Fleet Foxes - Mykonos (Bella Union)
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
They're in an interesting position at the minute, Fleet Foxes. They need a new single for the sake of continued momentum, but what is really the point in releasing something from last year's astounding, self titled album, when, according to the last government census, every single in the person owns and loves a copy of it? What exactly would they be drawing the public's attention to?
So I applaud their peculiar choice to release a single from Fleet Foxes' preceding EP instead, and alert people to the fact that their genius didn't dawn on them when the fourth vocal harmony part in 'White Winter Hymnal' wrote itself - it had been there for a good while. Sun Giant (pictured) is a fine extended-player, and 'Mykonos' is not only the strongest cut from it, but perhaps Fleet Foxes best song to date. If more people had heard it, it's possible they would have even counted that debut long-player of theirs as disappointing, given there's nothing on it that's of quite this quality. Yep, it's that good.
It's amongst their best work because it captures them at their most inventive. Even though it will have raised you gently from your slumber many mornings in the past few weeks if, as I do, you set your radio alarm clock to BBC 6Music, please ignore the radio edit which butchers nigh on a whole minute from this masterpiece, and let the full version work its magic - the numerous distinct sections to this stupendous song are each strong enough to warrant full-song length explorations of their own, but this is so well constructed and arranged that here they fit together like listening to Tom Waits records and sipping whisky.
As ever, their lyrics are delivered in such beauteous harmonies that it's only with close inspection that you realise how gosh darn weird they are. Check this - "And you will go to Mykonos / With a vision of a gentle coast / And a sun to maybe dissipate / Shadows of the mess you made..." - what? Yeah. Amazing. That's what I love about Fleet Foxes. They reward investigation at the same time as being instantly extraordinary.
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