not Mark Sinker then?

Assumed it was a pun on Marcinkus + own name, like Marquis Cha Cha.

Yeah, what NV said.

Marcinkus! Right!

Oh man I didn't know about that guy and bearing in mind the overall theme of the whole "Domesday Pay-Off" malarkey that makes total sense.

This was also the whole time when they were doing the Vatican conspiracy play Hey! Luciani at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, in which Marcinkus was a character, I think.

implicated in JP I's "murder" alongside yr "Polish son of hell" yes

He would definitely have been a character in that!

Incidentally can we get an SB on the 8 rubes who voted for "Mr Pharmacist"?

0 votes for "Dktr. Faustus"? Y' what??!?!?!

Poll is all kinds of fucked up yes

Bimble otm re: goth tho

Is there any footage or such of Hey! Luciani knocking about? Or a complete I am Curious, Orange?

(Must have missed this poll, wld have been a vote for Faustus. 0=shocking. Tho' sometimes I do have R.O.D. days)

To be fair I didn't vote for "Faustus" but this is why polls = stupid because god knows you'd drop "Pharmacist" a billion times from this album before you'd touch the good Dktr.

I like "Terry Waite Sez" and "Shoulder Pads" too

You are not alone in having ROD days. Faustus v Gross Chapel for me.

Periodically look for footage, not any that I'm aware of (of either). Colleague of mine went to it, but is unable to supply the fine detail I so desperately need.

Script is knocking around, v brief excerpts from HL on The Post Nearly Man.

I was never mad keen on US 80s/90s - probably because I rarely spun side 2 - till I heard the Peel session. Then I understood....

Bend Sinister is definitely in my Fall top 5 - it's a fabulous, overlooked record. All of the songs you just mentioned (especially the Peel Session versions of the ones that have them) are brilliant, and the go-to tracks on that album for me. Riddler! is especially underrated (not least on this poll) although how Dktr Faustus got 0 is beyond me too

― Mark Ronson: "Led Zeppelin were responsible for hip-hop" (acoleuthic), Wednesday, June 9, 2010 9:16 AM (3 hours ago)

I would be really interested to see which other albums would make up your top 5. In The Unutterable Poll you said that would probably be in your top 5 and that you really rate a lot of the later albums. Bend Sinister is easily my favourite early Fall album, I'm thinking we might have a similar list.

I would have voted for R.O.D if I had seen the poll at the time, it's possibly my favourite opening track they've done.

Actually completely forgot about The Classical, R.O.D would be a close second.

it goes thus

The Unutterable
Levitate
Perverted By Language
Hex Enduction Hour
Bend Sinister
Your Future Our Clutter
The Marshall Suite
Country On The Click

and I'm not going to commit beyond there. Need to hear the early albums more.

I never really got into The Marshall Suite but yeah a great list, The Unutterable and Levitate are crazy underrated.

1.The Real New Fall LP
2.The Unutterable
3.Bend sinister
4.The Wonderful & Frightening World of...
5.Hex Enduction Hour
6.This Nation's Saving Grace
7.Your Future Our Clutter
8.Levitate
9.Slates
10.Imperial Wax Solvent

Or something like that for me.

IWS and TNSG are probably next on my list, if I work it out that far, tbh

Dragnet
Slates
Hex Enduction Hour
Country on the Click
Unutterable
Perverted by Language
Imperial Wax Solvent
Levitate
This Nation's Saving Grace
Room to Live
Your Future Our Clutter
The Wonderful and Frightening World of...
Are You Are Missing Winner

I haven't heard Bend Sinister all the way through yet :(

put Grotesque between Room to Live and YFOC...

Good lists, all. Only big thing that's on my list, and missing from all of yours, would be Extricate. There is a special place in my heart for Extricate.

Gotta say, I'd chuck Bournemouth Runner and Riddler and it'd be just about perfect. Frenz shares some of the dark shadings found here and is almost as consistently good.

Riddler is really, really great though!

This is one of their best albums, mind - I *way* prefer it to TNSG

Single-greatest disparity between quality of album cover and the music within. It's just an absolutely dead record.

I think your copy contained the wrong LP as there's nothing "dead" about it. Dark, indeed, but very much living...

teto no disrespect

Alright, then let's at least discuss why you find it "absolutely dead".

BANANA!

Fruits exotic pleasure licious

Still holding out hope that this gets the Omnibus treatment like the previous two.

It isn't one of the albums in the '5 Albums' box, so its possible but you'd think they'd have done it by now.

I belive it was mentioned as forthcoming in a Beggars Arkive email roundup at tte start of the year - saw mention of it on the Fall forum.

It's a fucking great record, definitely one of their very best for me. I wish that MES and Leckie hadn't completely fallen out as the friction of their different approaches resulted in some great work.

The story of MES wanting to master the LP off a cassette makes me chuckle - I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when that was suggested to Leckie.

I wish that MES and Leckie hadn't completely fallen out as the friction of their different approaches resulted in some great work.

Well put and very otm.

There's something just not quite there on an audiophysical level about frenz and kurious and I think some of it is down to no leckie. Those two records, I want to feel them but it's like there's plexiglas between me and the sound

More like the songs aren't as good tbh.

True of oranj but not of frenz imo

Frenz is one of the Fall albums I return to the most. I like the clean, open sound with all the weird stuff (er, MES) wandering around inside — I think the hollowness in this case is a kind of virtue. Kurious on the other hand often doesn't sound like The Fall; it feels in service to the ballet it was written for, the only time the band ever really did something like that. Despite a few great songs it seems sort of inert.

"Frenz" is a great record but inevitably suffers coming after 3 absolute classic Fall records. It's a 9/10 instead of a 10/10 but is treated much worse because of the comedown.

The production got better on Frenz in my opinion. Bigger, more open space. And I don't think the songwriting is worse than Bend Sinister at all.

Also a big fan of the production on Extricate.

Extricate production is v interesting -- it's the album where almost every song has an obbligato instrument from outside the band

Well maybe not almost every song but there's a lot of it

The story of MES wanting to master the LP off a cassette makes me chuckle

One of my favorite stories in Hanley's book is when Simon Rogers shows up with a sampler, and it's like this brilliant machine from the future and everyone's mind is blown at the new musically possibilities, and then MES is like "OK, we're going to sample me whistling," which they used for the keyboard part on "Shoulder Pads".

it was a good idea tho

Anyway, how come 'Dktr. Faustus' end up with no votes!?

Yeah that's kind of the pop hit of the album for me

This album is SO Halloween

(and so genuinely great)

My first Fall album, purchased from Woolworths around this time in 1989. It was on sale for £2.99 and there were two other guys in line ahead of me who were buying it as well. Definitely more spookiness (but also a bit less humor) than other Fall records -- it fit in with the other goth-y stuff I was listening to back then.