Rehearsing My Choir is the fourth full length album by The Fiery Furnaces and was released in 2005. It is a concept album featuring Olga Sarantos, grandmother of the band's Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, narrating stories relating to her life. Though the instrumentation is as complex as on the band's previous releases, the vocals mostly take the form of spoken word. At points Eleanor Friedberger speaks or sings words corresponding to the character of a younger Olga Sarantos, the two engaging in dialogue. This aspect has made many draw relations between the album and a radio play. Olga Sarantos died on December 31, 2007.

Additional information

Unlike the band's previous album Blueberry Boat, most of the storyline is immediately understandable; however, like Blueberry Boat it shifts around in a non time-linear way. It also includes a few sections separate from the main story. In the album's press release, Matthew Friedberger, the writer of the lyrics and music gives a summary and explanation:

Dear Listener, Tracks 3 and 4 take place in the 40's; tracks 5 and 6 in the 20's and 30's; track 7 in the later 50's; track 8 starts in the very early 40's; track 9 goes back and forth; track 10 takes place in the early 60's; the final track takes place in the early 90's. Track 2 takes place a few years ago; track 1 took place when it was recorded. The action depicted in "The Wayward Granddaughter" and "Slavin' Away" does not include the character Olga Sarantos plays on the rest of the record. "Slavin' Away" imagines that character—the main character—fantasizing, a bit remotely, about the hard lot of other women. Now, I wouldn't guess that the Main Character actually thought the woman concerned was riding around in a Norton side-car and operating her own cottage industry trinket assembly/sweatshop: but it might have pleased her to picture it so. "The Wayward Granddaughter" is about a different Greek-American grandmother and her popular granddaughter ("Connie"). They're from Chicago's south suburbs and don't figure in the rest of the record; I wanted to have another (slightly younger) grandmother and family in there for perspective or comparison's sake, so to speak. Thank you for your time, Matthew Friedberger

Category:2005 albums

Category:The Fiery Furnaces albums

Category:Rock operas

Artist/Band Information

The Fiery Furnaces are a U.S. indie rock band formed in 2000 in Brooklyn, New York.. - In 2000 they moved to Brooklyn... and began playing as the Fiery Furnaces late in the year. - Allmusic The band's primary members are Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger. The siblings are originally from Oak Park, Illinois, a near-western suburb of Chicago.

Band biography

They signed with the Rough Trade music label in 2002, and recorded their debut album, Gallowsbird's Bark, the same year. Released in 2003, it was often compared in the press to The White Stripes due to the garage blues elements of the band’s sound and the fact that the members are siblings, which the White Stripes duo were originally misunderstood to be.

Matthew is primarily responsible for the band's songwriting and studio instrumentation, while Eleanor handles the majority of the vocal duties. Drummer Andy Knowles and bassist Toshi Yano both joined the band for live performances in time for their 2004 tour. Beginning with a performance at the April 2004 All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Camber Sands, England, the band's live performances took the form of hour-long, continuous sets of music featuring snippets from most of their recorded songs. Many times, several songs were melded together to create a conglomerate song that encompassed material from previously released songs, this producing similarly complicated set lists for the band to follow.. http Retrieved on 12 July 2007.

The Fiery Furnaces released their second album, Blueberry Boat, in the summer of 2004. It is also often interpreted as a multi-layered concept album. "Quay Cur," the ten minute lead track on Blueberry Boat, switches from dirty, gurgling organ to slide-guitar-fueled ditties, pulsing electronic beats to abstract lullaby within a few minutes, highlighting the Fiery Furnaces' variety in songwriting. Some critics, however, interpreted this type of material as evidence that the album is unfocused. The epic nature of the majority of the songs made them unsuitable for radio play so the band prepared "Single Again," a take on a traditional folk song as a substitute.

This single, along with their previously released ones, was mostly only made available to the UK audience, so in January 2005 the band released a 41-minute compilation disc named EP (this confusingly being a designation commonly reserved for shorter discs). EP featured two new songs, all of the band’s singles and b-sides (with the exception of an alternate version of "We Got Back The Plague" found on the "Tropical Ice-Land" single), and was for this reason a contrast to the epic and, according to some, inaccessible nature of Blueberry Boat.

Their following album, Rehearsing My Choir (released in October 2005), saw the band return to an experimental sound once again. A concept album featuring the Friedbergers' grandmother, Olga Sarantos, narrating stories about her life, Rehearsing My Choir was met with widely differing opinions from both the press and the band's fans, being branded "difficult" even by those who rated it highly. Sarantos previously worked as choir director at a Greek Orthodox church, and her croaked reminiscences form the backbone to this peculiar, piecemeal storybook of an album.Pattison, Lewis. . Amazon.com. Retrieved on 12 July 2007. Jason Loewenstein of Sebadoh and Bob D'Amico took over band duties for the supporting tour, replacing Toshi Yano and Andy Knowles.

The band released their fifth LP, entitled Bitter Tea, in April 2006. In interviews they stated that the album was influenced by the sound of synthpop group Devo, and Eleanor Friedberger stated the album was "definitely the poppiest thing we've done."

Matthew Friedberger released Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School in August 2006, two separate albums which were packaged as a double album. According to a press release, Winter Women is "intended to be a summer record, full of memorable, catchy, and un-ironic pop songs," while Holy Ghost Language School is like "Faust, the Residents, or the most 'out' moments of Brian Eno's solo records." Eleanor appeared on neither album and Matthew did not tour in support of his solo releases.

The band did a short tour in October and November 2006, supported by San Francisco experimental rock band, Deerhoof. This tour saw Matthew on keyboard, Eleanor on vocals, Jason Loewenstein on wah-wah pedaled guitar, Bob D'Amico on drums and the addition of Michael Goodman on percussion. The songs had a tropical/salsa feel to them, and most of the tracks from Bitter Tea were played as one long song, lasting 30 minutes—a medley format the band previously used while promoting Blueberry Boat.. The Torontoist, October 31, 2006. Retrieved July 12, 2007.

In June 2007, it was announced in The Chicago Reader that the band had signed with Chicago label Thrill Jockey and their album Widow City was later released on October 9, 2007. Unlike their two previous efforts, this album lacks a central concept and has a 70s album rock feel. The band toured in support of the album throughout the later months of 2007 and early 2008.

A live compilation album, Remember, was released on August 16, 2008.

The band's seventh studio album I'm Going Away was released in the US on July 21, 2009 on Thrill Jockey and the UK on August 24, 2009.

A second album, Take Me Round Again, was released which presents many of the same songs from "I'm Going Away" in a new way, on November 10, 2009. These tracks were made invidually by Mathew and Eleanor, resulting in some overlap. These songs have the same lyrics as "I'm Going Away", but consist of completely new instrument and vocal recordings that give a new take on the same material.

The Furnaces' next project will reportedly be a "Silent Record," which will essentially be a large song book with out any audio component whatsoever. This is intended to be some sort of response to file sharing. An update on the website reports "SINCE BANDS CAN NO LONGER SELL AUDIO, DECLINE TO PROVIDE IT." The book will be around 200 pages and may feature sheet music and notations on how to play songs that don't yet exist. The band will also be hosting a series of concerts where fans can perform their versions of the unrecorded songs. Eleanor claims the book should be released in the fall of 2010.

Discography

*Gallowsbird's Bark (2003)

*Blueberry Boat (2004)

*EP (2005)

*Rehearsing My Choir (2005)

*Bitter Tea (2006)

*Widow City (2007)

*Remember (2008)

*I'm Going Away (2009)

*Take Me Round Again (2009)

References