TRACK 7: CABIN FEVER

CABIN FEVER by Super Furry Animals.

Unlike some, perhaps most, people out there, we greet the appearance of a six-and-a-half minute song by the Super Furry Animals without hostility or indifference. No, not us: we may be the biggest SFA fans on our block.

What puzzles us a bit is just why we picked this song, from 2005's Love Kraft, to share with you. There's no easy answer. With its big overly-compressed drums and looped piano, Cabin Fever is a 70s AM radio ballad as programmed by the Chemical Brothers. (It's actually produced by Mario Caldato). But what some (read: lesser fans) might see as weaknesses, we see as strengths.

For example, Cian Ciaran, the band's keyboard player who wrote and sang the song, isn't a professional vocalist. Instead of holding the song back, though, Cian's vocals contrast the overall lushness of the arrangement, and evoke (quite deliberately, we think) Dennis Wilson's "lost classic" Pacific Ocean Blue. We also think the admittedly regimented rhythm lends the song a stately quality. In the end, we find "Cabin Fever" to be restrained, hypnotic, and compelling.

We can't wait to hear what you think.

LISTEN.

Photo: Antumalal, Chile, 2004.