Julian Fane - Special Forces Promo

(Planet Mu, 2004)

Planet Mu shipped this 7” as a limited, not-for-sale promo pushing Julian Fane’s first record, Special Forces, and I, as the warehouse boy for the label’s American distributor at the time, dutifully slipped a few copies into each big mailing over the course of that summer (so what’d YOU think of it, Revolver, Carrot Top, Caroline, and etc.?). I also “slipped” one into my own pocket, of course, and listening to it now, four years later, I remain impressed by the warm, Caribou-like, one-man beat-psychedelia that Fane pulls. “Safety Man” swipes Sigur Ros’ cooing falsetto for maximum creepy-crawliness, while non-album rarity “Joyce Lang” is startling in its resemblance to a glitchy Kid A outtake. As software psych goes, it’s surprisingly human and accessible; the flesh-n-bones aspect hasn’t been killed off by tech obsession. I’d recommend the full album over the promo single, obviously, but the decent B-side certainly deserves to be heard by those who generally dig Fane’s work. Worth tracking down on the cheap, so hop to it if you’ve got both legs.