New Music: Flywheel – I Want To Join The Fall

After we featured Flywheel’s Stop Looking at Her back in July, the band returns with the intriguingly titled I Want To Join The Fall.

It’s a tribute of sorts, and those that are aware of the combustible and mercurial genius of Mark E. Smith will certainly raise a wry smile to the salty language of the lyrics. You were a modern-day Icarus if you came in the orbit of Smith – you might bask in the sun, but equally you could easily lose your place and find the ground coming towards you.  

I feel a bit awkward even reviewing this track. I had no real interaction with the undoubted genius – the joys of Manchester day drinking – yet musicians I know had a place in his world, and Flywheel taps into a wider story about the blurred lines between genius, friendships, and fracturing working relationships when in contact with a maverick auteur.

He might approve of this track. It’s not at home in any genre, while you can hear echoes of The Fall at their 80s best, spiky and bass-heavy. And that is a difficult thing to pull off; given the revolving door of musicians Smith employed in that period, you can’t quite define the spirit of The Fall.  

Far from a pastiche or recreation, I Want To Join The Fall equally finds Flywheel also dipping into their own history. Founded in 1996, their original iteration drew from the less dreamy reaches of shoegaze. That is here, so too is a kosmische groove and grind, fitting for a song that partially references I Am Damo Suzuki, that adds a curiously captivating air of detachment. This song may be about Smith, but it might be about you too, if you’ve ever been in the presence of a flawed genius.

You can download I Want To Join The Fall on Bandcamp, and it’s also streaming it on Spotify and YouTube. For more streaming options, band news, and details of upcoming live events, connect with Flywheel on Instagram.