The Fall Cup: The Final, pt 1

              

After 48 posts, thousands of words and endless deliberation, we have arrived at the final stage of this competition.

The songs that are going to slug it out for this prestigious award are:

New Puritan

Winter

Dr Bucks' Letter

Last Commands Of Xyralothep Via MES

We are not going to have a traditional knock-out semi-final and final; instead, the panel are going to vote in a 'round robin' format. It will work like the group stage of the World Cup: each track will 'play' each of the other in three sets of matches. For each tie, the judges have three scoring options:

• 4-0 (Clear-cut, no-brainer decision)
• 3-1 (Some pause for thought before deciding the winner)
• 2-2 (Unable to separate them)

N.B. I will post the results in three stages, but I won't begin until all of the panel have cast all of their votes, so as to avoid any temptation to vote 'tactically'. (I entered my own scores before any of the rest of the panel voted.)

Round 1

New Puritan v Winter

Steve: 3-1

I've supported both of these songs strongly throughout the competition, so this did give me some pause for thought. Both are lyrically rich and impressively atmospheric, albeit in very different ways. But NP (along with the rest of Peel Session #3) was such an important development that it has to shade it.

Eric: 1-3

Of the older pair in the Final Four, "Winter" is clearly my favorite, but it's not quite a no-brainer choice. I generally ding "New Puritan" for its dodgy studio provenance, and I must also gently ding "Winter" for the split presentation of its own best source.

bzfgt: 1-3

Richard: 1-3

People might - and doubtless already do - argue about the quality of the final 4 tracks we've honed in on, but I'm really happy that we've ended up with 4 pieces that only The Fall could create: Diceman, Spoilt Victorian Child, Touch Sensitive, or Sparta FC might be great tracks, but one could pretty much imagine another band coming up with them,  but not the suspicious trundle of New Puritan, nor the shivery ritual of Winter. Winter gets the bonus point for the odd, sparse keyboard, for the still inexplicable lights system, and for the little [diddle diddle dee] that makes the Peel session version tremble.

Lewis: 3-1

Dr Bucks' Letter v Last Commands Of Xyralothep Via M.E.S.

Steve: 4-0

As I think I made clear in the last round, 'Last Commands' is, to my mind, a decent song that nonetheless has no place here, so it gets no points I'm afraid - especially when lined up against the sonic invention and wicked humour of DBL.

Eric: 2-2  

The (relatively) newer pair in the Final Four are both epic in my book. Very different sonic spaces, but both most appealing. If this were a traditional tie, I'd have to give "Last Commands" and edge, because its too short, and I always want more, whereas "Dr Bucks" gets a tiny bit draggy by its ending point. But that's less than a point's worth of difference on a four-point scale, so I'll keep this one as a draw.

bzfgt: 3-1

Richard: 3-1

Both of these 21st-century high points are musically simple, but impeccably put together, lyrically able to embody multiple modes from serious introspection to absurd comedy, and with richly varied (if highly idiosyncratic) deliveries from MES.  My instinct is screaming for a draw, but that's redundant, so Letter wins purely for the range of interesting live takes on offer.

Lewis: 1-3

N.B. Lewis submitted his comments as an overall summary, rather than round by round - I'll include these in the last post.

Scores after the first round:

13 Dr Bucks' Letter

11 Winter

 9 New Puritan

 7 Last Commands Of Xyralothep Via M.E.S.

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