One of the highlights of last Saturday’s 4Knots Music Festival at South Street Seaport was a performance by Eleanor Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces.
Friedberger took the stage in the early afternoon with her four-piece band and ran out a string of numbers from her new record, Last Summer. While not as jarring or moving as a typical Furnaces set, Friedberger delicately reinterpreted and arranged vintage American pop-rock sounds for the progressively sweltering crowd.
Available through Merge records, Last Summer is a collection of numbers much tighter and more conventional that fans of her Furnaces work might expect. Friedberger long ago demonstrated her vocal versatility with an ability to slide from pop structures to odd time signatures, but this collection of quasi-70s AM radio cuts moves with a gracious ease. Where Friedberger used to fashion herself more cryptic and literary like Patti Smith or Ricki Lee Jones, this record sounds more reminiscent of Carole King.
Eleanor Friedberger’s album doesn’t signal an end to The Fiery Furnaces, nor is it even a beginning of the duo’s constant experimentation and prolific recording. Since January, brother Matthew Friedberger has been issuing a solo LP every other month in an aptly title series, Solos. Each of the eight Solos is recorded on a single instrument and mailed to subscribing listeners, although some of the releases are still available through Thrill Jockey. Matthew also released two solo albums, Winter Women and Holy Ghost Language School, simultaneously in 2006.
The group performed Fiery Furnaces material in a lounge style for two nights at Rockwood Music Hall in early May. Eleanor, of course, sang, while Matthew accompanied only on piano. The duo has another Furnaces album planned for release later this year as well.
If you did not make the festival or can’t get enough of her, Eleanor Friedberger also opens for Deerhunter at Webster Hall on August 22and 23. However, the first of those two nights is already sold out.
