Or...as unholy alliances go, try this one on for size. The enigmatic VON SUDENFED consist of German electronica wunderkinds Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner (both MOUSE ON MARS) and no less an anarchic personality than everyone's favourite curmudgeon, MARK E. SMITH himself. So THAT'S why the new Fall's been so long in the works then.
Of course, this isn't such a disparate collaboration as it might appear on the surface. For one thing, Smith's admiration for much of Mouse On Mars' work is relatively common knowledge and secondly The Fall have been dabbling (on and off) with loops and occasional electronic tendencies since the heady days of the mid-80s and tracks like 'Hit The North' and 'US '80s-90s'.
So you probably won't be too surprised when I tell you much of debut album 'Tromatic Reflexxions' sounds like...er, well an electronica'n'break beat-based Fall really. Indeed, tunes like first single 'Fledermaus Can't Get It' and 'Flooded' (which commences with a gleeful MES declaring "I'm the DJ tonight, I'm the disc jockey tonight!") are repetitive and throbbing in a way that will be instantly familiar to Fall fans. Rather like suspecting that previous guitar stalwart Craig Scanlon had been furtively re-recruited and been given the job of oiling old sequencers.
This is no bad thing, and indeed on tracks like these and the snaggy'n'glitchy 'Family Feud', VS lock into a great, old skool groove also recalling the likes of electro pioneers like The Sugarhill Gang and the On-U Sound posse. Smith's wounded mongoose rantings are spirited and - as he displayed on the recent round of Fall dates - once again suggest he has regained the enthusiasm of his younger days. Hell, all men need to be stimulated, right?
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OK, on occasion it all gets a tad one-dimensional. The repetitive 'Serious Brainskin' goes nowhere very tediously indeed and the ridiculous ''Jbak Lois Lane' (no, me neither) appears to feature MES arguing with someone called Jack and barely even registers as 'lo-fi waffle'. Thankfully, there's the off-kilter genius of tracks like 'The Rhinohead' still in reserve where we're regaled by the sound of Smith (cough) almost 'singing' ("I was feeling fascinated" - indeed!) and the hilariously brilliant 'Chicken Yiamas' where a bemused Mark recalls an attempt at boiling a chicken over a swampy backing that lands somewhere between Mississippi and Miles Platting. Bet Gary Rhodes never had this trouble, eh?
'Tromatic Refkexxions', then, appears to be the start of a typically bizarre, but potentially rewarding relationship between two unlikely camps. One assumes it's not the beginning of the end for The Fall (it's a foolish man who makes such a proclamation) but whatever their status, Von Sudenfed sound like they're firing Mr. Smith's imagination for the time being. And that's good news for those of us on tenterhooks for a follow-up to 'Fall Heads Roll.'
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