Bingo Fury’s noirish, furiously inventive music – marrying Scott Walker-esque balladry, poised jazz and agitated no-wave – has marked him amongst the UK avant-garde’s most exciting young voices. The multi-instrumentalist and madcap producer’s debut album Bats Feet For A Widow arrives February 16th via The state51 Conspiracy.
Turquoise Edition
+ Turquoise 180g 12" vinyl
+ Lyric sheets
Bats Feet For A Widow was recorded in a local church in Bristol, inspired by Fury’s tangled feelings towards his strong religious upbringing. We hear the old building everywhere, amidst the rich jazz performances of his band: Meg Jenkins (bass), Henry Terrett (drums), Harry Furniss (cornet) and Rafi Cohen (guitar, glockenspiel, piano). We also hear tossed house keys, wine glasses and strange acousmatic experiments: all channelled into a powerfully cinematic, deeply romantic album. At its heart is Fury’s crooning bass vocal, lending a vivid and slyly humorous voice to universal themes of love and pain.
Bingo Fury burst onto the UK scene in 2021 with the debut single Big Rain, assembling his band from friends in Bristol’s rich experimental scene. Initially a grittier no-wave project, their magnetic, electrifying live shows led to early sets at End Of The Road and Green Man, as well as support slots with Lee Ronaldo and the godfather of no-wave himself: James Chance. By the release of Fury’s 2022 debut EP Mercy's Cut, he had earned acclaim from tastemakers at BBC 6Music, The Quietus, NME, Loud And Quiet and more.
Bats Feet For A Widow marks a shift into more melodic territory. “I was bored of experimental music just being dissonant or atonal – a lot of the people I was influenced by really challenged me but also had a euphoric atmosphere to their output,” he explains. Citing Laurie Anderson, Robert Wyatt and Silver Jews as influences, the album is rooted in lush, piano-led balladry, but ricochets between punk, lounge pop and Reichian minimalism.
Recording took place in Cotham Parish Church on the outskirts of Bristol: never previously used for recording music. Joined by Rockfield engineer Joe Jones, Fury and his band filled the church with equipment and worked there for eight days. “My main creative fuel is limitation,” Fury says of the decision to not use a studio: “in the process of working out a problem, you end up with something more interesting.” The decision to use a church specifically was drawn from his religious childhood. “I had a lot of very confusing experiences within the church growing up – recording in a church made the whole thing more intense, and amplified the discomfort of those experiences I was writing about.” This extended to his band. “A lot of people that are atheist will go into a church and experience a different kind of discomfort: ‘am I really meant to be here?’ That’s the side of production I find interesting – how you can get something different out of someone through the situation you’ve placed them in.”
Bats Feet For A Widow is an album of extremity. In all respects – its sonic palette, strange experiments, obscure references, offbeat one-liners, heart-breaking sentimentality and surging creativity – it is astonishingly full. Fury duly ends it on a note of maximalism: “you know I’m trying to give you everything / It all gets in the way.”
Tracklisting
12" VINYL ALBUM (BLACK VINYL) (CON949LP)
- Carolina's Theme
- Unlistening
- Power Drill
- Mr. Stark
- Centrefold
- Never Gonne Be A Dead Man
- I'll Be Mountains
- My Cup Overflows
- Leather Sky