Reviews: Fugo: Aie
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Empty Room (http://www.empty-room.de)
Fugo do like Japan, but their musical models are from the USA. If rock or core, in every case it's post. Whatever this means - broken up structures and complexity are available in here a lot. Auspicious. Fugo are bombs bound to ballons, which got used from the japanese in the 2nd world war. On the other side Fugu is the pufferfish, which is offerd as a delicacy in restaurants all over japan. The thing about it is, that you have to have a certain skill to prepare this fish so that there won't be anymore of the deadly nerve poison in it. The fist meaning I don't won't to link with the music, but the preparation of the fish seems to fit with "Aie" - the debutrecord of Fugo. This album doesen't make it too easy for the recipient. There is not really a gall near the filet, but enjoying "Aie" seems to be only possible after going into it! It's what I mentioned before: postrock/core. Between those two poles and a slight prize of pop is where Fugo commutes. "Aie" seems to be a collection of Fugo-songs. They're all named with single letters from the alphabet and Fugo just spell their songs chronologically. The only one track B.) dates of an early phase, next one is already N.). On the record the songs aren't played chronologically, they are arranged in a sound-aesthetic order. At the beginning is placed a foreign body in french language (btw, after a japanese intro). Afterwards it plays homogenous - in english language. The record increases continuously complexity and it seems to escalate - until the end offers a pretty simple, straight forward played pop-song named T.). This won't say, that before there is music without melodies. But more escalating, this is also noticeable through the playtime of the tacks "U", "L" and "S", which have a duration over six or seven minutes. For me this is really okay. I love the album most from the fith song U.) (or the sixth by counting the intro). Before there are slight impressions of highlights within R.) (you might have heard this riff before by Notwist) and the vey good hook of V.). But the real Fugo/u starts afterwards. This means: high complexity drumming that spreads out in the room, right to the point overlayed with seemingly aimless marching bass- and guitarlines, just to have a short exploding meeting at one point and to fall apart right after it. Small universes evolve and sink in itself, giving birth to fascinating sound sequences, melodies that make rooms tangible and giving it a fourth dimension. Might sound esoteric, but by listening to good produced postrock/core after quite a time those hypnotic figures support transcendet feeling. And that exactly how it is within the best songs of Fugo: "U", "L" and "S". It's absolutely right, that this are the ones with the longest duration. Amongst them there are some more or less successfull indie/post-rockers, where the edged track "Q" seems to reach top form. But why they front up the voice that much, which reminds very much of Billy Corgan and which doesn't have that much shiny moments and after all too often deviates from the music itself, remains the secret of Fugo. As I just said at the beginning: Fugo doesn't make it too easy for the listener.
Punk For Fun (http://www.punkforfun.it)
I really like this extraordinary album very much. Although, I do know these three guys from Fugo personally. Beside of this, they are excellent musicians. Fugo's from switzerland (german speaking part) and "Aie" is their debut on Engineer Records. The album offers 13 tracks, with outstanding titles due to the fact that they are all named with single letters of the alphabet. Already after the first time listened to it, I was very impressed by this record and I surely think it's one of the best in the genre of indierock. It's very difficult to find a comparison, which in fact is a very good sign. I find it sounding like post-punk tunes of groups out of the Washington area and if you force me to link them to another band, I guess Dismemberment Plan would fit best. "Aie" kicks off with a song in french language and continues in english. The second song R.) is enchanting and straight, with the fourth song they offer a Fugazi-like hook. I personally like the song L.) very much, 'cause this melody remains for the rest of day in your head; also T.) is pretty hot, 'cause it's real pop indeed. The voice is special and outstanding, the drums are right to the point and essential and over all the guitar is pretty interesting and even in the quite parts it reminds me of some of June Of 44. It's very good work: Special arrangements in the songs, good production and recording and nice artwork. Conclusion: this record needs to get a lot more of attention, 'cause Fugo just deserves it!
mucke-und-mehr (http://www.mucke-und-mehr.de)
Fugo from Aarau (Switzerland) offer almost every rockgenre on their debutalbum: indierock, alternative rock and punk rock. The fact that this band is "only" a trio, absolutely doesn't have a negative impact on this record. The arrangements are varied all the time and of course very self-reliant. The tracks stand out due to their originality and their honesty - loud and quite parts change often and build a good tension. The production of the record is good anyway. A bit sad is the fact, that the band doesn't use the possibility of their national linguistic influences (french) to stand out of the knawles with other bands. English is the most used language on this record - only in one song they use to sing in french language. The rest of the album seem to have its focus on a bigger market - eventually supported through the release via Engineer Records UK/USA. What a pity - 'cause the second track ("W")- after the spoken intro - for example lives due to its linguistic otherness. The good singing of Roman Donzé seems to approach the voice om Mr. Billy Corgan from track to track. Wheter you like it or not, the voice fits the Fugo-sound perfectly, but involuntarily you might think you're listening to songs of The Smashing Pumpkins. Some questions are given by the titles of the songs - all the tracks are named just by single letters. However the CD-booklet delivers a short information about the content of each song. All in all a really good debutalbum - more diversity and a better production almost seems to be impossible. Anyone who likes The Dead Kennedys, Fugazi or Quicksand should get this CD - meant as a freshening for the own CD-collection. www.fugo.ch.vu 7 / 10, (Kai ).
