A Night Of Pointless, Textbook Sex

It seems like it’s been ages since I posted about something old. So here is a little bit on the Fatima Mansions.

Perhaps because I wasn’t too keen on what I heard of Microdisney, I took a little while to catch up with Fatima Mansions and never saw them live. But what a band. Essentially the music is frenzied, searing MOR but singer Cathal Coughlan takes the band to another level. It’s his distinctive vocals and a great line in anger that make FM such a compelling outfit. Check out some of the stories about the band

I’ve got their mini-LP debut ‘Against Nature’, the classic full length ‘Viva Dead Ponies’ and it’s almost as good follow-up ‘Valhalla Avenue’. This track though is from neither:

The Fatima Mansions – Blues for Ceaucescu (single) (included on ‘Viva Dead Ponies’ reissue) [Buy it]

I never got either ‘Bertie’s Brochures’ nor, for some reason, the final LP ‘Lost In The Former West’. And Coughlan’s solo career passed me by until recently when I downloaded ‘Black River Falls’ (released back in 2000) from eMusic. And it is absolutely brilliant too. Certainly the music is a little less frenetic than Fatima Mansions but there’s no mistaking that it’s the same man. Given that there are several other solo LPs to catch up on this is a rich seam to be mined in months to come.

Cathal Coughlan – Officer Material (from ‘Black River Falls’) [Buy it] [Download it]

‘Viva Dead Ponies’ was reissued as part of a curious package last year – the original LP is supplemented with an extra disc comprising a Best Of. If you haven’t heard of this lot before you need to investigate this 2CD release.