Super Furry Animals

Super Furry Animals are a Welsh rock band formed in Cardiff in 1993. For the duration of their professional career, the band consisted of Gruff Rhys (lead vocals, guitar), Huw Bunford (lead guitar, vocals), Guto Pryce (bass guitar), Cian Ciaran (keyboards, synthesisers, various electronics, occasional guitar, vocals), Dafydd Ieuan (drums, vocals). An earlier incarnation of the band featured actor Rhys Ifans on lead vocals.

Super Furry Animals has recorded nine UK Albums Chart Top 25 studio albums (one BPI certified Gold and four certified Silver), plus numerous singles, EPs, compilations and collaborations. The band were known as central to the Cool Cymru era during which they were dominant, and are the act with the most top 75 hits without reaching the UK Singles Chart Top 10. Over the course of nine albums, Super Furry Animals has been described as "one of the most imaginative bands of our time" by '' Billboard'', while according to a 2005 article in ''NME'', "There's a case to be argued that uper Furry Animalswere the most important band of the past 15 years".

History

1990–1993: Formation

Super Furry Animals formed in Cardiff after being in various other Welsh bands and techno outfits in the area. Rhys, Ieuan and Pryce had been together since the early 1990s and had toured France as a techno group. After Bunford and Ciaran (Ieuan's younger brother) joined, they wrote some songs, and in 1995 signed to Ankst, a Welsh indie label. The band are considered to be part of the renaissance of Welsh music (and art, and literature) in the 1990s: other Welsh bands of the time include the Manic Street Preachers, Stereophonics, Catatonia and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.

The name of the band came from T-shirts being printed by Rhys' sister. She was making Super Furry Animals T-shirts for the fashion and music collective Acid Casuals (variants of whose name have appeared throughout Super Furry Animals' career – for example, in their song "The Placid Casual", their record label Placid Casual). The band has also made reference to Blur, Elvis Costello, and Wynton Marsalis as major influences in their work.

1994–1995: Early recordings

The earliest Super Furry Animals track commercially available is "Dim Brys: Dim Chwys", recorded in 1994 for Radio Cymru: an ambient piece, the track shows the band's techno roots. However, by the time it was released (on the "Triskedekaphilia" compilation album in August 1995), the band had already put out their debut EP on the Ankst label. The ''Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyndrobwllantysiliogogogochynygofod (In Space)'' EP appeared in June 1995 and has been listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having the longest-ever title for an EP.

The '' Moog Droog'' EP followed in October 1995, named after the synthesiser manufacturer Robert Moog and the Nadsat term for "friend" in '' A Clockwork Orange''. The EP's title is also a pun on the Welsh "mwg drwg", meaning "wacky baccy" (slang for cannabis, more literally "bad (or naughty) smoke"). The lyrics on all the tracks on both EPs were in Welsh, except for "God! Show Me Magic" from "Moog Droog".

After gigging in London in late 1995, they were noticed by Creation Records boss Alan McGee at the Camden Monarch club, who signed them to his label. Creation was also home to Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine and Teenage Fanclub, and had recently found massive commercial success with Oasis. The band have said that having watched their gig, McGee asked them if they could sing in English rather than Welsh in future shows. In fact, by this stage they were singing in English, but McGee didn't realise because their Welsh accents were so strong. The Super Furry Animals received some criticism in the Welsh media for singing in English, something which the band felt "completely pissed" about. According to drummer Dafydd Ieuan: "It all started when we played this festival in West Wales, and for some reason the Welsh media started foaming at the mouth because we were singing songs in Welsh and English. But they get The Dubliners playing and they don't sing in Irish. It's ridiculous." The band have claimed that the decision to sing in English was taken in order to broaden their fanbase.

1996–1998: ''Fuzzy Logic'' to ''Out Spaced''

In February 1996, the band's debut on Creation, " Hometown Unicorn", became New Musical Express's Single of the Week, chosen by guest reviewers Pulp, and the first Super Furry Animals single to chart in the UK Top 50, peaking at No. 47. The follow-up, a re-recording of " God! Show Me Magic", charted at No. 33 upon release in April 1996 and also became ''NME'' single of the week. Rawer than the "Moog Droog" version, it clocks in at 1 min 50 secs. In May, their debut album '' Fuzzy Logic'' was released, to wide critical acclaim. Sales were slow, with the album peaking at No. 23 in the charts, but it garnered a little more interest when next single " Something 4 the Weekend" (a reworked, more mellow version of the album track) was given considerable radio airplay and charted at No. 18 in July 1996.

