Slow Life
Encyclopedia
Slow Life is an EP
by the Welsh alternative rock
band Super Furry Animals
, released in 2004. The EP was made available as a free download and also saw a limited CD release, bundled with remix album Phantom Phorce
. Lead track "Slow Life" appeared on the 2003 album Phantom Power
and was originally composed as a purely electronic song by keyboardist Cian Ciaran
several years earlier. The band were keen to finish the track and Ciaran encouraged them to jam
over his original version—this jam was then edited and made into the finished song. The track "Motherfokker" is a collaboration between the Super Furry Animals and rap
group Goldie Lookin Chain
.
The EP received mixed reviews although "Slow Life" itself was singled out for praise by many critics. A music video
was made to accompany the track directed by Dylan Jones and Paps O'Maoileoain. The Super Furries appeared in the 2004 film 9 Songs
playing "Slow Life" live during a scene in which one of the characters attends a gig by the band at the Brixton Academy.
Guto Pryce
the "electronic part" was composed by keyboard player Cian Ciaran
"quite a few years" before its eventual release. The band had tried to fit this early, purely electronic, version on previous albums but had "never got 'round to it". By the time the group came to record Phantom Power
they were anxious to release the song, however Ciaran was reluctant to leave it in its original form and encouraged the rest of the band to jam
over his original track. According to singer Gruff Rhys
the instrumentation was recorded "pretty much live" after which lyrics were written and the band's 10 minute jam session was "chopped ... up and made into a composed song" with the electronic section intact. Strings
were later added by Sean O'Hagan
. Rhys has stated that renting their own studio in Cardiff has given the band the ability to work on tracks such as "Slow Life" over a period of years—the group visit the studio almost every day and play: "the best parts on any of our records, I think, come out of a couple of us being in our little room in Cardiff at three in the morning, just wigging out and being ecstatic in the music."
According to guitar
ist Huw Bunford
the track had the working title "Miami Vice" as it featured a drum roll similar to one used in the theme tune to the 80's television show of the same name
. The band decided not to keep this name as they were keen to avoid links with a particular place—Bunford gave the example of the song's use on a travel documentary about Miami as something the group did not want to see. Some promotional copies
of Phantom Power featured "Slow Life" as the first track although it eventually appeared as the last track on the officially released version of the album. Gruff Rhys has stated that the song had to go at either the beginning or the end of the record as it is the "most sonically impressive" track on the album. Rhys has described his lyrics as "regurgitating what we hear on the news, recycled, vomiting them all back". The Guardian
has interpreted the song as a "cutting critique of middle-east colonialism".
The track "Motherfokker" is a collaboration between the Super Furry Animals and Welsh rap
pers Goldie Lookin Chain
with chorus vocals provided by Cian Ciaran. The two toured together in 2004 and Gruff Rhys has praised the group, stating that "their range of references are insane. They're extremely bright. They're crazy." Rhys has explained that the song is about "an incredibly large aircraft from outer space. [Goldie Lookin Chain] are the aliens and its about the people of Earth coming together as one". The two groups have performed the track together several times at Super Furry Animals' concerts including the 2004 Reading Festival
and a date at the Brixton Academy on 22 September 2005.
website on 12 April 2004. Along with the three tracks that make up the E.P. the promotional music video
for "Slow Life" was also available to download in QuickTime and Windows Media Video
formats. Limited quantities of the E.P. were also issued on CD, bundled with initial copies of remix album Phantom Phorce
on its release on 19 April 2004. The CD version was housed in a floppy disk
style picture sleeve.
Critical reaction was generally mixed with Cokemachineglow calling the EP "forgettable", stating that, while "Slow Life" "slides perfectly off Phantom Power
", the other two tracks are weak: "Motherfokker" is a vulgar "Pez
candy up the nose" with "shoddy guest rapping" from Goldie Lookin Chain
and "Lost Control" is barely more than a remix of Phantom Power track "Out of Control". PopMatters
also dismissed "Motherfokker" and "Lost Control" as inessential b-sides
and, during their review of 2007's Hey Venus!
, the NME
suggested that "Motherfokker" is "best-suppressed".
