Hear, hear! As of today, we are officially in business: Fangio is now available as a guilt-free digital download from iTunes, eMusic, and Amazon. Turntable-enabled physical object–fetishists may still order our beautiful numbered vinyl editions directly from Fayettenam, of course, and are encouraged to do so!

Big picture fans are likewise encouraged to click on Davey G. Johnson’s brilliant Evita send-up, above, for the full-res version. Suitable for framing, or multiple-story Diego Rivera-style hand-painted murals, your choice.

For those who might still be wondering, What the fuck is this? I offer this brief summary:

When I was seventeen, for reasons that will remain forever inscrutable, I wrote a song for my Casio-powered solo project Party of One which imagined the 1950s race car driver, five-time Formula One World Champion, and Argentine icon Juan Manuel Fangio piloting a then-current 1980s-model Saab 900 Turbo across the Andes mountains on a covert mission to assassinate the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. It sounded like this:

Download audio file (02%20A%20Fangio%20For%20The%20%2780s.mp3)

Twenty-three years later I bought a well-traveled example of the ingeniously versatile car that accompanied the hero of that song, and began writing songs for an album that would pick up where “A Fangio for the ’80s” left off.

The real-life Fangio died in 1995, long retired from racing. On the track he’d been known as El Maestro—the teacher—and a legendary bad-ass. Off it, he was El Chueco—most commonly translated as “bandy-legs”—short, squeaky-voiced, the very essence of good-natured humility and universally beloved for it.

The Fangio of my imagination is slightly different. He’s still alive for one thing—though by what Borgesian mechanism it’s never made clear—and so haunted by his own refusal to speak out against the atrocities of Argentina’s Dirty War that he’s gone underground as a sort of international rogue agent, beholden to nobody and determined to clear his conscience by evening the score: against the CIA, against the cartels, against every agent of oppression that conspired to terrorize and exploit the people of Latin America over the last half century. This album should be properly read as one part DC comics, one part Tom Clancy novel, and one part Marxist revolutionary tract.

Fangio was recorded entirely at home, by me, using GarageBand—which, in its ubiquity, cheapness, and user-friendly simplicity, I regard as the clear 21st century successor to my old Casio MT-100. And it sounds like New Order because I’ve always wanted to play in a band that sounded like New Order. I make no apologies.

I know it seems like I’ve been talking about this forever, but cut me some slack: it was only this time last year that the songs even started getting written. And now? Well look at that shit, will you?

Fangio—the album-length sequel to a song I wrote for my Casio-powered solo project, Party of One, in 1987, a song that imagined five-time Formula One World Champion and Argentine folk hero Juan Manuel Fangio piloting a Saab 900 Turbo SPG across the Andes mountains on a covert mission to assassinate Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet—currently sits in pit lane, crew scurrying about, final preparations being made before advancing to the starting grid.

There are ten songs, and their titles are as follows:

01 Operational Detachment Juan Manuel Fangio
02 El Narcoavión
03 My God Is An Angry God (Juan Manuel Fangio Castiga los Pecados del Mundo)
04 La Consciencia Intranquila de Juan Manuel Fangio
05 Edwardian Gray
06 Bebe’s Song
07 El Hombre Mas Macho
08 Compared to Their Predecessors, Today’s Politically Motivated Kidnappers Are Total Dicks
09 Los Viejos
10 Beat Your Halfshafts Into Swords (The Radicalization and Redemption of Juan Manuel Fangio)

That’s too much music to fit on a single LP, so Fayettenam will release the album in two parts: the first two songs as a 7″ single, the rest to follow on a 12″ LP; all of the songs will be available as digital downloads as well. The single and album sleeves will be silkscreened and gorgeous, you have my word.

Also gorgeous? The insanely, pants-shittingly awesome video I just made with former Jalopnik contributor, Bob Mould backup singer, fugitive from Albanian justice, and all around cars-and-music Renaissance man Davey G. Johnson, during the shooting of which the above photo was taken. It’s for “My God Is an Angry God,” and we’ll be putting it up around the same time the single is ready to go (with a sneak preview possible earlier if you’re paying attention here, hint hint).

Target date for all of this ridiculousness: June. Official countdown starts now.

In the meantime: I’m playing a stealthy show here in Rochester tomorrow night, at Casa del Awesome. Contact Brian for directions and info!