The final single from the album, " If You Don't Want Me to Destroy You", was to have been backed by a track called " The Man Don't Give a Fuck". However, there were problems in clearing a sample from "Showbiz Kids" by Steely Dan which formed the basis of the chorus, and it was switched for a different track. The single charted at No. 18. However, Super Furry Animals regarded "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" as one of their best songs and continued their efforts to clear the sample. When they managed this, there was no upcoming release to attach it to – so it came out as a limited edition single in its own right, in December 1996. This ultimately cemented its legendary status and did much to establish Super Furry Animals as cult heroes, as the song contained the word " fuck" over 50 times and therefore received practically no airplay. However, it hit No. 22 in the charts and became Super Furry Animals' standard closing number when they played live.

In early 1997, Super Furry Animals embarked on the ''NME'' Brats Tour and completed work on a speedy follow-up to ''Fuzzy Logic''. Two singles preceded the new album, " Hermann ♥'s Pauline" in May and " The International Language of Screaming" in July, hitting No. 26 and No. 24 respectively: these releases were the first to feature cover art from Pete Fowler, who went on to design the sleeves of all their releases up until 2007's ''Hey Venus''. The album, '' Radiator'', hit shelves in August. The reviews were, if anything, better than those for ''Fuzzy Logic'', and it sold more quickly than its predecessor, reaching a peak of No. 8: however, Creation did not serve the album particularly well by releasing it just four days after the long-awaited new effort from Oasis, '' Be Here Now''. Two further singles, " Play It Cool" (released September 1997) and " Demons" (November 1997) both hit No. 27 in the charts, suggesting that Super Furry Animals had hit a commercial ceiling though which they were struggling to break. However, they had established themselves as favourites in the music press, a cut above the majority of their Britpop peers.

After a chance to think about their music and their direction, Super Furry Animals decided to record a new EP in early 1998 at Gorwel Owen's house and released it in May. This was the '' Ice Hockey Hair'' EP, widely held as one of their finest moments ("ice hockey hair" is a slang term for a mullet.) Featuring four tracks, the EP sampled from Black Uhuru. The title track, a melodic and very moving epic, gained airplay while "Smokin'". In a ''Melody Maker'' interview, Super Furry Animals said the "Smokin'" referred to smoking haddock, or to truck drivers' tyres when they're 'burnin' the roads'. It became their most successful single up to this point, hitting No. 12 in the charts and leading to a memorable appearance on "Top of the Pops".

In November 1998, the album '' Out Spaced'' was released. This was a collection of songs from the 1995 Ankst releases (including "Dim Brys: Dim Chwys"), the band's favourite B-sides, plus "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" and "Smokin'". A limited edition appeared in a comedy rubber sleeve, shaped like a nipple.

1999–2000: ''Guerrilla'' and ''Mwng''

In 1999, ''NME'' readers named them 'best new band' in January (this despite the fact it was now three years since they released their debut album). In May, the single " Northern Lites" was released and made No. 11 in the charts. A dense production, with steel drums clattering out a calypso rhythm whilst Rhys sang an irreverent lyric about the El Niño-Southern Oscillation weather phenomenon, it was an apt taster for the new album, '' Guerrilla''. Recorded at the Real World Studios, the album retained SFA's pop melodies but took a less guitar-centric approach to their execution and was their most experimental work to date. Layers of samples over brass, percussion and Gruff's melodic singing produced an album which took the freewheeling approach of 1960s groups such as The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Velvet Underground and updated it to the late 1990s. The album swung from glam and garage rock numbers ("Night Vision", "The Teacher") to novelty techno ("Wherever I Lay My Phone (That's My Home)"), ambient indietronica ("Some Things Come From Nothing") and upbeat drum and bass ("The Door To This House Remains Open"). For the cover art, Pete Fowler created the band's first three-dimensional models, rather than the paintings he had supplied for the ''Radiator'' album and singles.

After playing several of the summer festivals, SFA released " Fire in My Heart", the most soulful track from ''Guerrilla'', in August and saw it chart at No. 25. They then embarked on a US and UK tour. SFA finished their UK tour at the Cardiff International Arena in Cardiff, where they showcased the first ever concert in surround sound and broadcast it on the World Wide Web.

January 2000 involved a series of changes for SFA. The last single from ''Guerrilla'', " Do or Die", was released and made No. 20. It was also the last single SFA released on Creation Records, as founder Alan McGee set off to pursue other interests. It had always been SFA's plan to release their next album on their own label, Placid Casual, as it would be a deliberate sidestep from their recent work: a largely acoustic album of Welsh language songs entitled '' Mwng''. Meaning " mane", its lilting melodies established that SFA's songwriting did not have to fall back on head-spinning production tricks. A limited edition (of 3000) 7 inch record, " Ysbeidiau Heulog" (meaning "Sunny Intervals") preceded ''Mwng'' in May 2000. It came backed with "Charge", a hard-rock jam recorded as a Peel Session for the BBC
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