For Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, better known as The Fiery Furnaces — a New York-based, Illinois-bred, hyper-experimental Indie band — family-based music wasn't a career move but rather a lifestyle. The Friedbergers boasted not only a guitar-wielding, piano-playing mother, but their grandmother was also a choir director. For them, music ostensibly doesn’t exist outside a filial context.
The duo seems content in their roles as siblings and band mates, well complementing each other in their specific tasks. Eleanor is the lungs of the operation, contributing rich, flinty vocals and charmingly irregular lyrics.
Acting as the heart, thumping in perpetual 4/4 time and often adding an extra beat for good measure, is Matthew Friedberger, the duo’s instrumentation specialist who contributions often drive the band into the experimental realm. He plays most instruments on every album and essentially dictates the tone of each record.
Their latest album, I’m Going Away (Thrill Jockey), is the band’s attempt to further exhibit its brand of highly cerebral Rock, while making an album very much removed from the band’s previous works.
See them headline this week's MidPoint Indie Summer with local acts The Chocolate Horse, Fists of Love and Brian Olive. Read Ryan McClendon's interview with the band here.
