By Daniel Peraza
This album is great, full stop. I wanted to start this review by getting that out of the way. This is the third of Fred Again..’s Actual Life series and what a way to get to the end of a trilogy. Although this wasn’t the original intention with this series, after three years of making these albums, it feels like a good bookmark for his discography. I know that the rest of this review sounds like this album will solve all your problems. It won’t. The strength of this album comes from the vocals and minimal production tricks that most electronic albums usually have and the simple message that things/issues/problems are not as big as they seem. Fred Again.. – for those who are still reading this review – is British producer, songwriter, singer, DJ, and all-around good vibes guy that has been making records since about the age of ten. He originally collaborated with Brian Eno when he was sixteen, but steadily started to make a name for himself as a songwriter for tall names like Rita Ora, Clean Bandit, and George Ezra.
Now, that was just to lay down the background on this electronic artist from across the pond. His music first caught my attention at the end of 2021 when most college students were starting to come back to in-person classes. As most news outlets and content creators have made very clear, it felt like the world had been on pause for about a year and a half. Nevertheless, musicians and the general population learned to adapt to the circumstances. Fred’s Actual Life 2 was the first album in a long time was the one that had to listen all the way through to understand every song. One of the standouts of that album was Kahan (last year) – Fred’s tracks tend to be named after the person he is sampling and the most common lyric in parentheses – is a track that sample’s Bill Kahan Kapri AKA Kodak Black in a more laidback setting. Fred Again.. is careful to capture the uncertainty of last year by including himself in the song with some soft vocals, lyrics that captured the feelings for loved ones that were far away and having to spend time alone with yourself. As this song ends and the next one begins (Tate), the real mood flip comes with Hannah (the sun) that takes Hannah Findlay AKA Terra Kin’s vocals and adds something that I just describe as happy house drums to take the listener into another state of mind. As I hit the loop button on my phone for this song and played it for 20th time in a row (no hyperbole), I realized I needed to listen to the original Actual Life and see how we got to this point. This is something I also recommend to the reader to do. I’ll wait.
Enough waiting. The forty-minute Actual Life 3 starts with Eyelar (shutters), a song that sets the mood for the rest of album which is a feeling of ambiguity and hopefulness. Ambiguity in the sense of uncertainty of everyone’s general future and the decisions we make now. Hopefulness in terms of finding someone or really yourself at some point to bring about the happiness that each of us deserves. The next two tracks, Delilah (pull me out of these) and Kammy (like I do), are the highest energy from the whole album and helping get the listener to the first high points of this parabola of an album. Both of these tracks transition so well into each on the surface with the bpm but the messages pull me out of this (from Fred having a panic attack in a club) and like i do (a message about a twisted kind of love). The next song starts with some soulful vocals from BERWYN on Berwyn (all that i got is you) and starts the slow rise inside this album of the happiness that I mentioned earlier. It fades out and into Bleu (better with time). Originally, I couldn’t get past the first minute of this track because of its weird pace but the simple messagethat things will get better over time. The same message is applied with Nathan (still breathing) in the context of getting over the issues that you are currently faced with. As mentioned before, that is one of the greatest assets to Fred’s music in that ability to make you feel better and that things aren’t that big in the first place. Sometimes you just need to take a step back and have a smile on your face. As the album progresses (the listener needs to have an experience of their own), the mood is consistently going up. One of the final tracks that I just wanted to put your attention to was Clara (the night is dark). I first heard this track back in 2022 when Fred Again.. did his first Boiler Room set and used this song to finish out an amazing hour of released and unreleased music. You might want to check it out if you have an hour to spare or studying. This track, without really thinking about it, has become one of the tracks that I always recommend to anyone who asks. It has the feel of a 70s disco track in its build up and the vibe of a 90s dance track that is hard to break out of until the final seconds.
If you have gotten to the end of this review, thank you for reading my thoughts on this piece of music. I hope to get more reviews out in the future but wanted to start out with an album that I keep close to my heart. I give this album a 9/10.
Thank you, again..
Rated nine out of ten.