ON THIS DAY : THE FALL’S PEEL SESSIONS #11

A series for 2025 in which this blog will dedicate a day to each of the twenty-four of the sessions The Fall recorded for the John Peel Show between 1978 and 2004.

Session #11 was broadcast on this day, 19 May 1987, having been recorded on 25 April 1987.

This really is one of the best sessions, from the LP-less year of 1987, which found the group turning in some of their best live performances. ‘Australians In Europe’ offers an opportunity to revisit an overlooked stage favourite of the era. Those with a lifelong distaste for all things rockist may want to switch off the track after two and a half minutes where the synth flourishes – buried in Simon Rogers mix on the ‘Hit The North’ B-side – are given full reign.  No, really. In sharp contrast, ‘Twister’, from the following year’s ‘The Frenz Experiment’, is a sharp return to full-on Fall muddybilly.  ‘Guest Informant’, possibly the greatest Fall song from the post ‘Bend Sinister’-era is here in one of its best readings, featuring one of Smith’s greatest couplets: “in the burning scorch, of another Sunday half-over, hotel backgarden resembled a 1973 Genesis album cover” sees Smith truly ‘Selling England By The Pound’. All men (and let’s face it, it is men) of a certain age felt a certain glow.  The building-block baroque of ‘Athlete Cured’ closed this astonishing session.

DARYL EASLEA, 2005

mp3: The Fall – Athlete Cured (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Australians In Europe (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Twister (Peel Session)
mp3: The Fall – Guest Informant (Peel Session)

Produced details unknown

Mark E Smith – vocals; Brix Smith – guitar; Craig Scanlon – guitar; Steve Hanley – bass; Simon Rogers – guitar, keyboards; Simon Wolstencroft – drums;

JC