By Laserangel

Quite a few people didn't like Levitate, the Fall's 1997 album. And I have to admit that at first, I had the same opinion. When I first listened to it I was quite disappointed. What struck me was that there werent very many songs on the album, at least not very many of the kind of songs with enormous basslines and catchy hooks that the Fall had been churning out on a regular basis for the past 20-odd years. But after a few more listens, the brilliance of this album gradually became apparent.

The previous album was the Light User Syndrome, which in my humble opinion is the best Fall album of the 90s. With a really filthy guitar based sound, augmented with a sprinkling of electronic effects, it was a classic. It seemed the Fall were back to their best. But anyone expecting the follow up to be more of the same were in for a major disappointment. Levitate was the most experimental the Fall had ever been, with Mark seemingly losing his interest in tunes and discovering the joys of weird noises and bizarre, grimy production. Yes, Mark E Smith was the sole producer on most of this album, and it seems that he made the most of his ability to do whatever the hell he liked without the intervention of other producers. In fact, the album was initially going to be produced with DOSE, a Manchester-based techno production team whom Mark had worked with before on the 'Plug Myself In' single in 1996, and they are the people largely responsible for '4? Inch' on this record (more about that later). But apparently Mark and DOSE had a major disagreement with the way the record was turning out and so they were fired acrimoniously. So Mark was left to do whatever he wanted.

The first track is quite disconcerting. Its basically the Fall do drum n bass. 'Ten Houses of Eve' heralds the start of the album with some nice clattering drumbeats, some squelchy keyboards and Mark berating you with the question, "Can you face, the ten houses of Ee-ee-ee-eee-ah?" (that's his endearing way of pronouncing Eve - it seems that over the years he has become increasingly unable to pronounce consonants). After a minute or so of pretty damn funky beats it moves into a bizarre middle section of AOR piano over which Mark sings "if only, oh if only thou'st could, in a rap sort of style, understand". Is this a cry for help? Probably not, actually. In lesser hands this bit could sound cheesy, but here it sounds strangely moving. And then it returns to the drumbeats, this time even funkier than before. A very good start to the album.

Masquerade is next, which is the song on the album which sounds most like conventional Fall. It seems to be about banks or something, as it includes the lines "what is that branch, what branch is it?" "nine year olds walk around in debt record" and "a special allowance ran out yesterday". The music itself is great, propelled along by a burbling synth sound courtesy of Julia Nagle. This song was the only single from the album, albeit it was released in a very different remixed form.

Then we have "Hurricane Edward", and from here on in things get very weird. It starts off with another Fall member recounting a tale about being a farmer and the arrival of a hurricane, and then a truly fat drumbeat starts. Mark commences singing, carrying on the theme of the narrative at the start of the track, about the hurricane. The music is almost solely made up of the drumbeat, which gradually gets louder and faster. Then the songs stops. It's all over. But actually it isn't, there is a weird noise which sounds like it could be a distorted hurricane siren, and then there is about another minute of the band playing the song live. This track pretty much sums up the sound of Levitate - a lot of the songs sound like half-finished demos that have been deliberately put through a blender to make them sound more raw and strange. But its this exactly this quality that eventually endears you to the album, it really does sound like nothing else around. At fist Hurricane Edward sounds rubbish. It doesn't even have a tune. But after a few listens the song becomes hypnotic, and the pounding drumbeat starts to sound utterly fantastic.

The next track demonstrates Marks eclectic taste in music by being completely different. 'I'm a Mummy' is actually a cover of an old surf-rock tune from the 50s, albeit with some of Marks own lyrics. It's a really catchy song, actually, and quite funny to listen to as Mark acts the character of the eponymous mummy and wonders why people "laugh at me" and complains that "I don't try to scare people, I really came back to meet Paul McCartney" . Theres a great bit where he says "look what happens when I walk up to somebody: AHAHAHAHAHAH!" . Despite it being a decent track and pretty funny, I cant help but feel that it seems out of place on the album and somewhat dilutes the experimental avant-garde feel of the record, so it doesn't get that many plays chez laserangel.