"Slow Life" itself received generally positive reviews; Pitchfork Media
called it a "stunning closer" to Phantom Power, while PopMatters described the song as "the kind of schizophrenic fun we've come to expect from the band but ... less showy and eager to please, as they control themselves enough to make the jarring, contradicting styles much easier to digest". Stylus Magazine
stated that the "great" track "achieves symbiosis between techno
and guitar-pop better than anything else they've done before". The BBC
agreed calling "Slow Life" the band's "most successful mindrattling techno attempt so far". The song was placed at number 46 in the 2003 Festive Fifty
on John Peel
's BBC Radio 1
show.
film 9 Songs
, being one of the nine songs mentioned in the title. The movie charts the relationship of main characters Matt and Lisa from their initial meeting to the pair splitting up. Footage of the two attending a series of nine concerts at Brixton Academy, where they initially meet, is interspersed with scenes of the actors performing unsimulated sex. Matt and Lisa are already growing apart when Matt attends a Super Furry Animals concert at the Academy alone. Giving Lisa's ticket away as she "didn't want to go" the character comments: "5000 people in a room and you can still feel alone". The scene appears roughly forty minutes into the film and shows the band performing "Slow Life" live in its entirety as Matt looks on.
A promotional music video
was made to accompany "Slow Life" directed by Dylan Jones and Paps O'Maoileoain. The video features psychedelic, fluorescent
images of the band's faces in close up as they play and sing along with the track. Strobing and fractal
images appear at several points throughout the video. As with the other tracks taken from Phantom Power
, "Golden Retriever
" and "Hello Sunshine
", the video for "Slow Life" does not appear on the Phantom Power DVD release but is included on the DVD version of greatest hits album Songbook: The Singles, Vol. 1
.
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
by the Welsh alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band Super Furry Animals
Super Furry Animals
Super Furry Animals are a Welsh rock band that lean towards psychedelic rock and electronic experimentation. Since their formation in Cardiff, Wales in 1993, the band has consisted of Gruff Rhys , Huw Bunford , Guto Pryce , Cian Ciaran and Dafydd Ieuan Super Furry Animals are a Welsh rock band...
, released in 2004. The EP was made available as a free download and also saw a limited CD release, bundled with remix album Phantom Phorce
Phantom Phorce
Phantom Phorce is a remix album of Super Furry Animals' 2003 record Phantom Power. The remixes had previously appeared on the DVD version of Phantom Power—they were re-released as Phantom Phorce on the band's own Placid Casual label as a way of ensuring the remixers would receive royalties for the...
. Lead track "Slow Life" appeared on the 2003 album Phantom Power
Phantom Power (Super Furry Animals album)
Phantom Power is the sixth album by Welsh indie rock band Super Furry Animals, released on 21 July 2003 by Epic Records in the United Kingdom....
and was originally composed as a purely electronic song by keyboardist Cian Ciaran
Cian Ciaran
Cian Ciaran is the keyboard player in the band, Super Furry Animals.Ciaran is the brother of Dafydd Ieuan . He plays keyboards, electronics and occasional guitar, drums, steel drum and vocals...
several years earlier. The band were keen to finish the track and Ciaran encouraged them to jam
Jam session
Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one...
over his original version—this jam was then edited and made into the finished song. The track "Motherfokker" is a collaboration between the Super Furry Animals and rap
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
group Goldie Lookin Chain
Goldie Lookin Chain
Goldie Lookin Chain is a comedic rap music group based in Newport, South Wales. The group produces humorous, controversial and often explicit songs that satirise hip hop, today's consumer society, the ‘chav’ culture and life in Newport and south Wales in general.-Background:Many of the songs...
.
The EP received mixed reviews although "Slow Life" itself was singled out for praise by many critics. A music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
was made to accompany the track directed by Dylan Jones and Paps O'Maoileoain. The Super Furries appeared in the 2004 film 9 Songs
9 Songs
9 Songs is a 2004 British film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The title refers to the nine songs played by eight different rock bands that complement the story of the film...
playing "Slow Life" live during a scene in which one of the characters attends a gig by the band at the Brixton Academy.
Recording and themes
"Slow Life" was written in two stages. According to bassistBass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
Guto Pryce
Guto Pryce
Guto Dafydd Pryce is a bass guitar player in the band Super Furry Animals.The name Guto is pronounced in Welsh....
the "electronic part" was composed by keyboard player Cian Ciaran
Cian Ciaran
Cian Ciaran is the keyboard player in the band, Super Furry Animals.Ciaran is the brother of Dafydd Ieuan . He plays keyboards, electronics and occasional guitar, drums, steel drum and vocals...
