Flying Saucer Attack – Sally Free and Easy – Review

Flying Saucer Attack

Sally Free and Easy (Drag City)
by Nik Rainey

The performers have come from diverse areas of the globe and take it in turns to tell their wordless tales. First, a pair from Bristol, England, who call themselves Flying Saucer Attack, arrived and were greeted happily by the assembled tribes, particularly since they had spent the last year in hiding. They began by using the past to define the future in the form of a countryman’s ballad, “Sally Free and Easy,” disinterred from the Portsmouth ground where it had lain since 1958, which they coated with distortion and waves of mournful feedback. Thus grounded, they simply removed the song and let the blur of sound speak for itself. “Three Seas” rippled, crested and immersed all that dared wade in them. (Sally Free and Easy EP [Drag City]) Thus inspired, a group of fellow travellers known as Tele:Funken sampled some of FSA’s wares and dropped them into a pulsating pool of ebbing and flowing sound, whistling paeans to their eminence in the middle of a thumping dance (which only consisted of tapping their feet simply upon the ground, but at least there was movement).