True to previous form, Kieran Hebden, Ademn Ilhan and Sam Jeffers' fourth album, Happiness, avoids all the pitfalls of defying convention. Fridge should be a very acquired taste. Undeniably abstract, in lesser hands their loose collages of off kilter percussion, ancient acoustic instruments and clinical sythns and samples, would be meandering leftfield nonsense, self-indulgent experimentation and totally inaccessible. But Happiness delivers nine tracks that are more touching than mere music. With Oriental hand chimes, delicate xylophone melodies, hypnotic bass loops and swathes of liquid synths, the incredibly sensual likes of "Cut-Up Piano And Xylophone" and "Drum Machines And Glockenspiels" stir the emotions to provoke a sense of comfort, security and enormous well-being. Literally, this is the sound of Happiness. Even the guitar feedback on "Tone Guitar and DrumNoise" sounds graceful. And while an out-of-time tambourine, tuneless trombone and badly played accordion ("Melodica and Trombone") make for a curious listen, there's nothing arty or pretentious about it--the accordion playing isn't making an artistic statement, it's just bad. Leftfield it may be, but Happiness is about beautiful and emotive sounds, not being clever. --Dan Gennoe

CD Description

Fourth album from London post-rock trio. Less electronic than their previous work, it features a stripped-down, intimate sound, with most tracks utilizing just one or two instruments. Guitarist Kieran Hebden has also released folky electronica under the name Four Tet.

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4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Samples & Collage, 11 Oct 2001

By	B. Lasnier "themilkfactory" (London/UK) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fridge, trio formed in South London in the mid nineties by then collegians Kieran Hebden, Adem Ilhan and Sam Jeffers, have always privileged an unconventional approach to rock. The rather classic guitar/bass/drum formation originally adopted has long been turned into something more complex, with more and more elements of avant-garde electronica distorting the traditional soundscapes to the point where Fridge has become totally unclassifiable. Neither rock nor post-rock nor leftield, with rudiments of each colliding constantly against others, Fridge have long transcended the notion of genres.
For this fourth Fridge album, the trio have cut on titles with evocative or obscure meanings, and, instead, only offer a description of elements of sounds found on each track. For instance, Melodica & Trombone, which opens the album, is based around a melodica... and a trombone. This unusual process, if not totally revolutionary, allows the compositions to breath more freely, as very little comes between the musicians and the listeners to distract the mind from the work. Perhaps even more so than its predecessors, Happiness is intricate and minimalist, each track being based on a very few sounds, which are altered, twisted and recycled indefinitely, in a similar way to Hebden's solo work on his Four Tet project perhaps. The compositions here are, however, far more abstract and monochrome, and evokes the same bare, primitive, atmospheres as Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Work Volume 2. Drum Machines & Glockenspiels, Cut Up Piano & Xylophone or Sample & Clicks are among the most arid moments of Happiness. Here, the melodies are barely existent, overcome by the complexity of the incandescent arrangements. Melodica & Trombone is even more disconcerting. As an anarchic jazz-like echo slowly lingers amongst the chaotic ambient structure before being swallowed by a wave of outer space noise. Five Four Child Voice, Drums Bass Sonics & Edit or Harmonics, with more recognisable melodic forms, are equally as intriguing. Five Four Child Voice is Fridge at its nearest to a conventional band, as they venture out in the open, with identifiable elements of guitar, bass and drums. But this is short lived, and the trio rapidly retreats into more obscure territories, by way of hypnotic bass circumvolutions and abrasive percussions on Sample & Clicks. Harmonics and Long Singing offer the most melodic moments of this record, as they gently bring the listener back down to earth.
If Fridge have always deliberatley avoided simplicity, by constantly pushing the boundaries of their art form, it has never been more accomplished than here. Happiness is a truly magnificent record.

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fridge return!, 12 Sep 2001

By A Customer

Hooray! Fridge are back and the immediate good news is that this album is their best yet, "Happiness" shows a unity of vision sometimes absent from past albums and an approachability is now present that had begun to show on their last album "Eph". The trouble with "Eph" was that although it was a fine record with some staggering highlights "Ark", "Of" and "Bad Ischhl", it sometimes felt too clever by half and was let down by the fact that two very short tracks in the middle "Meum" and "Tuum" could also have been classics had they been developed a bit more.

On "Happiness" though, this attitude seems to have been swept aside - every note, sound and pause is magically placed to ensure the titular promise is kept. All tracks are named after the instruments that feature most prominently on them, which seems clinical but each title serves only as an entry point for the listener to absorb each track, to make you listen for what is and isn't there, for instance the opener "Melodica and Trombone" ends with ambient noise - the importance of which is elevated by the question of whether it should be there. In an age where titles (particularly in this type of music) are beginning to lose meaning, Fridge are using them like packaging.

But enough of this what of the music, well "Happiness" has the distinctive Fridge sound seeping through in places, but elsewhere, notably on "Five Four Child Voice" and "Tone Guitar And Drum Sound", a new fresher worldview is in place - a richer more melodic more emotional ethos. On the amazing "Samples and Clicks" there is definitely a feeling of potential being achieved, it's a wonderfully textural piece of music that has to be heard to be believed. Last but not least there is the closing track "Long Singing" which is actually largely instrumental (most of the tracks are) but is so melodic and tuneful that i couldn't resist thinking up some words on the spot and singing along.... (!)

The cover features a flower, apt really, for Fridge are one of Britain's best and most valuable bands, and they are indeed in full bloom.

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars post rocks not dead!, 24 Jan 2003

By	"ojos_el_naranja" - See all my reviews

I like Fridge. Its why I gave them 4 stars. Happiness can sound like Slint-in-the-sunshine (on Four Five Child Voice) and a subteraine mine where robots work (on Sample and clicks) You wont realy hear anything new here if you already dig Tortoise and Japanese eletronica, but you should get this album anyway.

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