Fridge

The Sun

(Temporary Residence)

Record Review by Alexis Roberts

It’s absolutely inevitable that Fridge will be getting branded as what we like to call “experimental.” Although experimental can mean any number of things, I can let you know that if you are expecting people banging pots and pans together, or everybody just playing the same chord for 15 minutes, then you are thinking way further into the realms of experimentation than Fridge has traveled thus far. They have it together, and you can hear that their experimentation has paid off over their eleven years making music together.

Before we go any further, let me bring forth the fact that there really aren’t any vocals on The Sun. You can expect to hear the murmurs of voices singing on songs like “Lost Time,” which is a really beautiful and inventive slower song. The voices aren’t singing words; they are merely singing harmonies and melodies for the sake of using the voice as an instrument, rather than decoration. It seems that they are just not the type of band to spoil themselves with a ton of bells and whistles to make their music more interesting, not that they would need to anyway.

Despite their quite standard instrumentation and three-man lineup of Kieran Hebden (Four Tet), Adem Ilhan and Sam Jeffers, the music always sounds more complicated than it really is, giving an illusion that there are 27 people playing exotic instruments all at once.  Fridge’s more “experimental” songs won’t be for everyone, but I am guessing that if you are putting in the effort to listen to this band in the first place that you are among that group of people who kind of “get it.”