The Fall - The Frenz Experiment

One of my favorite Fall records. Weird seeing it listed with all the extra tracks, though. The Frenz Experiment I know is tracks one through ten on this list and adding the other tracks gives it a different feel as an album.

A toss-up for me between "Carry Bag Man" and "Athlete Cured," both of which are classic Fall grooves and super well written and executed.

I am terrified of this album because of Bremen Nacht Alternative. Once lodged in my brain, there is no telling how many weeks it will stick there, incessantly playing its diseased, unstoppable hook. When I think it has finally gone, iI will hear it tooting quietly in the back of my head, only to rise up again at eye-gouging volume. I dare you to listen to it right now!

"Frenz" or "In These Times", haven't decided. Singles are good, but most of it plays like Perverted strangled by bad 80s production tropes.

Steak Place is one of my favorite MES lyrics- draws such a scene, and a mood. One of the few times he's very literal. Also, I've sent about 30 Fall songs on mixtapes to a friend over the years, and that's the only song he's ever liked.

My aqua cat is where it's at, new to mammal range...

This is one of my favourite Fall albums as well and I have never understood the derision which is usually heaped upon it. I ended up going with "Athlete Cured" over "Bremen Nacht" mainly because I prefer the LP version of the latter over the CD version.

My first Fall LP!! V hard to choose. Love the way he sings 'Lawyerrrr!' on ODL. The drums on Bremen Nacht, the bass break in the middle of In These Times. I'll go with Frenz however 'cos it's kinda understated and made me fall in love with Mark E Smith's voice and his singing/talking style.

Carry Bag Man. The first Fall LP I bought when it came out. (I already had a cassette copy of Perverted By Language. Embarrassingly, when I was 15, if people asked if I was in a band I used to say yes, and play them Tempo House. Most people would react with horror and say, "But, you're terrible!")

I'd still say that Hit The North is one of their best songs and constant playing can't dim it for me but as it's not strictly on the album...

My first Fall LP too...

......well cassette actually with the extra tracks.

Purchased by my 16 year old self after hearing peel repeatedly playing "Carry Bag Man" until it was completely lodged in my head - purchasing the album was an unavoidable consequence.

Carry Bag Man remains one of my top 10 fall tracks - and easily wins my vote.

hen I was 15, if people asked if I was in a band I used to say yes, and play them Tempo House. Most people would react with horror and say, "But, you're terrible!")

That is awesome.

It's between the first two tracks for me, and like a lot of US people I don't think of this album as having the extra tracks at the end.

Athlete Cured is genius.

Oswald Defence Lawyer for me, but very tough. Guest Informant and Athlete Cured just behind, or possibly in front, but there are A1 session versions of each of those. otoh, thinking about 'labour beautification course', 'it was me, the hoover and the OAPs', &c &c, I might have made a mistake.

Cassette version, u skinny rats:

1."Frenz" (M. Smith) – 3:28
2."Carry Bag Man" (M. Smith) – 4:26
3."Get a Hotel" (Hanley, Scanlon, M. Smith) – 4:38
4."Victoria" (Davies) – 2:45
5."Athlete Cured" (M. Smith) – 5:51
6."In These Times" (M. Smith) – 3:25
7."The Steak Place" (M. Smith, B. Smith) – 3:56
8."Bremen Nacht Alternative" (M. Smith) – [note: this is a different mix to the vinyl version]
9."Guest Informant" excerpt (Hanley, Scanlon, M. Smith) – 0:39
10."Oswald Defence Lawyer" (Hanley, M. Smith) – 5:59
11."Guest Informant" (Hanley, Scanlon, M. Smith) – 5:47
12."Tuff Life Booogie" (Hanley, M. Smith, B. Smith) – 2:44
13."Twister" (M. Smith, B. Smith) – 5:07
14."Bremen Nacht Run Out" (M. Smith) – 4:44

I'll go for the title track.

For some reason, I thought "Athlete Cured" was referencing RobtSmith's group via over-repetition.