'The Quartet of Doc Shanley' is another one of the experimental tracks which again isn't really a song as such. But after a few plays the amazing bassline and percussion lodges in your head. There's no singing as such, merely Julia and Mark talking. Julia repeatedly says "if like me, you're a complete and utter pranny, you will know what I mean when I say "recipe"". Its been suggested in some places that this is a sly dig at the Fall's devoted fan base. Levitate was originally titled "Recipe for Fascism" and there is a track on the bonus CD which was supplied with initial pressings of the record called "Recipe for Fascism", so could this be ridiculing the devoted fans who rushed out to buy the limited edition double CD version of the album? Possibly. Mark seems to be saying whatever comes into his head on this track, even something about X-Files creator Chris Carter: "of course, Chris Carter has recently another series, Millenium" he proclaims midway through. This is a stunning track.

Although the album has had its share of weird moments so far, nothing has prepared the listener for the madness that is "4? Inch". This track is nothing like the Fall have ever done, and like nothing else I have ever heard. It started life as "Inch", a track in which the music was written by the aforementioned DOSE. That was taken off the album when DOSE and Mark parted ways, although it was released a couple of years later as a single. It mutated into "4? Inch" which actually musically isn't very different from the original. It is propelled by an almost hip-hop like beat and a really filthy sounding guitar and crashing drums. Over the top of this musical melee Mark shouts things like "the house is falling in!" "shove over!" "force ten!" and best of all, "ecstatic midgets!". The words don't seem to flow together, they sound like cut-ups. When you hear the original version, Inch, you realise that this is the case. On that version, the lyrics do flow together and make more sense, but here they have been blasted into incoherent fragments. And it works, I think the track sounds awesome.

'Spencer Must Die' is next, and is a more sedate affair. It is mainly made up of a Stephen Hanley-special bass line, with Mark mumbling something over the top (is he really saying "raspberries in tents"?). It gets seriously funky at the end as well. By the way, the title is another reference to the acrimonious sacking of the DOSE producers, as one of them was called Simon Spencer.

"Ol Gang" is another one of the tracks that sounds really lo-fi, and even quite eerie as Mark recounts an apparently true story about being accosted in the street at night. Again, it is full of strange noises of uncertain origin. In contrast, 'I come and stand at your door' is really quite beautiful. It has a gorgeous piano all the way through it, and is probably the closest the Fall have come to a sentimental ballad. The words are apparently taken from a poem about the Hiroshima bomb, and they really make the song quite haunting. "death came and turned my bones to dust, I scattered slowly in the wind". Even the fact that Mark sounds drunk cannot make this song anything but beautiful. 'Levitate' (the title track) is one of the most conventional songs on the album, with a really catchy tune.

And finally 'Everybody But Myself' returns to the nagging repetition that the Fall have made their trademark, the only lyrics being, throughout the whole song, "everybody but myself"!
Well, like I said before, this album did come as something of a surprise. After a few listens, though, you will start to understand it. The album is not really about songs, its about sounds, and at the risk of sounding too pretentious, textures. Mark really let his most experimental tendencies run riot on this record. It's hard to think that it was actually recorded in PWL, Pete Waterman's studio. Yes, that's Pete Waterman, the man responsible for hideous 80s chart acts such as Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue, and now Steps. Apparently him and Mark are good friends! The record sounds rough, raw, and some of the songs even sound a bit unfinished. But I think that is the kind of sound that Mark wanted to capture. Maybe he was getting tired of the overly produced electronic sounds of his mid 90s records like 'The Infotainment Scan', and wanted to make a record that sounded more organic. Well, if so, he succeeded. In a recent interview in the Wire magazine, Mark said that he viewed Levitate as a fresh start, but that the rest of the band didn't see it that way, and wanted to carry on being "rock stars". It seems that it was this divergence in viewpoints that added to the ever-present tension in the Fall, and indeed, it was during the time that they toured this album in America that the current incarnation of the band fragmented (although now hes back with a new band who are even better). So I feel that this record was a crucial turning point for the Fall.

In no way would I recommend this album to a newcomer to the Fall, but to people who are followers of the ongoing musical oddessey of Mark E Smith, this album is an essential entry in their voluminous body of work.