The Fall Cup

         Tie 5: Blindness v All Leave Cancelled Steve : Much as I love the unhinged anarchy of "Leave", it can't stand up to the Peel or Palais versions of what my wife calls "that one that goes 'dung-a-dung dung-a-dung'." Eric : As with the "Bury" vs "Couples" match-up above, this pairing features an stompy, accessible, tight number against a big sprawling assemblage of weirdness. And as in the prior case, I'm going to pick the punchier of the pair. It's delightful that a super-strange b-side like "Leave" has advanced this far, but it's hard for me to embrace it as one of the final Sweet Sixteen entries. bzfgt : I just voted three times in a row for what may be the weaker track. This time I’m going with the blue chip.   No, f*ck it, ALC is cranking right now and this cracked quasi-psychedelia is the Fall I love the most at this moment. Put this in the books with Couple vs Jobless, I’ll own it.  No, I can’t do it...

        Tie 1: New Puritan v Shake-Off Steve : Shake-Off is a glorious mess that encapsulates the defiant, belligerent spirit of TMS , an album whose very existence was a bit of a miracle. But New Puritan was such a seismic shift, a key moment in the group's history, that it simply has to go through. Eric : This feels a bit like a weak match-up to encounter this deep in the contest. So I think I will open with a heresy vote, favoring the final Marshall Suite survivor over the gnomic and interstitial "New Puritan," given the latter's transient recorded existence as a bit of piss-take demo-quality studio fare and a punchy Peel cut, among other live incarnations. I suspect I might be more fond of "Puritan" had I actually experienced it in concert in its time, but based on checking the guys' recorded track record, I've gotta go with "Shake-Off." bzfgt : New Puritan. The Peel version is, musically, probably the best thing they’ve ever done. The ...

    Before we start on the last 32, here are a few statistics from the last 64 stage of the competition... 5-0 Winners: Winter Dr Bucks' Letter Fantastic Life 0-5 Losers: Hittite Man Alton Towers Jerusalem Album Representation: 3:  Hex Enduction Hour /  Perverted by Language /  Real New Fall LP 2:  Grotesque /  Your Future Our Clutter 1:  New Facts Emerge /  This Nation's Saving Grace /  I am Kurious Oranj /  Unutterable /  Slates /  The Marshall Suite /  Fall Heads Roll /  Bend Sinister /  Are You Are Missing Winner /  Sub-Lingual Tablet 0:  Dragnet /  Reformation Post TLC /  Ersatz GB /  Shift-Work /  Infotainment Scan /  Wonderful & Frightening /  Re-Mit /  Live at the Witch Trials /  Room To Live /  Levitate /  Imperial Wax Solvent /  Frenz Experiment /  Light User Syndrome /  Cerebral Caustic /  Extricate /  Middle ...

        Tie 29: Fantastic Life  v  Jerusalem Steve : Jerusalem is fabulous, especially where the music builds in intensity as MES delivers his rant about the government. But Fantastic Life is just a complete joy. Eric : No contest here, which is quite impressive given how very good "Jerusalem" is, nominally the final cover standing in this contest, if playing and desecrating a national hymn in the public domain counts as covering it. It's the last non-original in the mix, in any event, and it is glorious, and probably worthy of advancing deeper in this contest. But, alas for "Jerusalem," it has had the misfortune to come up against "Fantastic Life," the very best of the very many B-side and other obscurities that often stand among the finest moments in the wild and wooly Fall catalog. One of the finest studio performances by one of the most accomplished Fall line-ups, a gem by any measure. bzfgt : Jerusalem is not quite the titan for me that it se...

       Tie 25:  The N.W.R.A. v  A Past Gone Mad (Passable) Steve : The intense drum & bass aggression of A Past Gone Mad is balanced perfectly by MES' cynical, lethargic dissection of complacent nostalgia. But it can't compete with the rich lyricism of NWRA. Eric : Easy choice here: "Past" is reasonably good piece of Falltronica, but it's not that distinctive or special when compared to other pieces of Falltronica from its own (generally excellent) era. "The N.W.R.A.," on the other hand, is a weird shambling beast, filled with barely-tuned guitars, a bizarre blomp-blomp bass-line that sounds like a prepared and processed oompah tuba, a gloriously shambolic beat, and some of Mark's finest lyrics, a veritable mythology in song, the type of text from which weird religions and political parties could (and maybe should) emerge. bzfgt : This is quite easy for me. Nothing wrong with APGM but NWRA is on a whole nother level. Richard : Sonically v...

      Tie 21:  Dr. Bucks’ Letter v  Alton Towers Steve : I'm heartbroken to reject the deliciously woozy and jazzy Alton Towers, a criminally underrated track in my estimation. But DBL is one of my favourite ever Fall songs - for reasons that I'm confident I'll be able to elaborate on in future ties. Eric : Oh, arggghh, I hate to see this pairing here, the only time in the Round of 64 where two songs that I identified among my Top Ten Fall songs in my "Favorite Songs by Favorite Artists" series  are going head-to-head against each other. Both of the songs are deeply, sonically weird, both of them feature imminently quotable Mark lyrics with "Bucks" including one of the most spectacular bits of magpie behavior in the canon, both ably highlight their era's keyboardists making unique sounds on distinctive songs. But the choice is clear in the end game, as "Bucks" swirling, swishing, broken-washing machine gurgle trumps the fractured jazz of ...

     Tie 17:  Gross Chapel – British Grenadiers v  Impression of J. Temperance Steve : Grenadiers is a masterclass of controlled tension and dynamics. The dark, twisted tale of J. Temperance is matched perfectly by the spooky, oppressive music. A tough call, but the latter still sounds so thrillingly horrific after all these years and just wins out. Eric : This is a really tough and interesting pairing to parse, a duo of great songs that perhaps fly under the radar a bit, surrounded in their original releases by better-loved or better-remembered fare. I'd count both of these songs among the top tier of things that I've truly been awed by in focused re-listening mode throughout this project, and wish they weren't meeting each other so relatively soon in the process. But I'm going with "Gross Chapel", favoring its sonic density, its brooding mood, its length, and its dark hues (a defining aural trait of Bend Sinister for me) over the twangier and slightly hig...

    Tie 13:  Noel’s Chemical Effluence v  Cyber Insekt Steve : Cyber Insekt is fun, but Noel even more so. Eric : No surprise here from the Chairman of Team Noel, though I'm sorry to vote against "Cyber Insekt," which I think is an interesting and exemplary Fall song, one of the very best of the Nagle era. I love its odd shuffling background synths, a unique sound that I can't think of having heard in any other Fall songs. But then "Noel" has the strange "Viking Horn" (when I first heard it, I thought maybe sampled from oboe of the Charlotte Bill mini-era), which also doesn't seem to appear elsewhere. And, as noted before, "Noel" is one of the very best examples of great studio material being socked away in the most inaccessible and counter-intuitive places. bzfgt : This one’s about even, too. Cyber Insekt is musically really strange, kind of space age rockabilly. Noel has a majesty to it, with the keyboard horn part and the way it fa...