Falcon Punch!

By Matt King

Critiquing a friend’s creative output can be a painful prospect. If the work isn’t any good, then you’re stuck with a painful choice: awkwardly lying to them or crushing their spirits. It’s why I rarely say yes when someone says, “Dude, you should check out my band!”

I said an apprehensive yes to Falcon Punch! a few months ago when Matt invited me to one of their gigs. Their live energy was infectious, with music that was locked in an otherworldly groove. It was as if someone had taken classic drum n’ bass and tossed it into a 16-bit atom smasher. The band (Chris Pruden, Matt Fong and Greg Harrison) knew those songs like the back of their hand, and played through each complex piece as if they were three-chord punk songs. Thank god. I felt awash with relief, knowing that I could sincerely complement my friend on some excellent fucking musicianship.

When I loaded up the recordings, I was hit with that same feeling of apprehension. They were great live, but I was worried their live performance would spoil my enjoyment of recorded tracks which I was sure would be less dynamic, less exciting, less... good. Once again, relief. This is a great, potent selection of tracks, demonstrating what three creative, energetic young musicians can produce in the age of home recording and production. While they lose some of the dynamism of their live act, the magic is still there. It’s fucking TIGHT. Falcon Punch! can play, dammit. They can write too. Each song has at least one memorable melodic “hook” that has a way of worming itself into the listener’s brain. Each song feels like its own animal, and the entire album moves with a propulsive force that ebbs and flows from start to finish.

My only complaint? Not enough “Punch!”. While the slower songs (The Sleeper, Stars In Daylight) serve as wonderful tone shifts within the context of the album, they tend to fall short somewhat when compared to songs like Hustle or Die, the penultimate track on the album. It’s lively, forceful, and, most importantly, feels like a punch in the mouth. Of course, when your band has a name like Falcon Punch!, that’s what I come to expect. - Matt King - Spontaneous Combustion Magazine

By Matt King

Critiquing a friend’s creative output can be a painful prospect. If the work isn’t any good, then you’re stuck with a painful choice: awkwardly lying to them or crushing their spirits. It’s why I rarely say yes when someone says, “Dude, you should check out my band!”

I said an apprehensive yes to Falcon Punch! a few months ago when Matt invited me to one of their gigs. Their live energy was infectious, with music that was locked in an otherworldly groove. It was as if someone had taken classic drum n’ bass and tossed it into a 16-bit atom smasher. The band (Chris Pruden, Matt Fong and Greg Harrison) knew those songs like the back of their hand, and played through each complex piece as if they were three-chord punk songs. Thank god. I felt awash with relief, knowing that I could sincerely complement my friend on some excellent fucking musicianship.

When I loaded up the recordings, I was hit with that same feeling of apprehension. They were great live, but I was worried their live performance would spoil my enjoyment of recorded tracks which I was sure would be less dynamic, less exciting, less... good. Once again, relief. This is a great, potent selection of tracks, demonstrating what three creative, energetic young musicians can produce in the age of home recording and production. While they lose some of the dynamism of their live act, the magic is still there. It’s fucking TIGHT. Falcon Punch! can play, dammit. They can write too. Each song has at least one memorable melodic “hook” that has a way of worming itself into the listener’s brain. Each song feels like its own animal, and the entire album moves with a propulsive force that ebbs and flows from start to finish.

My only complaint? Not enough “Punch!”. While the slower songs (The Sleeper, Stars In Daylight) serve as wonderful tone shifts within the context of the album, they tend to fall short somewhat when compared to songs like Hustle or Die, the penultimate track on the album. It’s lively, forceful, and, most importantly, feels like a punch in the mouth. Of course, when your band has a name like Falcon Punch!, that’s what I come to expect. - Matt King - Spontaneous Combustion Magazine

In one of its many definitions of Falcon Punch!, the urban dictionary describes it as, “a punch so powerful and so mysterious, it holds the capability of breaking through the fabrics of time…in short, there is no past, nor no future. There is only one tense; the Falcon Punch! is the only thing to ever truly exist.”

That’s a fairly apt description for Toronto electronic band Falcon Punch!. They’re three formally trained musicians who formed out of a common love for 80’s and 90’s electronic music, like drum n bass, dubstep, electronica, and trip hop. Falcon Punch! dabble heavily in “reverse engineering,” a term used to describe the process of recreating computer-based music in live performance, using mostly analog instruments.

Maintaining simple form and harmony, their songs pulsate and throb steadily – like music composed on an 8-bit computer – but the dynamic quality of analog and acoustic instruments propels the melody to more aggressive places. It’s like getting hit square in the head by an old Atari machine that someone carefully and very deliberately launched at you.

And so, with fast-forward motion provided courtesy of drummer Greg Harrison’s staccato snare beats, tracks like “Hustle or Die” fuck with your memory, making you swear you can recall 1970’s pimps sitting around in their cars playing Nintendo. It never happened. But it doesn’t really matter, because there is only one tense, remember?

Falcon Punch! use whatever time-warping devices they can get their hands on to emulate electronic sounds live. Drums are fed through guitar effects pedals, bass is distorted then cleaned up again, keyboards veer wildly around the drums and bass. Their unorthodox set-up makes for unpredictable, exciting live shows.

Songs like “Bitcrusher” open with a simple melody played by Chris Pruden using clear, bell-like keyboard tone – but it all quickly degrades as elements of noise and glitch worm their way onto the tracks. Matt Fong’s fuzzy, melodic bass takes over and the song erupts into a gorgeous little melody – but it all feels a little like watching video on fast forward.

“ThinkWhatYouSay” is the standout track on their soon-to-be-released album. Using trademark Falcon Punch! “fast-forward tense” it manages to feel a lot like a Strokes song played by Stanley Kubrick’s murderous computer Hal. After doing away with the rest of the band, of course.

If you like bands like Aphex Twins, Boards of Canada, Squarepusher or Nerve, check out Falcon Punch!. Their punch-to-the head of a new album will not only rearrange your vital organs, it will surely make you question every one of your preconceptions of what electronic music should be.
- Luis Cardoso, Marketing Manager, SABIAN