Lautundraus (http://www.lautundraus.de)
Concerning rock music I like Switzerland pretty much. This is a fact do to bands like "Favez" or "Chewy". So that's why I like to give a chance to Fugo too, although their CD appears like a riddle to me. First: Their songs are named like W.), R.), N.), V.), U.), O.), P.), L.), B.), J.), S.), Q.) and T.). Second: After a spoken intro - I guess it's in japanese language, the first song starts in french - even though the lyrics in the booklet and inlay are in english. Well that's a nice surprise. But my joy won't last too long about this, already song no. 2 is in english and this seems to be the third change of language in about 5 minutes. The rest of the cd then stays english, which I think is a pity (do I recognize "shakin that ass?" so it woul be better in french, 'cause I wouldn't understand it)! But let's go for the far more important part of this album: The music. I'm really excited about it: Old-school-emo guitars which are changing between loud and quite parts. That CD sounds like I'm willing to have listen to it beside doing this review. But wait a moment. There is another thing coming to my mind and it is - unfortunately - Billy Corgan! The longer I listen to "Aie" the singer of Fugo reminds me of him. A last thing, the cd has a duration of over 62 minutes, which seems to be a bit too long, there isn't always high tension on "Aie". A little bit less might has been more, I guess. In the last song the three swiss guys play along in a cool pop-tune, just to show their wide range of music. This album is not 100% perfect but for a debut it is absolut impressive!
Real Rocker (http://www.RealRocker.net)
It's surprising, fascinating, captivating what those three guys of Fugo are releasing with their debut - it's simply a blast! Well, Fugo isn't just another three-chords punkband and they also don't play any metalcore, it's alternative and wow!!!
They started a bit more than four years ago as a siedeproject. The fist demo-recordings were named after the alphabet, so they had G.) to O.) and later P.) to T.). For their album "Aie" they chose 13 songs and mixed them up, so that the album starts - after a short intro - with the song W.). "Aie" ends after a chaotic run through the alphabet with song T.).
Well, let's go back to the music, which in case of Fugo has so much to offer and it's obvious that the three members made their experince through several bands where they used to play before Fugo.
An enormous range reaches the listener: There seem to be dangerous long and repeating melodic phrases over punk chord schemes but also furious playing of guitar, drum, bass and singing together, just to construct a heavy wall of sound, which seems to be able to break down just the other second. Although this wide range of music, the several parts just fit into each other like I've never heard this before. Those parts form a compact, divers and thrilling arrangement.
"Aie" is a record, that will spoil the listener, but it requests some time and interest in it. The record has got a duration which is over one hour. The whole thing is absolutely ambitious and creative, which convinces also with its very nice artwork and the bizarre writings about the songs.
And due to the almost worldwide distribution, "Aie" is an excellent export of the swiss music scene.
Big Cheese (http://www.BigCheese.com)
Fugo - Aie CD. I'm undecided about this release. One minute it sounds like a concotion of sound that lacks continuity, the next it sound sreally complex with heavy anthems and a pinch of teenage angst. If you don't like listening to a record time and time again to understand the complexity of it, then this isn't teh album for you. However, if you're the opposite you may just like it. The complex chanegs within each song are intelligent, but not neceassarily that great. It takes a lot of musical talent to make a record - in this case it's intelligence over a good sound. For Fugo this is their first album and they have plenty of time and it seems from this album creativity to to create better things, which they are more than capable of in the near future. Give yourselves a pat on the back guys!
Bands Mag (http://www.bandsmagazine.ch)
Fugo is an alternative rock trio from Aarau. Consistig from ex-bandmembers of Lunazone and Nordstan. Fugo delivers a debut, which hits you right in your face. Already after the first few notes you can hear that those guys are already well-experienced in the music business. They offer a an absolute non-boring, somehow a bit challenging mix made of indierock and posthardcore, garnished with a voice, which reminds very much of the nasal singing of Mr. Billy Corgan.
Fugo don't know any borderlines concernig their musical work. Standardized verse-hookline-bridge songs seem to be a tabu, self-reliance and creativity are the main goals. A song can last over seven minutes, but boredom still isn't there. The titles of the songs are only single letters, if that has a concept or if the band just was too lazy to name them otherwise isn't clear at the end of the day.