Title track, but I refuse to vote for non-vinyl tracks, otherwise it would be 'Tuff Life Boogie'.

"Bremen nacht" for me.

Might take S-'s route of not voting for non-vinyl tracks, as it takes out both Twister and Guest Informant, which would otherwise be candidates, particularly the latter (I reckon I could take them out on the basis that the session versions are better anyway).

So then it's a toss up between Bremen Nacht, Oswald Defence Lawyer and Athlete Cured I think. This album has never ceased to grow on me throughout the years, particularly the title track, such a strange mixture of affection and contempt with a mesmeric indifferent langour to it + that high aah-aah Smith does in the background - amazing vocals all round in fact, that slightly off-saccharine of the music, the solitary solicitude of the initial 'My frenz, let me tell you 'bout my frenz' vocal hardening into the 'my frenz you can/I can/I cannot count on one hand' catcall. The whole thing feels both trademark and unique, in the way the very best Fall songs manager. Also represents a move into the sparser lyrical aesthetic of later years, away from the density and verbal proliferation and into essential strangeness, with that toasting-style rejigging and reversal of the central formula.

Anyhow, going to go, I think, with Bremen Nacht (sorry Oswald), love that central riff, the opening snatch of german and the way it just becomes really really heavy and dense. Plus the fractured images of steel shutters and other elements. 'It's still there but I am gone'.

both fragile and unswervable

sorry, that was a bit hurried, was trying to do something else at the same time. That little fragment at the end was intended to be a description of Smith's voice in Frenz, and, er manager manage.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

so wait - I'm a pretty big Fall fan but don't really know this album well (I own it on cassette) - are there three different versions, depending on format?

<= somewhat trolly vote for Victoria

xpost - Sort of, see this for details: http://www.visi.com/fall/discog/data/album11.html

that's retarded.

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

This poll has made me realize that I've always overlooked this album, lumping it in w/the inferior Kurious Oranj.

Yes, that's exactly how I felt until I really sat down with it! I'm glad this poll made others realize that as well.

Old, I guess, but I hadn't seenthese

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/rSDLSiz8Lpztq536yBdYUX2zo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=0RYTHV9YYQ4W5Q3HQMG2&Expires=1290255312&Signature=85voz68bt2cNUyNfb%2BYFANPZ794%3D

Ha ha, hadn't seen those either. Incidentally a conversation with a frend last week convinced me that Frenz is indeed the korrekt answer. A (rare?) victory for polls, although I also remembered during this conversation that I've always been very partial to In These Times (it pops into my head constantly) and in particular the lines about the 'gossamer flea gate' keeping out 'the trash in which my psychic streets submerge'.

I love this album and Kurious Oranj. Of course Seminal Live was my first Fall tape followed by these two.

I coulda sworn my cassette of this had "hit the north" on it... I have no idea what is and isn't on this album so I did nae vote

I have the cassette with Hit the North. It's a US release on RCA.

In These Times is the first Fall song I ever heard, played by Peel who introduced it at the start of a show with "And now, lord and master of us all..."

So this got a deluxe reissue from Beggars this week, including a previously unreleased Janice Long session, which is brilliant.

I miss my crazy weird uncle MES.

missed the poll, but ja, Bremen Nacht ist toll

So, this is purely a release for a Janice Long session, everything else has already been out?

Also...

A strong similarity between "Athlete Cured" and Spinal Tap's "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" has been noted.[1] In his autobiography The Big Midweek, bassist Steve Hanley confirms that the resemblance was not accidental, admitting that the group had been jamming the Spinal Tap song in soundchecks and that Mark E. Smith had decided to make use of the results. Hanley also states that producer Simon Rogers had been so annoyed by the lift that he came close to walking off the project.[2]

Yes, the Long session is the only previously unreleased material on the reissue.

this is unexpected, since they already remastered it and the related singles in that '5 albums' box several years ago and then proceeded on to 'Bend' for the album specific deluxings