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The fiancee and last manager of the late Mark E Smith, frontman of the Fall, has hit out against the release of an album being marketed as the band’s final official album, calling it “ethically wrong” and a “cash grab”.
When Post Script was first announced in June, several media reports assumed the nine-track album contained recordings that the final Fall lineup were working on before the singer’s death, in January 2018. However, it subsequently emerged that it contains unused studio vocals recorded between 2001 and 2014, to which longtime Fall associates Ed Blaney and Simon “Ding” Archer have posthumously added music.
Pamela Vander said: “They’re selling it as ‘the final album’ so people will think Mark made it on his deathbed, but none of it [vocally] was made after New Facts Emerge [2017]. I have Mark’s actual last recordings – he was working on a cover of Madonna’s Material Girl – but by the time of his death he had made the decision that New Facts Emerge was the final album, made by the longest-lasting lineup of the Fall, who were with Mark for 10 years. So I don’t think anyone else should override a decision he made when he was alive.”
A digital single, 30 Degrees, was released in June. The album is set for release by Cog Sinister on 2 October on CD, black vinyl, limited edition white vinyl and digital formats, with the approval of Smith’s estate. However, Vander said: “Mark’s life was complicated and Mark was very disorganised when it came to any sort of protection for his legacy. I was the manager and I’m not even sure who owns the name ‘the Fall’. It’s a cash grab, just a collection of some shit from the cutting room floor. I wouldn’t have minded if it was being released as ‘the Mark E Smith archive’ or something, but there’s something ethically wrong with releasing it as the Fall.”
The situation is further complicated by the various parties’ long relationships with Smith. Blaney played in the Fall in the early 2000s, going on to be tour manager, manager and friend and their collaborations included the 2008 album Smith and Blaney. Archer, the group’s bassist in 2003-4, subsequently produced or engineered eight of the last nine Fall albums.
Blaney responded: “Making this record was intended as a fitting tribute to Mark/the Fall because the vocals were there waiting to be put to good use. Mark also trusted Ding whenever he worked with him, so the foundation was there. [In the studio] we felt Mark’s presence: things happened that had Mark’s hallmark all over them.
“Words like ‘cashing in’ make me laugh. It was about love and respect for Mark: he was the Fall, and Mark’s vocals were recorded as the Fall, hence it’s being released as the Fall. Mark sounds great and it’s a great, positive record.”
When approached for comment by the Guardian, Rob Ayling, director of Cog Sinister, said “the album speaks for itself”, and Archer declined to answer questions. He previously posted on Facebook: “I recorded most of Mark’s vocal takes for 12 years. We would regularly throw down Mark’s freshest ideas to whatever backing he deemed fit at the time: a drone, a drum beat or a cappella, or down the corridor to test the acoustics. Some of these ideas went to the band for development and some were dropped. Others went into the vault with phrases like ‘put that in the safe’ or ‘you can do what you like with that one, cock’. I’d never had the time to check the safe but Post Script provided an opportunity for these loose ends to be tied up. Ed and I found some gems that just needed fleshing out and arranging.
“Neither of us are attempting to be the last lineup. The word ‘final’ in the original statement was meant to indicate it will be the last LP of unheard studio recordings. Is it the Fall? Well, Mark is the Fall, so yes, these are Fall songs. If you’re not convinced, don’t buy it.”
Vander was in a relationship with Smith for the last three years of his life, painted the cover of New Facts Emerge, is named in his will (along with his three sisters) and became his carer when he was dying from lung and kidney cancer.
She said: “He was my soulmate and I’ve not had another boyfriend since he passed. Mark loved fronting the Fall and it was his decision to keep performing until the very end. That man would have died on stage and been happy doing that. He wasn’t embarrassed or scared to go on stage in a wheelchair. To see someone going under physically like that – not being able to use his legs and such – but remain so sharp mentally to the very end was quite a thing to witness. After Salford Royal [hospital] let him go home, in the end it was just me and Mark in the house. When he passed it was almost supernatural. Rain suddenly started crashing down, like a monsoon. It messed me up for ages.”
Having initially kept her counsel because “I’d not been in that [Fall] world for years”, she said she decided to speak out against the new release because “it’s been eating me up. I feel it’s still my job to stand up for Mark.”