"quite a few years" before its eventual release. The band had tried to fit this early, purely electronic, version on previous albums but had "never got 'round to it". By the time the group came to record Phantom Power
Phantom Power (Super Furry Animals album)
Phantom Power is the sixth album by Welsh indie rock band Super Furry Animals, released on 21 July 2003 by Epic Records in the United Kingdom....
they were anxious to release the song, however Ciaran was reluctant to leave it in its original form and encouraged the rest of the band to jam
Jam session
Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one...
over his original track. According to singer Gruff Rhys
Gruff Rhys
Gruffydd Maredudd Bowen Rhys is a Welsh musician, performing solo and with several bands, including Super Furry Animals who obtained mainstream success in the 1990s. He also most recently formed the electro-pop outfit Neon Neon with Boom Bip. Their album Stainless Style was nominated for the 2008...
the instrumentation was recorded "pretty much live" after which lyrics were written and the band's 10 minute jam session was "chopped ... up and made into a composed song" with the electronic section intact. Strings
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
were later added by Sean O'Hagan
Sean O'Hagan
Sean O'Hagan is a founding member of Irish indie band Microdisney. In the 1990s he formed The High Llamas and released a number of highly acclaimed albums showing influences as diverse as The Beach Boys, Ennio Morricone, Antonio Carlos Jobim and avant-garde electronica...
. Rhys has stated that renting their own studio in Cardiff has given the band the ability to work on tracks such as "Slow Life" over a period of years—the group visit the studio almost every day and play: "the best parts on any of our records, I think, come out of a couple of us being in our little room in Cardiff at three in the morning, just wigging out and being ecstatic in the music."
According to guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
ist Huw Bunford
Huw Bunford
Huw "Bunf" Bunford is the guitarist in the rock band, Super Furry Animals.-Biography:...
the track had the working title "Miami Vice" as it featured a drum roll similar to one used in the theme tune to the 80's television show of the same name
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
. The band decided not to keep this name as they were keen to avoid links with a particular place—Bunford gave the example of the song's use on a travel documentary about Miami as something the group did not want to see. Some promotional copies
Promotional recording
A promotional recording, or promo, is an audio or video recording distributed for free, usually in order to promote a recording that is or soon will be commercially available...
of Phantom Power featured "Slow Life" as the first track although it eventually appeared as the last track on the officially released version of the album. Gruff Rhys has stated that the song had to go at either the beginning or the end of the record as it is the "most sonically impressive" track on the album. Rhys has described his lyrics as "regurgitating what we hear on the news, recycled, vomiting them all back". The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
has interpreted the song as a "cutting critique of middle-east colonialism".
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
pers Goldie Lookin Chain
Goldie Lookin Chain
Goldie Lookin Chain is a comedic rap music group based in Newport, South Wales. The group produces humorous, controversial and often explicit songs that satirise hip hop, today's consumer society, the ‘chav’ culture and life in Newport and south Wales in general.-Background:Many of the songs...
with chorus vocals provided by Cian Ciaran. The two toured together in 2004 and Gruff Rhys has praised the group, stating that "their range of references are insane. They're extremely bright. They're crazy." Rhys has explained that the song is about "an incredibly large aircraft from outer space. [Goldie Lookin Chain] are the aliens and its about the people of Earth coming together as one". The two groups have performed the track together several times at Super Furry Animals' concerts including the 2004 Reading Festival
Reading and Leeds Festivals
The Reading and Leeds Festivals are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. The events take place simultaneously on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend, sharing the same bill. The Reading Festival is held at Little John's Farm...
and a date at the Brixton Academy on 22 September 2005.
Release and reception
The E.P. was released as a free download from the Placid CasualPlacid Casual
Placid Casual is the Cardiff based record label set up in 1998 by Super Furry Animals.According to the label's website "Placid Casual retains an amateur status and an a&r policy of blatant nepotism...
website on 12 April 2004. Along with the three tracks that make up the E.P. the promotional music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for "Slow Life" was also available to download in QuickTime and Windows Media Video
Windows Media Video
'Windows Media Video is a video compression format for several proprietary codecs developed by Microsoft. The original video format, known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo. The other formats, such as WMV Screen and WMV Image, cater...
formats. Limited quantities of the E.P. were also issued on CD, bundled with initial copies of remix album Phantom Phorce
Phantom Phorce
Phantom Phorce is a remix album of Super Furry Animals' 2003 record Phantom Power. The remixes had previously appeared on the DVD version of Phantom Power—they were re-released as Phantom Phorce on the band's own Placid Casual label as a way of ensuring the remixers would receive royalties for the...
on its release on 19 April 2004. The CD version was housed in a floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
style picture sleeve.
