Furry Things is the project of Texans Ken Gibson and Adam Wiltzie.

The Big Saturday Illusion (Trance, 1995) is their stunning debut. Introism is a whispered psychedelic song enveloped in a velvety cloud of feedback, propelled by a solemn beat—something halfway between Pink Floyd, early Velvet Underground, and the modern Luna. Their obsession with feedback reaches manic proportions on Attic.

Among the “proper” songs, the wild rock’n’roll of Colortime shines, not far from the Stooges, as does the single Still California, which features a livelier chorus and rhythm, a “harder” harmony, but the same guitar racket; these tracks belong to the guitar-rock genre but strip it down with their noise excesses. Piled High (nine minutes) offers the dreamiest harmony, and the only one that doesn’t shred the ears, with guitar hisses floating in the ether and vocals soaring in a gentle melody.

The instrumentals are a story of their own, almost forming a separate, infinitely more ambitious record. The instrumental Cats channels that disruptive style into a number that is simultaneously hypnotically transcendent and comically dadaist. Lawnmower Sounds builds on the previous dadaism but pushes further, toward a genetic mutation of sound, where instruments become unrecognizable and only an abstract (and unpleasant) drone remains. Porno Queen's Love Dive loops a lopsided voodoo-billy within a storm of feedback. Angel Warm And Cold expands the harmonies further, approaching the ambient style of Main.

The monumental sixteen-minute Nothing From Zero forms a highly dramatic and intense suite, starting with a martial, alien ouverture (somewhere between King Crimson and Pink Floyd), scarred by sudden guitar eruptions, followed by a long, spiraling feedback solo that crashes into a sea of convulsive cacophonies, and ending with a coda in perfect ’60s beach style, with the organ dictating cadence and melody.

Guitarists Ken Gibson and Adam Wiltzie delivered a very successful entry in the tradition of Seefeel-style ambient guitar with the album Big Saturday Illusion. The EP Hedfones (Trance Syndicate, 1996), lasting forty minutes, revisits some of those ideas (the jungle of drones with a syncopated drum machine rhythm in Porno Queen's Love Slaves) while introducing new ones.
In the new material, dub takes the lead: the hypnotic echoes over a frenetic drum rhythm extend for twelve minutes in Piece No 3 In C, while even more subliminal echoes in Buttercup are drowned in a sludge of electronic percussion. Perhaps the most interesting trick is in Diskoteque, which builds trance through a swampy cadence, garage-style guitar strumming, and an organ solo worthy of the most aggressive blues-rock. The EP also includes a remix of Angel Warm And Cold, one of the best “real” songs from the first album.

Frequent Lunacy (Trance, 1997) is Furry Things’ second annual EP. The opening track, Frequent Lunacy, seems to signal a return to the psychedelic pop of their beginnings, placing the singer’s whisper over a strong syncopated beat with unsettling background hisses. The psychological dub of Burn For and especially the comic dub of the instrumental Luxate further develop the ideas introduced in the previous EP. The EP also includes a remix of Angel Warm And Cold, still considered one of the best “real” songs from the debut album.

Eight Frozen Modules was Ken Gibson’s side project. The Confused Designer (Trance, 1997) was entirely composed and performed by him, mostly using just a drum machine and a guitar. The long excursions of Warm And The Cold Electrified and Heartbeat Of A Dog seem like offspring of Jah Wobble’s intellectual dub.
Gibson favors, however, sound abysses like Television Birds, where the sound sources are ground and filtered until they become pure timbral paste, or chaotic percussive storms like Ex Parte. The Music/Magic Landing combines both approaches, producing a relentless, staggering noise. There isn’t much that is conventionally musical on this album, but every idea could serve to expand Gibson’s sonic palette.

Meanwhile, Gibson had moved from Austin to Los Angeles.

Occasionally, Moments Away (Trance Syndicate, 1998) sounds like Furry Things' pop album: I Can Lie has a straight melody, although immersed in a battery of repetitive, neurotic sounds; Between Games is almost Sade fronting a synth-pop duo; the instrumental Strange New World is a nostalgic tribute to 1960s soundtracks, albeit deconstructed, decontextualized and played at double speed; Downswing Dub is a solemn, waltzing (despite its title) lullaby, that, again, picks up a piano-based progression in the style of easy listening music. There is an element of dementia in the arrangements and the layout of the sounds, and there is still the ambition of the avantgarde, but they are bent to a structure that is as austere as a classical Lied. Like the Residents gone serious.
When the same element is employed in the opposite direction, Gibson can easily evoke a sense of claustrophobia and incipient nervous breakdown. One of the guys sings The Statement, that mixes digital skipping and Suicide's keyboard-driven psychobilly. A dissonant duet of piano and electronics propels the dejected litany of That Machine, drenched in decadent weltanschaung, while drums and maracas keep a trip-hoppish and vaguely oriental beat, a melancholy piece that could fit in one of Robert Wyatt's early records.
Ken Gibson gets help from multi-instrumentalists Chris Michaels and Charlie Woodburn, and Cathy Shive sings his unlikely hits in a sensual, husky, dreamy, whispered register.
The instrumentals Radiant Imbalance (a percussive piece imbued with techno's fervor, Neu's neuroses and Afro's tribal kinesis) and Distant Star (a psychedelic vortex of fractured vocals and electronic effects) return to the more experimental textures and dynamics of Gibson's work.
Gibson's forte is the wasteland of minimalistic patterns that he can lay on top of any structure, whether a techno locomotive or a soul ballad.

Stars Of The Lid's Brian McBride and the Furry Things' Kenneth Gibson formed Bell Gardens and crafted the orchestral pop of the six-song EP Hangups Need Company (Failed Better, 2010) and the albums Full Sundown Assembly (2012) and Slow Dawns for Lost Conclusions (2014).

Gibson returned with the solo albums The Evening Falls (2016) and In the Fields of Nothing (2018). Then formed Toler Gibson that released The Days Before (2021) and then formed the trio that released Almost an Island (2025)