Ezra Furman Performs “Love You So Bad” On AV Club
The AV Club
This week, we’re sharing songs from Ezra Furman, whose latest record, Transangelic Exodus, was just released last week.
This week, we’re sharing songs from Ezra Furman, whose latest record, Transangelic Exodus, was just released last week.
In a standout moment from Chicago-born songwriter Ezra Furman’s excellent 2015 album Perpetual Motion People, the singer wails “I have got a lousy connection!”
Like so many younger siblings, Jonah Furman latched onto his big brother Ezra when Ezra received a gift that made him instantly cool: a brand-new acoustic guitar for his bar mitzvah.
Ezra Furman is a transformative performer. The last time I saw him wield a guitar was in February 2013 at a San Francisco acoustic Sofar Session. He was reticent, solo, and jarringly genuine. He was also dressed as a man in corduroy slacks. This was when he was on the verge of giving up as a touring musician, as he recently admitted in an interview with The Bay Bridged.
A frenzy of poppy synths, rackety percussion and a throbbing bassline, this song effectively blends Furman’s visceral indie rock roots with his newer, glossier throwback sound.
Ezra Furman really seems to speak to depressed people. As you all learned last year, my mom died in the summer of 2014. I was fine…for a while. The loss wasn’t sudden — it didn’t put me in bed for months on end or convince me to stop eating. It just left me feeling kinda “…What now?”
‘Perpetual Motion People’ had already been cemented as my favourite album of 2015 by the time Ezra Furman turned in the live performance of the year at his Bristol show back in November.
That Illinois boy Ezra Furman is really on a roll. After a year filled with loads of touring, a sure-to-land-on-year-end-lists album (Perpetual Motion People), and Iggy Pop praising him to the heavens on his radio show, the ever-evolving glam punk just posted a new tune and tour dates. Plus, he’ll be penning the 33 & 1/3 entry for Lou Reed’s 1972 album, Transformer.
“Well, that process is over for another 12 months, and following vigorous head-scratching, hot debate and much umming and ahhing, the results are in.
Returning heroes, brand new discoveries and instant classics mix in a melange of magical music…”
What do Boy George, Sufjan Stevens, and James Murphy have in common? A love of Ezra Furman, apparently, two of the three were spotted at a recent Furman show. The 29-year-old Chicago songwriter has been releasing records in various guises since 2007—initially with his band, the Harpoons, and more recently with The Boy-Friends who play on his current solo album Perpetual Motion People (out now on Bella Union).
““This is weird, huh?” says Ezra Furman, genuinely mystified. “What happened here? Two thousand people at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. What the hell happened here?”
We’re just two songs into an hour-and-50 minute set from Furman and his band, the Boy-Friends. As they move breathlessly from the itchy, life-affirming pop of Anything Can Happen to the searing, Bo Diddley-indebted At the Bottom of the Ocean, it’s impossible not to love and admire them in equal measure.”
“Then Ezra Furman took things up a notch with a spirited, sax-fueled set. Furman’s a charismatic, charming guy and between the confessional, storytelling nature of many of his songs and folk-rock style, it’s all a little late-’80s Violent Femmes yet there’s nobody else quite like him…”
“In a raucous headlining set for Panache Booking’s showcase at the Knitting Factory on Wednesday, Ezra Furman proved why his brand of snarling glam-punk goes above and beyond mere posturing and into essential territory. Clad in a plaid school-girl skirt, with pearls around his neck and lipstick on his face, the purple-haired, gender-fluid Furman delivered a series of three songs mid-set that were clear game-changers. The first, “Body Was Made,” is a vitriolic fuck-you to body police; he dedicated it to “all the queers.” That was followed promptly by “Wobbly,” possibly one of the truest odes to gender dysphoria ever penned. But it was a rollicking rendition of the Velvet Underground’s “Rock & Roll” that placed these personal protests back within a musical milieu, reminding the crowd that music has been about rebellion for a long, long time now. Furman is brilliant at using his art to examine the possibilities of a post-gender reality. — Lindsey Rhoades…”
“Furman’s latest album, “Perpetual Motion People,” seems to incorporate the entire history of rock and roll. He takes everything from art-pop to ?50s doo wop and filters it through his unique perspective, writing about personal topics like gender fluidity, depression and identity…”
“His latest full-length, Perpetual Motion People, is a study in extremes between body-shaking punk rock and achingly emotional songs. With a voice reminiscent of Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, the 29-year-old Furman — a devout Jew who identifies as gender-fluid and occasionally dons dresses and red lipstick — is a whirling dervish of sound as well as a deft and endearingly vulnerable lyricist.”
“Describe your band in seven words or less.
Punk + soul + literature = freedom.”
“Ezra Furman has been on a quest to cover some of the most beloved songs of all time, both old and contemporary, and the last one we heard from him was of LCD Soundsystem’s “I Can Change.” Today, Furman’s presented us with his rendition of the Replacements’ “Androgynous…”
“Ezra Furman defies easy categorization, actually singing “let’s wreck all these preconceived notions” on “Ordinary Life,” one of the standout cuts from his new album Perpetual Motion People that dabbles in folk, doo-wop, distorted rock, and hooky guitar pop…”
“Perpetual Motion People showcases an increased confidence and willingness to explore various sonic directions—a shift from his quietly received 2012 debut and 2013’s Day of the Dog…”
“Perpetual Motion People marks Furman’s first release with London imprint Bella Union. It’s his third solo LP, but it matches tempos more closely with Mysterious Power, his 2011 release…”
“Ezra Furman paints a picture which must be drawn from real life. If this album screams one thing loudest, it’s that Furman isn’t keeping anything hidden…”
“There’s a ramshackle magical confidence that tumbles throughout all the songs, a sense that Furman has created his own unique, captivating world…”
“The highly anticipated follow up to Day Of The Dog, Perpetual Motion People sees Ezra Furman back with a bang…”
“Perpetual Motion People are the “people who feel they can never settle” for whom and by whom this album was made…”
“Furman would probably have seemed fairly unusual in any era, but his distinctiveness shines a little brighter in a world where a lot of rock is painted in neutral shades…”
“His work in collaboration with his regular backing band, The Boyfriends, seems to have lifted his songwriting still further from the norm, taking the glam-punk sound of his last album, 2013’s Day Of The Dog and moving it into new territory. The result is that he’s never sounded more like Ezra Furman…”
“Perpetual Motion People lives up to its title. Furman never sounds like he’s fronting the same band on any two tracks, and the copious, fascinating sleevenotes which accompany the record give every song its own address…”
” Perpetual Motion People raised the bar once again, continuing Furman’s reign as North America’s best songwriter…”
“From the album’s opener and lead single ‘Restless Year’, a song that could brighten the day of any sorry soul, the record flows into this cheerful vibe that never seems to slow down…”