#009 Furniture – False Start (live)

Photo by Mark Wong

Furniture’s modus operandi is to confound expectations and break down assumptions. That’s why their forward-looking music completely belies the sedentariness their name suggests- more desiring avantpop forage than wallpaper background fittings. “False Start”, an unlikely seven-minute pop song, starts with upbeat, sunny electrolines before band leader Ronnie Khoo’s wafer-endearing, fingernails-on-board vocals break into a winsome melody that induces in listeners a liminal sensation between a cringe and a smile. Just before the five-minute mark, the music changes tact and sets forth on an unstoppable rise- climbing, doggedly climbing- gone! Instruments drop out and a glorious choral blast breaks on through to the other side. Believe it- one the most inventive pop bands operating in this corner of the world, Furniture renews my faith in pop.

mp3: Furniture – False Start (live at We Came Down From the North, Oct 4, 2008)