To point on a single song doesn't make sense at all, none of them is better or worse than the other. The one who adores hit-melodies won't find many, but that has not an negative impact to the pleasure during listening to this remarkeable album. These three guys from Aarau don't make it to easy for the listener. This record needs a bit of time to get covered by the listener in its full potential. Those guys who can afford this time will find an very very self-relianced, tricky alternative rock album, which deserves a lot of attention from people out there.
HMP (http://www.hmp.it)
With their debut album that inevitably reminds us to the mind of Fugazi, Fugo interfere with the undiscussed masters of post-core like a starting ramp for a journey in notes that passes easily from the urgency of post-core to the sensibility of indie-rock, from the destructions of noise music to the minimalism of post-rock. In spite of their evident submission regarding inconvenient names such like Alice Donut, Quicksand or even Fugazi, the band Fugo however succeed in constructing their own style and proper performance which results in the interesting and well made album "AIE", able to intrigue and to cause curiosity, above all when Fugo succeed in the difficult task to shuffle the cards on table and making difficult to locate the exact coordinates of reference. Fugitive guitar lines unravel long and slanting symmetries, outlining the singing among ease, rarefaction and pop-like dreaming, able to take the listener to a limbo between dreaming and waking up, making easy the experimental character of the songs and their comfortable assimilation. Like in all other, similar works, the phantom of pretension is omnipresent and sometimes the risk to take themselves too seriously is more than a dared hypothesis, nevertheless the Swiss band succeeds to keep both feet on the ground and instead of the long distance, they do not lose themselves, offering an album, if not perfect, at least successful and complete (which does not happen often these days). Listening to this record is definitely recommended to those who love to explore, especially due to their pleasure to experiment and due to the long demonstration of these thirteen small suites of emotions in notes. The sons of "post"
RockStar (http://www.rockstar.ch)
Joint - fuga in latinum - means escape. A musical theme is varying, disappearing seemingly and sets off to a contrary coup of emotions. Sounds complicated. For all you "I-shit-on-definitions-rockers": Fugos release "Aie" is an impressive sound definition of a rock-fuge. A song has got its ten parts - the drums are hammering, whispering and pulsating; the guitar is sailling, howling and concreting; the voice is whispering, screaming and exploding. Enormous pictures of sound somewhere inbetween "Into Another", "Fugazi", "Queen" and "Smashing Pumpkins". The trio from Aarau rolls every mountain flat and rests at the same time longing under the cold desert night-sky. This isn't a shallow operetta, this is a real rock-opera. Avantgarde. High quality. This quality also got discovered by the people of the british label Engineer Records, who distribute the album into the whole wide world. So gentle people: make a pilgrimage to Fugo shows! (9 stars out of 10 stars).
Selfish (http://www.selfish.de)
FUGO exist already since five years now, but there aren't that much information available about this swiss trio. After a few demos this should really change now with the debut "Aie". This debut has a convenient touch of post-rock bands like QUICKSAND, it has got also clear indie- and alternative-rock referencies. The bassist and singer roman donzé with its nasal voice reminds several times to billy corgan. The over one hour lasting album is - even tough it contents some pretty long tracks - very varied, sometimes even tricky. Somehow there are pretty intense concessions to the listener, due to sweet melodies, which in fact remind to early SMASHING PUMPKINS. If you get behind the confusing booklet, you'll remark, that the tracks - titled only with single letters - provide also in its lyrical content an challenge. And yes, don't get disturbed by the fact, that FUGO are rocking the starting of their debut in french, all the following tunes are then in english.
Conclusion: Aie - produced with financial support of their state Aaragau and the city Aarau - became an interesting album of an exceptional/extraordinary band, which has to or could get captured by the listener. It's not that easy, in fact not every track is a burner but for a debut this album - which is very nice art worked - remains absolutely remarkable.
One Take (http://www.onetake.de)
Fully loaded with energy and Variety comes the debut of the three swiss guys called Fugo. Their alternative rock is arranged in an multilayered way. This trio overcomes the bounds which normally are given concerning variety. similar acts: At the drive-in, Fugazi.
Music.ch (http://www.music.ch)
Variedly arranged pictures of sound. Fugo is an alternative rock trio from Aarau. Their debut album is excellent. They are playing in different rockstyles at the same time: indie, punkrock, alternative-core. This trio overcomes the bounds which normally are given concerning variety. The songs are very variedly arranged and last somehow well over 6 minutes - without beeing annyoing for only one second. The only weak point seems to be the singer Roman Donzé with his nasal voice, but some may love his style. But anyway, within Fugo the structures and the pictures of sound of their music have top priority. Recorded in Switzerland, mastered in the USA. Aie sounds great and absolutely credible and at over 60 minutes it'll keep you listening. Fans of Fugazi, Quicksand or The Dead Kennedys will enjoy this one!
