Matthew Friedberger – Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School

Winter Women / Holy Ghost Language School was originally recorded and released back in 2006 by Matthew Friedberger. However, due to all manner of troublesome distribution issues, a mere trickle of copies found their way to these shores. So, three years later, it gets a full release complete with shiny new packaging and four new bonus tracks.

Throughout his time working with his sister Eleanor as The Fiery Furnaces, one of the most wonderfully batshit bands we have, Friedberger has never shied away from musical excess. Therefore, nobody could honestly claim to be surprised to learn that his debut solo effort is a sprawling 33 track double album, which can be broken down into two (slightly) more bite-size individual records Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School.

Winter Women bounces along merrily on chirpy piano and bubbly drums as Friedberger embraces his pop sensibilities more fully than he ever really has before. The blissful feeling of a carefree summer’s afternoon hangs around the record, particularly in the wide-eyed simplicity of ‘Theme From Never Going Home Again’. It’s the sound of a man comfortable in his own skin, issuing a timely reminder that he still knows his way around a melody.

Winter Women might be a treasure chest packed with pop gems, but that’s not all there is to the record though. Let’s not forget Friedberger’s previous form which includes silent records, story time with Granny, and multi-layered prog behemoths. Amid all the hooks, he indulges his experimental urges with stylish electro flourishes and warped, glitchy percussion. Just look at ‘Motorman’, with it’s whispered backwards vocals and sinister undertones. It’s like an overbearing dark cloud threatening to dampen the sunny atmosphere.

The combination of the electro experimentalism and the cheery pop creates something at once accessible and nourishing. Winter Women would more than suffice as a release, but this is but half of the story. Second disc Holy Ghost Language School is less a sister album, more a deranged cousin; an intriguing stab at the much maligned concept of a rock-opera, something which the Friedberger family have had a date with from the very beginning.

The result is undoubtedly up there with the most wilfully bonkers Fiery Furnaces work, featuring a chap called Scot Dombrowski as the hero of the tale, as he tries to set up a business language school in Japan, only to find himself confused as to whether or not the whole thing really happened, or whether it was all a dream. Got that? Nope, us neither.

In spite of it’s dense headfuckery, though, it’s excellent fun. Try and keep up with the narrative and you’re likely to go mad. Instead, enjoy the twists and turns of Friedberger’s musicianship which convey a story which is (if only slightly) less migraine-inducing than the main plot. Where Winter Women sugars the frequent slices of experimentalism with melody, Holy Ghost Language School twists them in the opposite direction, substituting pop hooks for irregular and unpredictable bursts of piano and synths and running all over the place with them.

Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School undoubtedly need to be treated as entirely separate albums. It would take a brave man to tackle any two Fiery Furnaces records in one sitting, and in spite of these records bearing a different moniker, it’s exactly the same case here, such is the sheer weight of the content. This is a release which Fiery Furnaces die-hards will cherish, but it won’t convert any naysayers. Long may the Friedbergers’ lunacy endure.