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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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I declare, I am feeling rather Faint
Wednesday 14 May @ 13:23:38 |
 by Celeste Tabora
The Faint should be no strangers to you by now. Even though they’ve gone through a great many changes since their official beginning in 1998, they’ve consistently impressed with their active and danceable live shows as well as their ability to create a different kind of party CD with every new release.
The band that made Omaha groove started out playing under the shockingly drab name Norman Bailer. That early incarnation of the band featured current Faint members Clark and Todd Baechle (on drums and vocals) and bassist Joel Peterson. They sounded more like lo-fi indie-pop back then, soft-rock with punk tendencies. When they recruited Matt Bowen, The Faint was born.
Media, the group’s debut album, was different still from their later sound, but served as a foot-in-the-door to their later new wave-inspired pop. It was then that the band set out to add something to their live performances. Jacob Thiele joined, replacing Bowen, and added The Faint’s staple keyboard sound.
In 1999 the band had a new agenda and turned to dance beats, infectious keyboards, and an ’80s-influenced sound that both embraced and reinvented the past. The result was Blank Wave Arcade, a throbbing record about sexuality, transportation and mass consumption that instantly won fans over to the band’s distinctive new sound. This new material, along with a seizure-happy D.I.Y. live light show and incomparable on-stage energy, created a wave of buzz.
Soon the Faint were heroes of the second coming of new wave. A remix of Blank Wave album tracks on a limited edition LP and a tour furthered the band’s hype. In early 2001 the buzz had grown to a resounding roar.
In August of that year the group released Danse Macabre, an even deeper and darker exploration of the styles hinted at on Blank Wave Arcade. They also added a guitarist by the name of Dapose, whose death metal past worked well alongside gloomy-yet-oddly-upbeat sentiments of Danse Macabre.
The band had established a kinship with the likes of Kraftwerk, Soft Cell or Gary Numan, earlier musicians who had found an odd nexus of dark, robotic synth textures, dance music and pop sensibilities. With tracks like “Let the Poison Spill” and “The Conductor,” The Faint might have been an MTV favorite in the network’s early years. Decadent yet inoffensive lyrics characterized Danse Macabre, presenting surreal narratives that detail the steamy side of disco-club life via the sounds of Reagan-era nostalgia.
The Faint followed the immediate acceptance of their record with more touring and also found the time to release the Mote/Dust 12” (GSL) in October of ‘01, featuring two more remixes, a Sonic Youth cover, and a new track featuring Bright Eyes songsmith Conor Oberst. The band stayed silent on the recording tip ’til March of this year when they released an album of remixes from Danse Macabre.
Teaming up with European label Astralwerks, The Faint recruited a variety of people to remix the Danse Macabre record. “Ballad” was remixed by Medicine, who fused string sections, dischordant vocals and staccato synths into a remarkably emotional electro track. The Thin White Duke remix of “The Conductor” makes the song quite house-y, while Paul Oakenfold deconstructs “Glass Danse” making it sound like Depeche Mode.
Some highlights of the album include Calculators’ remix of “Posed to Death”: Sounding like funk-techno, it makes use of the original vocals but morphs them in weird ways. Photek’s industrial botch job of “Total Job” sets the original vocal over a pulsating, schizophrenic beat. Ursula 1000’s take on “Your Retro Career Melted” magically transforms a song by The Faint into a song by Gang of Four.
Although there are a couple weaker remixes, Faint fans won’t be saddened by them. Thankfully, the producers chosen for the project didn’t remix the band’s sound into a black hole but rather managed to maintain much of the original energy and texture. There’s a great mix of the dance, techno and new wave revival that the Faint are all about.
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