Many thanks to Clodagh Kinsella for the review.

Super Furry Animals, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff 11/06/01

They’ve had tanks and they’ve had inflatables, and now it seems only natural that they have a DVD. Never ones to shy from technology, the Super Furry Animals have commissioned twelve short films from artists as diverse as Pete Fowler and The Ministry of Truth’s Armand and Barbie Geddyn, to be included on the new LP (Drawing) Rings Around the World. The concept is like what soundtrack is to film, only because we are in the furry world, the concept is turned on its head, and we have the sentiments of the songs mirrored in mind- expanding visuals and novel film-making techniques. A host of inquisitive fans, not to mention Euros Gorky, a pre-gig Murray the Hump and the members of Derrero, have all turned out to see this leap into the 21st Century and Super Furry Animals’ second assault on the history books.

Intro and interface
No Brake Visual Engineering

The sustained melody of a piano starts up somewhere in the distance, notes dancing around the measured echo of a drum as planet earth revolves in the middle of a black sky. It’s like the soundtrack to the birth of a star, or an updated excursion into the territory of Jean Michael Jarre. A friendly probe rears its head and starts to guide us through the depths of space, until Gruff’s voice, warped and almost inaudible through an electronic haze, whispers ‘abandon shore’. Under the guidance of sweeping strings and Gruff’s fragile tones, the probe embarks upon a 2001 odyssey, flying through black holes and DNA strands as the melody reverberates about the deeps.

Alternate Route To Vulcan Street
Directed by/Darren Watkins

The bare tune is reflected in an ever- changing kaleidoscope until Gruff’s voice rises to the fragile crescendo- ‘Lift me up’. Then to an ambient backdrop of floating shapes, and the dissolving textures of the screen, Gruff sings ‘too much, too soon’. The transient landscape peels away to leave a pair of hands making a paper aeroplane. Primary colours make a bid to takeover the screen, leaving a Mac Paint vapour trail, and it is all echoingly simple and melodic.

Sidewalk Serfer Girl
Directed by/Co-Lab, Conkerco, Simon Pike

The screen pours out blinding strobe lights in perfect time with the stop start strident guitars of the abrasive pop tune, and to the Aphex Twin-esque twitches of the chorus, a black nymph falls through the sky. As the melody builds up to a climax, perhaps it does sound like the Beach Boys, but only if they had been born inside a washing machine. Through the frenzied electronic drone, Gruff croons ‘ I’d do anything to be with you’. Jigsaw puzzles fly across the screen, the sidewalk serfer girl flies inexorably towards the pavement, and the inner city flashes before our eyes. The screen warps into a vortex full of serfer girls as they madly float about in a wind tunnel and in a flash it’s all over.

(Drawing) Rings Around the World Directed by/ Sean Hillen

Back up in space and comic strip text flashes up on screen- ‘ In the beginning….no!’,

‘Long before that…!’ To the heavy stomp of the guitar, yellow pop art letters are framed against the dark- it’s like some insane sing-along Disney video, the lyrics demonstrating a sense of suppressed urgency. The concept of Star Wars warped with Space Invaders, PIE’s one- eyed gimp has taken to a UFO, and flies about the screen. As pylons march across the cartoon earth Gruff coos ‘we’re gonna vaporise your soul!’. Then sparklers play tag around the earth, SFA blow up the world, and rockets launch. It celebrates or despairs at man’s achievement- his ability to bind the earth in a communications network, and fill it with a myriad of objects- ‘every building has been built’. To restrained Bad Behaviour guitars and the pounding drum, Gruff cries ‘Ring! Ring ! Ring ! Ring !’, until even he is absorbed into the sound of interference and sampled voices…….. !

It’s Not the End of the World
Directed by/Dylan Jones

Full visual irony here as Gruff’s falsetto trill backs up a never-ending series of triggered explosions. Hurricanes swarm, fires rampage the earth, and mushroom clouds fill the screen. It’s a beautifully sung lullaby- Gruff rises above the worries of the day and looking up at the sky sees with relief that the stars still shine- ‘turn all the hate in the world into a mocking bird, make it fly away’. Meanwhile the DVD continues like a natural disasters documentary on speed. Sepia troops and geiger counters threaten to disturb the peace, Gruff deadpans ‘at least it’s not the end of the world’ and the world blows up for the last time.

Receptacle for The Respectable
Directed by/Pete Fowler and Simon Pike

Every monsterist’s dream. One of Pete Fowler’s creations wakes up in a pink house and to the upbeat pop melody, everything goes awry. As he walks along a landing, Jabba the Hut with a set of headphones says hello, and surfacing from his monster house, the colour-strip world is like a platform game. Soon the protagonist is sprayed with luminous bubbles and whilst he changes shape, his assailant disappears down a manhole. A Super Mario Bros’ bouncing ball makes an appearance, the West Coast chorus drives the track along at a killer pace, and Gruff’s lyric ‘we’re all susceptible to the incredible’ seems entirely apt. Things take a turn for the dark- the lyrics turn to storm clouds and December gloom, and the monster enters an enchanted wood. The sweep of the analogue transforms everything into a beautiful fairytale excursion, and Pete Fowler shows us the secrets of the forest. Emerging intact, the protagonist crosses a bridge with a huge god- head at the end, and passes through gates to a sinister garden. As Gruff growls ‘receptacle for the respectable’ the monster totters into the day-glo sun, eyes glazed. The tune disintegrates, the video warps into a macabre acid daydream, and at the centre of it all is a pulsating skull that winks.