Critical reaction was generally mixed with Cokemachineglow calling the EP "forgettable", stating that, while "Slow Life" "slides perfectly off Phantom Power
Phantom Power (Super Furry Animals album)
Phantom Power is the sixth album by Welsh indie rock band Super Furry Animals, released on 21 July 2003 by Epic Records in the United Kingdom....
", the other two tracks are weak: "Motherfokker" is a vulgar "Pez
PEZ
Pez is the brand name of an Austrian confectionery and the mechanical pocket dispensers for the same...
candy up the nose" with "shoddy guest rapping" from Goldie Lookin Chain
Goldie Lookin Chain
Goldie Lookin Chain is a comedic rap music group based in Newport, South Wales. The group produces humorous, controversial and often explicit songs that satirise hip hop, today's consumer society, the ‘chav’ culture and life in Newport and south Wales in general.-Background:Many of the songs...
and "Lost Control" is barely more than a remix of Phantom Power track "Out of Control". PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
also dismissed "Motherfokker" and "Lost Control" as inessential b-sides
A-side and B-side
A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...
and, during their review of 2007's Hey Venus!
Hey Venus!
Hey Venus! is the eighth album by Welsh band Super Furry Animals. It was released on 27 August 2007 in the United Kingdom. Hey Venus! is the band's first full-length release on current label Rough Trade Records and, at just over 36 minutes, is also their shortest-running studio release...
, the NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
suggested that "Motherfokker" is "best-suppressed".
"Slow Life" itself received generally positive reviews; Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
called it a "stunning closer" to Phantom Power, while PopMatters described the song as "the kind of schizophrenic fun we've come to expect from the band but ... less showy and eager to please, as they control themselves enough to make the jarring, contradicting styles much easier to digest". Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine
Stylus Magazine was an online music and film magazine launched in 2002. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, a number of different podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog....
stated that the "great" track "achieves symbiosis between techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...
and guitar-pop better than anything else they've done before". The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
agreed calling "Slow Life" the band's "most successful mindrattling techno attempt so far". The song was placed at number 46 in the 2003 Festive Fifty
Festive Fifty
The Festive Fifty was originally an annual list of the year's fifty best songs compiled at the end of the year and voted for by listeners to John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show...
on John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
's BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
show.
Use of "Slow Life" in 9 Songs
"Slow Life" is central to the 2004 Michael WinterbottomMichael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
film 9 Songs
9 Songs
9 Songs is a 2004 British film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The title refers to the nine songs played by eight different rock bands that complement the story of the film...
, being one of the nine songs mentioned in the title. The movie charts the relationship of main characters Matt and Lisa from their initial meeting to the pair splitting up. Footage of the two attending a series of nine concerts at Brixton Academy, where they initially meet, is interspersed with scenes of the actors performing unsimulated sex. Matt and Lisa are already growing apart when Matt attends a Super Furry Animals concert at the Academy alone. Giving Lisa's ticket away as she "didn't want to go" the character comments: "5000 people in a room and you can still feel alone". The scene appears roughly forty minutes into the film and shows the band performing "Slow Life" live in its entirety as Matt looks on.
Music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
was made to accompany "Slow Life" directed by Dylan Jones and Paps O'Maoileoain. The video features psychedelic, fluorescent
Fluorescence
Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation of a different wavelength. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore lower energy, than the absorbed radiation...
images of the band's faces in close up as they play and sing along with the track. Strobing and fractal
Fractal
A fractal has been defined as "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole," a property called self-similarity...
images appear at several points throughout the video. As with the other tracks taken from Phantom Power
Phantom Power (Super Furry Animals album)
Phantom Power is the sixth album by Welsh indie rock band Super Furry Animals, released on 21 July 2003 by Epic Records in the United Kingdom....
, "Golden Retriever
Golden Retriever (song)
"Golden Retriever" is a song by Super Furry Animals. It was the first single to be issued from the album Phantom Power and reached number 13 on the UK Singles Chart on its release in July 2003...
