Description:
(2023) Fridge - Happiness (Anniversary Edition)
Review:
Formed in 1996 by schoolmates Kieran Hebden, Adem Ilhan, and Sam Jeffers, Fridge were astonishingly prolific in their early years – releasing ten singles and four albums in just their first four years together. Originally released in 2001, Happiness was a sprawling, pastoral masterpiece – an innovative mix of acoustic clatter, electronic exploration, hip-hop production techniques, and experimental rock arrangements. Along with Hebden’s blossoming solo project, Four Tet, Happiness dragged the most compelling elements of the typically self-serious electronic, indie, and avant-rock of the 1990s and married them to eclectic folk and spiritual jazz for the new century. ”Melodica and Trombone” sets the tone for the largely amorphous sound explorations that make up the nine tracks of Happiness. With an organ providing a solid backing for the song, trombones and melodicas weave interlacing melodies. Unsteady hand percussion only serves to make the song’s structure more ambiguous, but this ambiguity adds an element of unpredictability to the track– an element sorely lacking in some other places on the record. Take, for instance, “Drum Machines and Glockenspiels,” a 13-minute whopper of a track with a steady drum machine beat and precious few changes in dynamics. Occasionally, some very interesting melodic interplay is achieved between the layers of synthesized beeps, chiming glockenspiels, and subtly plucked guitars that provide the primary melodic focus of the track. As the song progresses, more and more instruments enter the fray– some more hand percussion, a snare drum, a flute-like instrument, and a more abrasive programmed beat. By the twelve-minute mark, the song has made about two minutes of progress. The melodies themselves just aren’t strong enough to support this kind of sustained inaction. Thankfully, Happiness soon redeems itself, drifting away from structured songs and towards some beautiful explorations of sound and melody. “Cut Up Piano and Xylophone,” one of the album’s most blissfully structureless tracks, is also one of its strongest. Rather than simply piling on endless instruments, the song arranges minced samples of the titular instruments into a shifting, quivering soundscape of descending scales that recalls Tortoise’s “Ten-Day Interval” or Ghost’s “Daggma.” The relatively short “Tone Guitar and Drum Noise” further explores the less structured side of Fridge, consisting almost entirely of a simple guitar figure, treble drones, and rhythmic noise. At the song’s end comes one of the most stunningly gorgeous moments on Happiness: the pure, crisp ring of gently colliding bells. Generally speaking, Happiness is at its best when it focuses on sound rather than song. Fridge seem to work much better with implicit structures than with explicit ones, and when the songs on this record become too formal and arranged, they sink quickly into sonic complacency. Thankfully, there are enough moments of beauty on this record to make up for an occasional lack of forward momentum. By all means, Fridge have constructed a lovely record. But there’s a lot more to true Happiness than just being pretty. — Pitchfork
Track List:
01 - Melodica & Trombone
02 - Drum Machines & Glockenspiel
03 - Cut Up Piano & Xylophone
04 - Tone Guitar & Drum Noise
05 - Five Four Child Voice
06 - Sample & Clicks
07 - Drums Bass Sonics & Edits
08 - Harmonics
09 - Long Singing
10 - Five Combs
Media Report:
Genre: ambient, electronic, post-rock
Country: Putney, England
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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