In MKE Music Rewind we revisit notable Milwaukee music that was released before Milwaukee Record became a thing in April 2014. In this installment: Faux Fir’s 2013 album Fashionable Life.
I‘ve found myself thinking about the early 2010s lately. It makes sense, as pretty much every (non-Milwaukee Brewers-related) aspect of existence is worse now, not to mention I was in my mid-to-late twenties at the time. Another reason I’ve been looking back to what, sadly, qualifies as “the good old days” has to do with a variety of Milwaukee music throwbacks that have resurfaced here in 2026.
The Fatty Acids are back! Sat Nite Duets and Mortgage Freeman also ended indefinite hiatuses to take part in those Fatties return performances. Speaking of Mortgage Freeman, the band just put out its first record since the late ’10s. Tigernite is putting out new music as well, Group Of The Altos are turning up on plenty of show bills of late, and Davey von Bohlen recently performed some Maritime songs again. All this activity from Milwaukee bands of a certain era has me thinking of other acts I’d love to see play out again and/or hear new music from. Faux Fir is near the top of that list.
While far from a heavy-hitter in the city’s synth-pop movement and something of an afterthought in the indie rock salad days of the aughts, Faux Fir released a catalog of music that has stood the test of time, largely because it was ahead of its time. That’s arguably most evident on Fashionable Life.
On April, 9, 2014—two days after the official launch of Milwaukee Record, by the way—we named the quartet’s 2013 record the 23rd best Milwaukee album of the 2010s (to that point). In that article, 29-year-old me wrote the following:
“Fashionable Life is the rare album with the uncanny ability to bring one to a specific place and time in their life. Strangely, it’s a party at a roller rink on another planet, and in the distant future.”
Though I don’t stand behind the exact phrasing my past self used there, the overall sentiment holds true. Following an opening interlude that seems akin to being the soundtrack to a laser light show, “Spring Sore” keeps the melding of space-age electronica and elevated instrumentation rolling. Beyond the futuristic-meets-new wave sound that bleeds into all 10 of the album’s tracks (especially what I previously called “should-be arena jam ‘Failure Prose'”—a claim 41-year-old me still agrees with), Fashionable Life stands out on account of the production efforts of Ryan Weber of Eric & Magill, Decibully, and The Promise Ring notoriety.
As impressive as the album on the whole is on its own, it’s rendered even more commendable because of how it all came together. At a time before long-distance recording and songwriting was commonplace, Faux Fir managed to craft and capture its most ambitious and altogether best material with members split between Milwaukee and Portland, then have Weber apply the finishing touches while living and working in Washington D.C.
That distance Faux Fir overcame in order to get Fashionable Life across the finish line was ultimately the very same reason the band called it quits. In spring of 2015, less than two years removed from the album’s release (a span that featured sparing shows and a lack of new material), the band announced it would be saying farewell for the time being. The last blow came when singer-keyboardist Ryan Rupprecht decided to move to Minneapolis, adding yet another obstacle in the way of maintaining multi-state musical endeavor aloft.
“We can’t stop and won’t stop making music just yet because we have a buttload of songs that we were working on post-Fashionable Life that we need to see completed,” Rupprecht said at the time. “But I have been in this canoe before, and it’s difficult to keep the momentum going with long distance relationships. We will explode and die, but there will be some smoke and mourning and celebrating and haunting I’m sure.”
That new music and the reunion show(s) Rupprecht foretold have both failed to materialize at this point in time, but with so many of its other slowed-down or outright disbanded Milwaukee contemporaries currently partying like it’s 2013 again, maybe it’s time time Faux Fir lives the Fashionable Life once more. A guy can dream.