About a year and a half ago, Dark Beloved Cloud was kind enough to release Savoir Faire, a compilation of Family Fodder's career high points. We'll excuse you if you missed it; Family Fodder were relatively obscure, even during their heyday. However, even if you've never heard the group, you've almost certainly heard music that was directly influenced by their work. Among other things, they're considered to be conceptual precursors to Stereolab, though Family Fodder's sound varied more over the course of a single album than the Lab's has in their last five.
As sometimes happens following the re-release of such cult-favorite material, Savoir Faire stirred up interest not just among Family Fodder's fans, but among the band members themselves. Discovering that their creative juices hadn't dried up during the group's seventeen-year lapse, Alig Fodder and Dominique Levillain proceeded to write and record a new batch of songs, which in due course became Water Shed.
The wonderful thing about Water Shed is that, after more than a decade and a half, Family Fodder clearly feels no allegiance to any particular form or style. Never a band to pay much attention to genre lines, they're now more free than ever to range all over the stylistic map, creating music they like, with a patent disregard for pop trends. For Family Fodder, mixing clever, Squeeze-style pop hooks with calypso, dub and Afropop influences is just the tip of the iceberg.
Dominique wields her charming French accent in a matter-of-fact style, never pursuing the haughty, conspicuous "cool" usually associated with Gallic inflection. The broad, bouncy keyboard accents and wriggling guitar lead of opener "Deep Time" provide a perfect foundation for her brazen delivery -- she sounds like she's sincerely excited to be singing again. Dub-styled rhythms abound, creeping into "Would" and thoroughly saturating "Whisper" and "English". Lazy, drawn-out bass lines stretch in the sun, punctuated by snaky guitar runs and gratuitous reverb. "English" even slips into an upbeat, dub-free pop chorus without killing the mood; it's similar to the "mood-shift" effect that 10cc's "Dreadlock Holiday" achieved so well, but done in an entirely different way.
There's no dub influence evident on "Lost", which offers an energetic, almost goofy melodic romp. Alig Fodder's vocals recall Robyn Hitchcock, while the saxophone toots that anchor the rhythm are pure Difford and Tilbrook. "Fox" offers more Squeezable goodness, though Dominique's French lyrics dilute the resemblance. "Women" is an Afro-spiced battle of the sexes tune, the sort of thing Paul Simon could write if he hadn't had his sense of humor removed years ago. On the other end of the spectrum you'll find "Rouge", a sincere piano-and-vocal effort that sounds like Dominique's attempt to get Tori Amos out of her system once and for all.
"Naked" provides a grand finish, incorporating Uilean pipes and some very peculiar voice samples
to create an unexpectedly solemn and traditional closure. In typical Family Fodder style, it's the last thing you'd expect.
Clever, catchy and wide-ranging, Water Shed proves that not all "reunion" albums are empty, half-hearted affairs. Far from being artistically bankrupt, this unexpected new chapter in the Family Fodder story will leave you enriched. It might even make you wonder why your current favorite band can't push its own envelope a little harder.
