Where: Village Underground, Shoreditch, London
£: Tickets cost £13.75
What is it?
Fanfarlo will play Village Underground on 11th February, ahead of the release of their new album Let’s Go Extinct.
Fanfarlo’s third album, Let’s Go Extinct, could be seen as a concept album about human evolution and possible futures, but it’s also a big beautiful pop record, and manages to juggle both simultaneously. It grapples with the big questions but always with a glint in its eye, a sense that nothing could ever be weirder than the truth, and with a stirring chorus just about to break.
“All the songs we’d written seemed to deal in direct or roundabout ways with the things that the theory of evolution tries to answer: where the hell are we, and where are we going next?,” says singer and main songwriter Simon Balthazar. “The weirdness of being this thing we call a person and the double weirdness of other people. So we set about dealing with the subject matter with all the flippant playfulness and childish seriousness it deserves.”
In its way, Let’s Go Extinct is a return to the warmth and liveliness of the band’s much-feted debut, Reservoir. After their forays into the more austere landscapes of their second record (Rooms Filled With Light), Let’s Go Extinct is the sound of the band cutting loose from all expectation.
In the wake of recording of Let’s Go Extinct Fanfarlo has undergone another line up change and are joined this year by Valentina Magaletti on drums. The band are completed by Cathy Lucas (violin, keys), Leon Beckenham (trumpet, keys) and Justin Finch (bass). Let’s Go Extinct will be released this month on the band’s own label New World.
More info: villageunderground.co.uk