FRIDGE - The Sun Review

Maybe I’m alone on this, but I find London-based Fridge and the trio’s individual one-offs remarkably sleep-inducing. Something about Fridge, Kieran Hebden’s Four Tet project, and Adem Ilhan’s acoustic records (released under his first name) just makes me nod off. But it’s not a bad thing — really. Four Tet’s Rounds and Adem’s Love and Other Planets are both lovely records, and their “main” gig, Fridge, follows suit with a comeback album of sorts, The Sun, their first since 2001’s Happiness....full text Fridge are now entering their second decade of placid post-rockery. Touchingly, the Putney schoolfriends still get together to make music despite all having gone on to achieve greater acclaim independently: Kieran Hebden with the vivid folktronica of Four Tet and his recent collaboration with Steve Reid, Adem with his campfire folk songs and Sam Jeffers as a web design guru and aspiring international diplomat (seriously). Understandably, given the circumstances, 'The Sun' - not a tribute to the super, soaraway tabloid we assume - lacks urgency and focus. Indeed, a vibe of contented garden-shed tinkering eclipses the bleeding-edge, brain-mashing urgency of their past. ...full text It's one thing for a record to fall far short of being Great. It's another, more interesting thing entirely for a record to tell us something useful in the way it lacks that Greatness. With The Sun, this British post-rock trio's fifth full length, Fridge may have unintentionally documented the aspects of stagnation festering on the surface of their genre, perhaps even have provided a better view of member Kieran Hebden's motivations for his last couple of efforts under the moniker Four Tet....full text