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NEW NOISE: Fanfarlo (With FREE mp3 download!)

Fanfarlo’s violinist extraordinaire on advent calendars, Arcade Fire comparisons and the artistic process behind the group’s intricate music.

It's the last, frozen days of the year, yet Brit rockers Fanfarlo (the name comes from a Baudelaire novella) aren't wiling away the holidays with friends and family across the pond. Instead, the quartet is polishing off 2009 with a tour across the U.S., spending the season eating cereal sans milk in tour buses; stumbling

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It’s all part of the band’s Tour Advent Calendar. Fanfarlo has been offering a ‘gift’ each day on it’s website—videos of the aforementioned antics, performances, etc.—throughout the entire month of December.

“We have one of those Flipcams and it’s whatever we feel like filming,” violinist Cathy Lucas says. We’re on the phone while the group makes its way to Houston for a show.

“It’s won’t be all video, though. There’s a poem we’d like to include, as well, that was delivered to us by a man named Sacks in Austin. He’s a homeless man and he wrote a poem in about five minutes; he does it for a lot of bands who come in town and reads them onstage before the band goes on.”

Fanfarlo was initially the brainchild of Simon Balthazar, a Swedish expat who moved to London, became immersed in the music scene, began attending gigs and was soon meeting and gathering musicians with whom to play and write music. In 2006, the earliest embodiment of Fanfarlo was formed.

“I was in another band called My Captain,” remembers Lucas, “and Simon saw us play and he grabbed me. This band has played as a two-piece, three-piece, all kinds of incarnations.”

After recording a few singles on London indie labels, Fanfarlo spent six weeks in 2006 at the Bridgeport, CT home of producer Peter Katis (best known perhaps for working with Interpol and The National) recording their debut album, Reservoir.

“Working with Peter was really great,” Lucas says. “He’s very much into organic sounds. What’s exciting for us in our music is that we didn’t want a backing track, we wanted to get that full sound from people as you’re playing your instrument. He was really into that; he’s not afraid of using a lot of big sounds.”

To refer to the music of Fanfarlo as ‘big sounds’ is perhaps an understatement—it’s sweeping, wistful, gorgeous melodies that evoke, well, Arcade Fire and Beirut with its multi-instrumentation (think violins, trumpets, xylophones) and multi-layered vocals and harmonies. There are big tracks like ”The Walls Are Coming Down,” propelled by a marching drum-beat ,a soaring trumpet riff and Lucas’s violin pizzicato (plucking the strings, as opposed to playing over them with a bow).

Then there are the more gentle, wistful songs like ”Comet“ with its soft guitar intro and a pretty-yet-melancholy chorus: “Cry murder, cry what you like / Just let the comets lead the way / We’ll tear it down / We’ll hold the truth by the neck / Kick in the doors and burn the books / Try to forget.” Like much of the group’s repertoire, a pleasant melody often camouflages darker lyrical themes.

“Simon writes the lyrics,” Lucas says. “I think he’s just interested in telling stories. He always is sort of researching people he finds interesting. The songs like ’Harold T. Wilkins“ and ”The Walls Are Coming Down“ are based on stories and literature, people he was inspired by. I think the obvious references and comparisons people make to Arcade Fire and Beirut are based on the actual instruments in the band. Musically, we all listen to really different stuff. I listen to (former Zombies vocalist) Colin Blunstone, and you know, we’ve got a metal constituency represented here, as well. We cover all the bases, I think. It’s just about going with our instincts.”

Lucas says that while Balthazar sometimes comes in with a bare-bones structure of a song he’s been working on—ultimately, the different parts and musical tools required to build a Fanfarlo track require a truly shared effort.

“Some songs have come fully-formed because he’ll have worked on them long before the band even came together,” she says with a laugh. “But others we’ll all take apart and put it together again differently. I think the general trend is towards more collaborative songwriting.”

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