I’ve been enlisted to write love letters. Love letters to albums, I presume. But there are folks making music I love who might never make a loveable album.
Enter Fred again... I love a solid three-to-four tracks on his latest, ten days. I love the title track, 'Places To Be', 'Glow', and, less so, 'Adore U'. There’s a video of Fred and Anderson .Paak jamming on 'Places To Be' in Paak’s loungeroom which sums up Fred’s current ethos. The vibe is FUN, Fred looks crazy-high on something unidentified which makes me glad I don’t get high these days, and he and Paak take turns on the drums, Fred cutting loose with a series of OTT fills that contrast starkly with Paak’s chill professionalism. That is, until they both surrender to anarchy at the climax, Fred gurning and red-faced and grinning vampirically as he jumps around the room with a synth in his hands making swooping noises. It’s great, as that song is great, but concerning.
All of which is to say that Fred’s brand of irrepressible enthusiasm confounds the normal boundaries I maintain between cool and otherwise. He’s a guilty pleasure, or so I was told at a party recently, where we discussed Four Tet, Skrillex, and Caribou – all Fred’s friends – without any such reservations. His worst crime? He’s rich. Virtual nobility, or so I was told. Presumably as a byproduct of this, he grew up next door to Brian Eno, studied classical composition, and sang with Eno’s amateur choir as a teenager. Eno recognised his talent, the two collaborated, and Fred produced a string of number-ones for big names to which I’m largely indifferent. Me, I discovered Fred on Jamie Lidell’s Hanging Out with Audiophiles podcast, where guests range from synth nerds doing gear demos on YouTube to, well, an international pop sensation whose last-minute stadium tour of Australia sold out in minutes.
So let’s just say Fred is not the kind of artist who normally excites me. But whether it’s a midlife crisis or my new hormonal profile, anyone who can so consistently make me dance is all right with me. And until Brat stole the key to my hips a couple of months back, it was Fred who could most reliably get me moving. Not only that, but he could move me, with 'Danielle (Smile on my Face)', 'Kelly (End of a Nightmare)', 'Roze (Forgive)', 'Dermot (See Yourself in My Eyes)'. These bangers have a kind of bittersweet melancholy rarely heard on a dancefloor since New Order.
Incidentally, I considered reviewing Floating Points this month, as someone whose albums I can generally get behind, and whose latest single 'Ocotillo' (like Promises and 'Les Alpx' and 'Silhouettes (I, II, & III)' before it) is, imho, some kind of genius. But on my third or fourth listen of last month’s Cascade, I realised something: Floating Points (AKA Sam Shepherd, another friend of Fred’s and Kieran’s) has never and probably will never get me moving like Fred does. Why not? He doesn’t – to my mind – understand beats. He understands one beat, the beat with all the syncopation, the busy beat. Fred, on the other hand, is a beat master. Maybe it’s all that dubstep he says he studied as a teenager. Each of his drum arrangements is discrete, different, simple, as much itself as it can be. Take 'Danielle (Smile on my Face)', for eg. From the moment the beat kicks in, alone, my feet start twitching. It’s something about the compression, the way the kick blooms, the snare pops, the hi-hat lingers. But mostly, it’s the bounce, which maybe is in Fred’s fingers, famously dextrous on a Maschine+ groovebox. Even his breakdowns are inspired, unpredictable, and natural in a way I don’t hear in, say, Skrillex, who seems to work to a formula, masterful and elaborate though it may be. Still, in a nod to Skrillex, Fred’s chopped vocals double as percussion, in the stereo-panned tremoloed hook in 'Kelly (End of a Nightmare)', for eg, enmeshing with the music until they’re just another rhythmic element.
Crazily, Fred says his iPhone is his favourite bit of kit. He records vocals on it (I could live without Fred’s vocals), and the found sounds and snatches of conversation that sprinkle his albums. He even listens to rough mixes on it, since it focusses his attention on the arrangements, and not on how that kick sample is hitting, something he can dial in later. Yet his drum samples are impeccable, crisp and without flab. That said, I’m beginning to tire of the found sounds, and the ruse that his albums are somehow his diary (I find the friends’ names in the titles counterproductive too). I don’t much like the extended vocals that are appearing in his compositions either. To me, the semi-indecipherable pitch-shifted phrases of “Danielle (Smile on my Face)” are perfect, enough to make it memorable but still mysterious.
The verdict? I love Fred, but not his albums. I love three-to-four tracks on USB (“Rumble”, beat-wise, is a masterpiece) and two-to-three on each of the Actual Life trilogy. And honestly, 'Places To Be” is undeniable. It’s pure froth, a sonic champagne bath, but I take a nosedive into it every time I hear it. What more could a girl want, except a bit of rockstar allure? Fred has none of that, which is why he’s best when he’s invisible, letting some glitched-out vocal sample take centrestage. May his albums never become a series of guest slots (though yes, I forgive him for Anderson .Paak). Building his tracks around a few haunting disjointed phrases and an Eno-esque drone – that’s the classic Fred formula. May it continue to pay dividends. May Fred not drown in froth.
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