" and "Hello Sunshine
Hello Sunshine
"Hello Sunshine" is a song by the Welsh band Super Furry Animals from their album Phantom Power. It was the seventeenth single released by the group and reached number 31 on the UK Singles Chart in October 2003....
", the video for "Slow Life" does not appear on the Phantom Power DVD release but is included on the DVD version of greatest hits album Songbook: The Singles, Vol. 1
Songbook: The Singles, Vol. 1
Songbook: The Singles, Vol. 1 collects all of the Super Furry Animals singles released between 1996 and 2004 as well as B-side "Blerwytirhwng?" . Songbook... was released in the UK in October 2004, debuting at #18 on the UK album charts...
.
Track listing
All songs by Super Furry Animals unless otherwise stated.- "Slow Life" – 6:59
- "Motherfokker" (Super Furry Animals/Goldie Lookin ChainGoldie Lookin ChainGoldie Lookin Chain is a comedic rap music group based in Newport, South Wales. The group produces humorous, controversial and often explicit songs that satirise hip hop, today's consumer society, the ‘chav’ culture and life in Newport and south Wales in general.-Background:Many of the songs...
) – 5:42 - "Lost Control" – 4:41
Credits
- Gruff RhysGruff RhysGruffydd Maredudd Bowen Rhys is a Welsh musician, performing solo and with several bands, including Super Furry Animals who obtained mainstream success in the 1990s. He also most recently formed the electro-pop outfit Neon Neon with Boom Bip. Their album Stainless Style was nominated for the 2008...
– vocals - Huw BunfordHuw BunfordHuw "Bunf" Bunford is the guitarist in the rock band, Super Furry Animals.-Biography:...
– guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, backing vocals - Guto PryceGuto PryceGuto Dafydd Pryce is a bass guitar player in the band Super Furry Animals.The name Guto is pronounced in Welsh....
– bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick.... - Cian CiaranCian CiaranCian Ciaran is the keyboard player in the band, Super Furry Animals.Ciaran is the brother of Dafydd Ieuan . He plays keyboards, electronics and occasional guitar, drums, steel drum and vocals...
– keyboardsMusical keyboardA musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...
, backing vocals, chorus vocals on "Motherfokker" - Dafydd IeuanDafydd IeuanDafydd Ieuan is the drummer with the band, Super Furry Animals and The Peth. He currently lives in Cardiff with his wife Debbie, and their two children Cai and Lleucu....
– drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
, backing vocals - Kris Jenkins – percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
on "Slow Life" - Marcus Holdway – celloCelloThe cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
on "Slow Life" - Sally Herbert – violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
on "Slow Life" - Brian G. Wright – violin on "Slow Life"
- Gill Morley – violin on "Slow Life"
- Ellen Blair – violin on "Slow Life"
- Pete FowlerPete FowlerPete Fowler is a Welsh artist best known for his artwork for the Welsh band Super Furry Animals. He is a freelance illustrator and "monster creator" inspired by Japanese art, folklore, myths, psychedelia and super nature...
– Kaoss flangesKaoss PadThe Kaoss Pad is a touchpad MIDI controller, sampler, and effects processor for audio and musical instruments, made by Korg.The Kaoss Pad's touchpad can be used to control its internal effects engine, which can be applied to a line-in signal or to samples recorded from the line-in...
on "Slow Life" - Neil McFarland – Kaoss flanges on "Slow Life"
- 2Hats – rapRappingRapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
on "Motherfokker" - MaggotMaggot (rapper)Andrew "Maggot" Junior, born 17 June 1976, from Newport, South Wales is a Welsh rapper and member of the band Goldie Lookin Chain.- Goldie Lookin Chain :Several Goldie Lookin Chain songs have been written about him...
– rap on "Motherfokker" - Billy Webb – rap on "Motherfokker"
- Eggsy – rap on "Motherfokker"
- Mystikal – rap on "Motherfokker"
- Mike Balls – rap on "Motherfokker"
- Adam Hussain – rap on "Motherfokker"
- Dwain Xain Zedong – rap on "Motherfokker"
External links
- Free download at Placid CasualPlacid CasualPlacid Casual is the Cardiff based record label set up in 1998 by Super Furry Animals.According to the label's website "Placid Casual retains an amateur status and an a&r policy of blatant nepotism...
.