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Elusive Fol Chen Offers Dark, Whimsical Debut
2/11/2009 7:44 PM from
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100569984&ft=1&f=1039>
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100569984&ft=1&f=1039
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Elusive Fol Chen Offers Dark, Whimsical Debut
By Ken
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4473024>
Tucker
Fresh Air
<http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13> from
WHYY, February 11, 2009 - Fol Chen opens its debut album Part 1: John
Shade, Your Fortune's Made with the song "The Believers," advising us
in the
chorus, "Don't follow me." To which I respond: Don't worry, Fol Chen.
Who's
going to try and attempt your instantly-unique blend of dread and
whimsy,
your quietly-stated intensity? The band tries to hide its faces in
photographs and videos, and issues information about itself that are
less
press releases than gnomic prose poems, yet the group isn't nearly as
arch
or pretentious as what I just said would seem to imply.
<…>
But it occurred to me that John Shade is also the name of the poet in
Vladimir Nabokov's 1962 novel Pale Fire. I can easily imagine the
members of
Fol Chen, so fond of obscuring their own identities and motives, being
taken
with Nabokov's tale of a poet whose work is obsessively annotated by
others.
Kinda like what happens when music critics try and take apart Fol Chen's
music to see what makes it tick. No matter — as Nabokov proved,
analyzing
admirable but elusive, allusive work only adds another layer of
pleasure.
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