(A) Touch Sensitive.
Directed by/Neil McFarland

Events take a turn for the sexy as the bass gyrates, a sinister figure in the forest is captured by a flashing strobe, and in cartoon style, eyes are spotlit in the dark. The green faces of children revolve like a warped Bohemian Rhapsody, and we are invited to watch an illicit meeting by night. The tantalising sighs of the track are made explicit by an amalgamation of a kind of 60s sleuth film and a hazy graphic version of the Kamasutra. The ecstatic highs of the minimal tune transform into a psychedelic science programme- the spiral of children turning into a hilarious version of how babies are made.

Shoot Doris Day
Directed by/ Peter Gray

The most serious moment on the DVD, as the band fight against acceptance of the disparity between rich and poor. The slow pop song, with the uplifting vocal ’people never stay the same, it’s a fight between the wild and tame’ is backed by a video featuring Eastern cultural monuments such as Ganesh and Ghandi, whilst there is some well shot footage of African children and the slums of India. As the orchestra sweeps to a crescendo, a man revitalises himself with water from the Ganges. There is some inexplicable dancing by men in saris and as birds flock in the sky, there is, despite the message of the song, a certain feeling of regeneration.

Miniature
Directed by/ who knows

The short bleep odyssey, reminiscent of ‘The Sound of Life Today’ provides a respite from Gruff’s satirical lyrics and the pop mentality of the album, as vague vapour shapes float prettily across the screen.

No Sympathy
Directed by/Johnny Shahnazarian

The country-tinged guitar starts up, and we are taken on a Due South-esque interlude in the Canadian wilderness. A shepherd walks through fields of wheat as Gruff sings ‘ I have no sympathy for you’. The film cuts to two men who dress up in nuclear costumes and start playing a pugil fight, whilst the gospel chorus of ’sympathy sympathy’ seems wholly incongruous. Kids run loose in the forest with guns and Tara Fitzgerald even makes an appearance on the wholesome family outing. There is a perpetual contrast between the detached feel of the lone shepherd and his primitive life and the all American family, until suddenly the track speeds up and warps into a techno beat. It’s like Madonna’s flirt with sampling in ‘Don’t Tell Me’, only much more hardcore. The melody jumps inside the mainframe and bounces off the microchips, whilst the primal man grates against the beats. Suddenly the mock-invigorating cliché ‘Who overcomes himself his freedom finds’ flashes on screen and in the blinding whiteness the primal man opens his mouth in an ecstatic yaw- he who has found salvation.

Juxtaposed with You.
Directed by/D.O.N.A

The orchestral strings of the easy listening beginning are in amusing contrast to the inner city setting of the film. Gruff’s vocoder vocals on the price of housing play over a Coffee and TV type scenario. The milk carton is replaced by a carboard camera which enters the mall. Soon joined by a walking clapperboard, the two heroes are mocked by the town public- the lyric about ‘narrow pre-conception’ finding an effective outlet. The kind of low budget video that made Fatboy Slim even more famous, but touchingly done, as we find out what it’s like to see with the eyes of a clapperboard. The microphone, video-recorder and clapperboard have a touching rendez-vous in a carpark, Gruff singing about being. ‘juxtaposed’, until all the misfits go home, to be met by a domesticated scarecrow. It is a happy union, despite their differences.

Presidential Suite
Directed by/4K

The melodic beginning of the track is like ‘Demons’, but here Gruff satirises the American love of knowing everything- of their desire to know about ‘Monica and little Billy’. It builds up into a classic pop song questioning the absurdity and bewildering nature of the American political system. Continuing their penchant for Cuban revolutionaries and cigars, Monte Christo no. 4s with Che Guevara’s head emblazoned on them, comically turn into missiles and get ready to launch- an ironic jab at American paranoia. The presidential plane flies overhead, like Jimbo the childhood plane or Budgie the helicopter. Flying through the sky with American stars ironically streaming through the clouds, it passes a background of Moscow state palaces, a mechanical Elvis, and dancing couples. The song’s brass-heavy trip through 60s loungecore- mirrored in the plush jet with its glasses of vodka martini and the elegant excess of playgirls and cars, is wonderfully undercut by suggestive boxes of washing powder (you have to see it I suppose..)

Run! Christian, Run!
Directed by/the Geddyns

The refrain of a harmonica, reminiscent of moments of Mwng breaks into a Morriconean soundtrack as flames set the screen alight. Perhaps the most striking of the pieces- a typically cutting effort from the Ministry of Truth, features sound-bites about talking to god, the history of witchcraft and bitter illustrations of the destruction and irrationality of conventional religion. As a bouncing ball bounces on the lyrics Run! Christian! Run the brightness of the chorus belies its ultimately damning view of the Christian belief in salvation. The multiple biblical choice in which all the answers are correct and equally damning is compounded by facts about pogroms, holocausts, Rwanda and genocide.

The bitter lyrical content- ‘with guns to our heads, for we know that heaven awaits us’ builds into an epic 7 minutes long, as the lilting harmonica refrain returns…

Fragile happiness
Directed by/Martin McCarthy

Everything ends very quietly as the song talks about life’s everyday battle- to sink or float. The tone, upbeat but vulnerable, is aptly mirrored as a group of lone icebergs slowly make their way across the silent, black sea.

The credits roll up, and Super Furry Animals seem to have grown up. Luckily for us, however, they still know how to have fun.