Curiosities of The Fall - No. 3 of 15(ish) - Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers
Although often cited as the beginning of a decline of sorts, my love for âBend Sinister" remains unshakeable - it was my first Fall album and, well, first love never dies and all that. However, my admittedly obstinate affection is not shared by MES or by producer John Leckie and the album is frequently accused of being poorly recorded and mastered; Leckie once (incorrectly) stated that the album had been mastered from a reference cassette. To make things worse, in a piece of trolling so persistent and successful as to be hard not to admire, a bored American lawyer has managed to convince a chunk of the groupâs fanbase at The Fall Onlineâs forum that the album runs 1% too slow. The album certainly has a very different feel to its immediate predecessors - where ââŠWonderful And FrighteningâŠâ and â..Saving Graceâ were brash, confident and zippy, âBS" is, for the most part, shadowy and inchoate. In places, it audibly stumbles around its self-imposed darkness, unwilling to light the lamps, preferring to brood. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the album version of âGross Chapel - British Grenadiers".
âBend Sinisterâ was probably recorded June/July 1986 - the groupâs gigging schedule was sporadic around the summer and my guess is that they first hit the studio around mid-June after Simon Wolstencroft had been broken in. There is a very good chance, therefore, that the album take was in the âcan" when the song was recorded for a Peel Session on 29th June. The Peel rendition is quick, tight, organised and a full minute shorter than the album version, compared to which, itâs actually pretty ordinary with MES mixed down, pacing the songâs edges. On âBend Sinisterâ, Smith commands and directs from the centre.
âGross Chapelâ is a curiosity because no-one, NO-ONE else would have gone with a take that is such a mess. On a performance basis and a technical basis, itâs a shambles. But itâs an amazing shambles, one of their most tense and compelling performances, one that trips over itself more than once and even threatens to fall apart completely. This may be because the song was new to everyone but itâs likely also a consequence of it being recorded - at Smithâs insistence - at a much quieter volume than that at which the group usually worked. Possibly struggling to hear each other, one of the guitars goes out of time at 2m 04s - well, not out of time but a beat forward from the rest of the group, off measure, rather than off rhythm. Suddenly, things are just that bit out of control for a moment, like briefly losing the steering on your car after going through a pothole - everyoneâs OK but it quickens the pulse nonetheless (nb - my ears reckon there are three guitars on the track; Brix, Craig Scanlon and Simon Rogers, with Rogers adding keyboard flourishes in the quieter moments). Brix and Scanlon then become entangled at 3m 19s, enmeshed in the songâs internal webbing. They recover sufficiently to challenge MESâs authority over the track, repeating a guitar figure in unison from around 3m 50s but at 4m 19s when the song shifts, the musicians lose each other again, worse than they did last time. The recording would surely have collapsed had Wolstencroft not spotted it and marked time for a couple of beats at 4m 27s to allow them to regroup. Itâs a thrilling moment, like one of the gang nearly going overboard but catching a hand just in time, everyone still just about clinging to the life raft.
There appear to be percussion overdubs; a tambourine veers in and out of audibility from 3m33s onwards and an acoustic guitar is added by Scanlon towards the end, the latter giving the track the feel of fading to a sepia still, the storybook being closed and placed back on a dusty shelf with one final, proud declaration from Smith - âI brought you downâ. Itâs a superb end to the track and one of their strongest âend-of-side-oneâ moments.
MES often had a thing for first takes - âLook, Knowâ, âIcelandâ, âFit And Working AgainââŠall recorded just once all the way through and there are doubtless many others. It may be that he and the group liked the effect of all this scrabbling around in the dark as much as I do. It may be that they couldnât be arsed to do it again. Or that they/MES just didnât care. In a way âGross Chapel - British Grenadiersâ explains why, for all that their sales were increasing with every release at this time, The Fall were never going to be a mainstream concern. Accidents, mistakes and unusual recording strategies create tensions that can be thrilling to the acolyte, bewildering to the outsider and exhausting for the musicians. And thatâs The Fall right there, isnât it?
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