Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power [DVD]

Just sat down to watch Phantom Power for the first time. If you have bought it, thinking it to be a collection of unrelated promo videos slung together, you may be pleasantly suprised.

The DVD is a magical trip into world of The Super Furries, with animations by Peter Fowler, preceeding each song. The journey begins inside a giant diarama, and in order to watch each video, you play musical roulette, and end up with a random track each time, (which is a great idea, as it makes you veiw the album in a different way).

The songs are accompanied by visceral animations, pictures and videos and kinda conjure up those kinds of images you get just before you fall asleep, and make the music much more enjoyable, as the two go together so well.

There is a lot of stuff on this dvd, as there are remixes of every song on the album, commentries and hidden features (I haven't found all of them yet!)

all in all, it's weird, fun, scary and lovely.

SFA OK!

The Super Furry Animals new album is among there best, if not the best, of their work. Yet what this DVD offers is a chance to hear the great album sounding even better than its CD version. The 5.1 surround sound enhances the songs to a whole new level and enable you to hear more backing vocals, instruments and sounds that were lost somewhere in the CD mix. Basicly this DVD makes the album sound even better, if that was possible.
Yet what it also offers cannot be ignored. The animations contributed by long time animator for the animals Pete Fowler help explain the song and are often funny, touching and even rather deep, fans of his "monsterism" artwork and toys, and SFA fans alike will love these cartoons. Also featured is an album length wallpaper (that moves and has occasional surprises) and some ultra hidden footage (took me a while to find). These make the deal all the more sweeter.
The one dissapointment for some may be the videos featured for the songs. Where 2001's "rings around the world" DVD offered funny, brilliant, if sometimes low budget, videos this dvd offers more of a screensaver to glare at. You get your TV turned into a lava lamp, a colour spectrum, a wall clock, a radio and many other strange things.
So if you expect great videos, don't buy this DVD. I for one love this new direction as i found the ring around the world videos distracting. Instead this time the band offer brilliant images that enhance to the feeling of the sound rather than distract your listning. A bubble rising to the rock riff of "out of control" and cells of colour joining to the techno folk of "slow life" seem strangly very relavent.
After all the dvd is all about the 5.1 surround mix and so if thats what you want, this will be a great purchase with the added bonus of brilliant "screen saver" videos. If you want music videos, watch mtv.

If you're expecting a feature length animation, akin to the 'Rings Around The World' DVD, and are not the type content to be trying something different then you will most likely be disappointed.
SFA have taken a leading role in carrying music through to the twenty first century. The music speaks for itself; they are one of very few bands who can build bridges between many different genres of music, avoid being pigeon-holed, and not turn stale. 'Phamtom Power' is testament to this and the experimental success of the band is reflected in the structure of this DVD. It seems not to have been the intention of the band to produce what many punters would have expected. They have instead introduced, what one can only hope, other bands will try to reproduce. The dvd proves SFA to be visionaries and may be the answer to record companies gripes about revenue losses etc.
The structure of the DVD is at first mildly baffling and will deter an unadventurous mind. Expecting to be able to just press play, as one could with 'Rings Around the World', and have magical visions spew along with the music for an awesome hour but finding that the only additional entertainment provided with the played album as a whole is a seemingly static picture of a model railway, I began to feel dissappointed. I then realised that I would have to be a little more in control of the DVD and work from the main menu. The main menu allows you to move yourself around a 'phantom'-ridden dungeon-esque area to the title page of each track on the album. Each track on the album is then split into four sections; the tune itself, the remix (some of which are some of the best transitional techno-SFAesque genre tracks available), a scroll of the lyrics, and a dry and very ironic producers' commentary. The producer's commentary will, I think, be looked over by many but it had me in stitches, it is the jewel in the genius of this DVD. So from a different perspective what one has with this DVD is the album with far better sound quality, a new album of awesome remixes by the likes of Zan Lyons (remixing 'Out Of Control'; the most unlikely song on the album for him but still mind-bogglingly good) and a truly phenomenal jazz-electro remix from Fourtet, and a Spinal Tap-esque commentary about the production of the album. (Note, no mention of animation).
The DVD is a music programme that you can take control of and opens up a new world of entertainment that other artists should think of copying or adjusting. SFA have brought comedy to music without having to sing about lumberjacks or sperm, and they have found a way of keeping their original tracks sacred alongside the introduction of new tracks that should blow your mind. Their intention seems to have been the introduction of a new format and they have not missed the mark. The one thing that I would critiscise is the expense that we all have to go through to get the programme and am surprised that those who 'need devolution because they can't affpord the price of cake' are willing to put us through this financial hoop in order to get the full album that is the price of the DVD and CD combined. On this note however surely there is an answer to record companies' gripes. SFA as financial genius. It is for these reasons that the DVD is awesome and visionary.
The animation however is disappointing. The static pictures shown during the songs are pleasant but dull. The animation prior to the the songs (30 sec snippits) are too short but, as afore said, the animation seems not to have been SFA's priority. With insight one might have presupposed this anyway. 'Phantom Power' has a completely different concept to 'Rings.........' so to make comparisons (for judgement's sake) is futile.
Therefore, here is a new format. A format for the combination of arts. A format for bringing music into the interactive age. This dvd will hopefully go down in history as a first of its kind. However as with most debut ideas it is not flawless; the animation could be better without it needing to be as much of a distraction as it is with 'Rings' and there should be ways of playing the dvd as a whole if you do just want to sit back and let the awesome melodies wash over.