"Future Sonic Speeds"
Review by Jonatan Sigurdsson

After To Live Without Repose was hailed as Roger Brugin's coming-out party, and he struggled to follow it up professionally in Sunshine Winery, this song alone is proof enough that had his life and career not been tragically cut short, Brugin's innovations would not have slowed down for anyone.

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This was among the tracks worked on in the Fehr Beach sessions, beginning in the summer of '69, if not the first. This was a poor decision; Brugin is notoriously neurotic when it comes to the production of his songs. Though it may have been because the other Plutos were trying to get the most ill-humoured track out of the way early, so it was that they all got sick of it quickly and moved on to "Riffersnapper."

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after the initial joy of reconvening for the first time in the better part of a year wore off, I imagine there was a palpable desperation to get "Future Sonic Speeds" over with as fast as possible. You can hear Martin run from the synth to the guitar stand if you listen very closely to the instrumental version - that's how much they wanted to knock out as much of the song as they could in one go.

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"Future Sonic Speeds" is remarkably interesting not only because of its sonically-wonderful content, but also its place in this ​album at this time.

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Fehr Beach in my view is yet another chapter in the slow artistic decline of Cliff Martin, with his voice failing and his will apparently following suit. It is also one of Davy's stronger outings, if less comprehensible. But all these things aside, there was almost unanimous confidence in the Plutos' choices on Sunshine Winery being an intentional statement - a deliberate step into heterodoxic instrumentation and form. In Fehr Beach, that continuation into different arrangements seems to be sporadic at best and utterly desperate at worst; Curious harmony choices, out-of-place mixing choices, and even the odd moment of "nobody thought to rewrite this bit?" that those with trained ears are likely to notice. All of these things applied to varying degrees of success, except in "Future Sonic Speeds."

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Everything comes together. Not just from the ideas introduced in Fehr Beach, but their entire prior discography.

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Lyrical intricacies that have both a touch of Davy and a drop of Martin? Absolutely.

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The sonic oasis that Brugin sprung up in To Live Without Repose? It's a full-on jungle now.

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The form-breaking of Martin's "Save Your Songs?" Back in force.

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The cinematic long, building tension of an instrumental opening which sporadically appeared in Sunshine Winery? Flawless here. Top marks.

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The 12:8 meter of "Torpedo" which failed as a "call-and-response" song due to the crowd being so loud it was only a "call" song? Brugin revived the sentiment of unison for the heraldic "here I am, oh, songs that sound for lifetimes."

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"Future Sonic Speeds" also boasts the only guitar solo of the (record-low) three on Fehr Beach that I would care to hear again. Granted, it is sandwiches between two somewhat ethereally-mixed passages, and stands out a tad.

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Which brings me to my one complaint for the album, not necessarily "Future Sonic Speeds": The Plutos, particularly as they started exponentially experimenting more and more with form and instrumentation, would have benefitted from input from a producer that kept them grounded, and would offer input or even compositions to cover for ideas or tracks that were a bit too ‘round the corner. Sadly, I do not believe Gordon Waller was the right man for that job. His expertise stayed in the early 60s.

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​With this album, we don’t get a happy ending, no neat little bow. But that’s life. People disappear with loose ends. Stories end before anything is satisfied. So it goes.

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But what a cracker to end on.

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★★★★★