Mr. Fried Burger - I wasn't working
It might be possible to get so weird that you burn yourself down into the face of the earth. To wit: Matthew Friedberger, formerly/forever of the Fiery Furnaces with his sister Eleanor, drove the FFs occasionally to awesome and insane places, then released a double solo album (Winter Women & Holy Ghost Language School), then released what seemed like maybe 1,000 Oulipianishly-contrained songs of wild intensity in the Solos series (what little I’ve heard from that was fascinating), and then Matricidal Sons of Bitches, which I have never heard, though which apparently consists of 45-ish instrumental tracks. Then there was nothing for quite some time (perhaps because Friedberger was recouping his powers), and now—or last year, actually—there was Mr. Fried Burger, I Resume?, a straight-up bonkers sort of rock-opera/song-suite that I only discovered thanks to music message boards. Like a lot of MF’s music, this is supremely unpredictable and almost inhumanly creative, which results in both compelling and not-so-compelling songs. In the former category is this song, I wasn’t working, which is just so, so, so fucking good. Great singing, insane synth and guitar riffs, it rolls and revolves and bursts. Give it a listen and check out the rest of the album.[BUY Mr. Fried Burger, I Resume?]