Füxa's new album, Füxa 2000, was recorded while Randall was in London and features
collaborations with members of the Telescopes, Spacemen 3, and Piano Magic.
I had really hoped that this would be my pick for album of the year.
I have
loved Füxa for about five years now and have never been disappointed until
this year. The things that I love about Füxa revolve around their ability to
interweave lead and rhythm guitar with the obligatory moog wall of sound
supporting the guitars. I always feel as if I'm sitting in with Randall, Ryan, and company
when I listen to those old albums. A lot of their output sounded homemade
and scratchy. It was the fun experience of collaboration that mattered to the
participants, and this fact came through in their records.
It seems now that Randall has entered a period that might well be called
Randallenium. This period of Füxa is marked by digital-sounding records that
have lost all trace of humanity. He has replaced the interweaving guitars and
bass with dubby bass that is quite unsteady sounding and few guitar tracks to
speak of at all. Perhaps he has gotten too good at recording, but something
intangible is gone from Füxa's recordings. Perhaps life in Randallenium is
cold and digital; there are no more trippy bongo jams and acoustic strumming
to speak of.
In short, most everything that I held dear is replaced now. What has replaced
it is not necessarily bad; it's just not very good and doesn't sound much like Füxa™.
I just hope that Randall's new friend Sonic Boom hasn't influenced him so much
that he gives up on pop structure altogether. If he could focus a bit more on
what he is extraordinarily good at, that being pop melodies in a space age
context, I'm sure the Randallenium could be a happy period of time after all.
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