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Sep 27, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Super Furry Animals

Britpop outliers and survivors Super Furry Animals have announced a new box set that collects their radio sessions for the BBC, the fittingly titled Super Furry Animals at the BBC. It will be available as an 180g-vinyl box set and on CD and digitally on November 23 via Strangetown. It includes eight sessions recorded for BBC Radio One, including sessions for John Peel, one unreleased song, and three songs from a 1999 concert in their native Cardiff, Wales. The deluxe vinyl box set is limited to only 400 copies, with another “super limited edition” vinyl box set of only 100 copied including a fifth disc of live tracks and an “additional cut of soon-to-be-sought-after SFA DNA,” whatever that means. The tracklist has yet to be shared.

Super Furry Animals at the BBC was put together with the band’s curatorial collaborator, Kliph Scurlock, with mastering by Donal Whelan. It features brand new cover artwork by Mark James, as well as new illustrations by Pete Fowler (both are long-term collaborators with the band). The vinyl box set comes with a foil-blocked 12-inch print and liner notes, including an essay by Uncut magazine journalist Tom Pinnock that includes interviews with the band. Super Furry Animals at the BBC includes sessions with BBC DJs/hosts Mark Radcliffe, Steve Lamacq, Jo Whiley, Marc Riley, and the late John Peel, including one session at his Peel Acres home in July 2001.

In the liner notes Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys commented on recording at Peel’s home: “We got to see some of his records. I think he’d had new foundations put in because the records were so heavy - he had thousands and thousands and thousands.”

Drummer Daf Ieuan added: “I remember Peel saying they had a swimming pool and it was named after whatever voiceover he’d done to get the money, something like the Twix Swimming Pool.”

In a press release the band had this to say about Super Furry Animals at the BBC: “The five, excitable kids of the Super Furry Animals saw many wonders of the modern world through our innocent eyes, but finding ourselves playing songs in John Peel’s home, or in the carpeted muffle of Maida Vale, elevated the experience to new levels. Our thanks go to those rescuing the recordings from our dusty lofts, Kliph Scurlock and Donal Whelan, and the surgical attention to detail by the great artistic minds of Mark James and Pete Fowler. Also, long live public broadcasting.”

Gruff Rhys released a new solo album, Babelsberg, back in June via Rough Trade. It was recorded with the 72-piece BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He recently shared a video for one of the album’s highlights, “Selfies in the Sunset.” The song is about taking selfies as the world ends and features the guest vocals of actress/model Lily Cole (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Elizabeth I, Star Wars: The Last Jedi), who also costars with Rhys in the video, as they take selfies and try to find the best cell phone reception while nuclear mushroom clouds explode behind them.

Pick up Under the Radar’s current print issue (Issue 64) to read our interview with Rhys about Babelsberg.

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