First off, if you don’t have a copy of Figurine’s first CD Transportation + Communication = Love (Blackbean & Placenta) there is no excuse for you, especially now that it has been re-pressed. Though that CD was released in ’99 and their debut 7″ was released one year prior, Figurine have been on their synthpop mission since 1995. The three bandmates and high school chums James, David, and Meredith had previously worked in various genres with/as Strictly Ballroom (as well as Dntel on Plug Research), Antihouse, and 16-Yr.-Old Boyfriend, respectively. Dropping their last names in ’95 to adopt Figurine as their familial identities, they began to record catchy electronic pop songs akin to those that had made Depeche Mode famous fifteen years earlier with their Speak & Spell LP. With cleverly written songs about love and loss on a remote futuristic landscape, many sung in the classic girl vs. boy banter style, Transportation won over many hearts in 1999. Not as many as it should have though, especially due to so many like-minded releases popping out of the electro scene that year (We Are DMX by DMX Krew, Submission by G.D. Luxxe, and the Adult.Entertainment EP by Adult., to name a few).
Since then, we have seen an absurd amount of acts from all genres jumping on the proverbial New Wave bandwagon. The simple kick-snare-kick-snare beat, the arpeggio synth lines and the cold narrative vocal styles have been all but completely exhausted lately. Fortunately, Figurine has avoided that cursed path and cleverly revamped their sound for the year 2001.
Their latest full length CD, The Heartfelt (March), is a robust cornucopia teeming with musical references, innovative song structures and touchingly saccharine lyrics about love. Those of you who were caught by the tumult of rave hysteria in the early 1990’s will catch the humorous samples and sonic references to techno acts like Altern8 and Human Resource featured on “Rewind” and “IMpossible”. Others who have attended more than a few events involving a silent guy and his laptop will be able to scratch your chins along to the glitchy sounds underlying the sweet melodies of “Instrumental”. In fact, The Heartfelt seems to leave no self-referential electronic stone unturned.
The lyrics and melodies live up to those on Transportation, though it’s certainly hard to top the lyrics of “electronic address”, in which Meredith sullenly states, “This blank computer screen is like a broken heart it seems.” However, a song that uses the rewinding of an audio cassette as a metaphor for reflecting upon the history of an unbalanced relationship (“Rewind”) would have to come in at a close second. The Heartfelt has shed a lot of the futuristic lingo of the band’s past and now challenges you to feel the profound hurt and anxiety of love in this post-postmodern age. Even in the song entitled “So Futuristic”, the word has been changed from a cold science fiction adjective to a warm term of affection. “Still all I remember, you seemed futuristic/You’d stolen my heart, so futuristic.” This album is so sincere about its cheesy subject matter that at times it appears to be schizophrenically laughing and crying at the same time.
The final perk of The Heartfelt comes in the form of three “password” songs. The idea is that files for each track of each song can be accessed and downloaded from their website (by typing in the track titles) for your remixing pleasure. This is an ingenious way of luring visitors to their website (Figurine Data Center) and of encouraging collaboration in a very unpretentious manner.
After laboring over this long-winded review I hope that I have sold at least one reader on Figurine and their new album. Don’t get me wrong, The Heartfelt is not free of shortcomings and at times it comes very close to overplaying its subject matter (even if on purpose). But altogether, this CD is no small accomplishment for the trio as they continue to produce what was once only an oxymoron: quality pop music.
