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Rehearsing My Choir

The Fiery Furnaces

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2005, Rough Trade

#41 Seller of 2005! The Fiery Furnaces' fourth US release, Rehearsing My Choir is based, with liberal heaps of poetic license, around the recollections of Matt and Eleanor Friedberger's grandmother, 83-year-old Olga Sarantos. As Eleanor and Mrs. Sarantos trade off on vocals, signaling quick shifts in time and perspective, the music barrels along at their heels, the Furnaces changing up instruments and arrangements to match the action.

As much musical theater as concept album, the story arc of "Rehearsing My Choir" largely takes place in mid-20th century Chicago. The lyrics matter-of-factly recount our heroine's adventures from a half-century ago, and so reflect how the average person's aspirations and experiences were different enough then to seem almost alien now. But it's no period piece, no nostalgia or attempts at "authenticity" in evidence, and Mrs. Saranatos' dry, unsparing treatment on tracks like "Candymaker's Knife in My Handbag" is the furthest thing from sentimental.

Tracklisting

Disc 1

1	Garfield El
2	Wayward Granddaughter
3	Candymaker's Knife in My Handbag
4	We Wrote Letters Everyday
5	Forty-Eight Twenty-Three Twenty-Second Street
6	Guns Under the Counter
7	Seven Silver Curses
8	Though Let's Be Fair
9	Slavin' Away
10	Rehearsing My Choir
11	Does It Remind You of When?

Tom Speaker

How the Fiery Furnaces' ''Rehearsing my Choir'' is graded depends on your approach. You aren't listening the right way if you view it as a ''pop record''---this was certainly not the Furnaces' intention. Being mostly spoken-word and interspersed with themic melodies, ''Rehearsing my Choir'' must be heard as a Broadway musical-----much like an audio recording of ''Into the Woods.'' And from that perspective, it is brilliant. The plot is thick and the climax is pleasantly fitting, where the Fiery Furnaces' real grandmother, Olga Sarantos, has a congregational duel with an official at her church. Eleanor Friedberger sounds wonderful as always and Matthew produces music which correlates with the story, such as distorted synths to emulate off-key male choir-singers (''
They sounded like this...''). If Sarantos had been able to consistently match the music's emotional levels, ''Rehearsing my Choir'' might have been the best record of 2006.

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