FAT FREDDY’S DROP – BASED ON A TRUE STORY (Kartel)
July 6th, 2005 by duck
The first question to spring to mind for those familiar with Kiwi “supergroup” Fat Freddy’s Drop is probably how they have managed to slim down their usually lengthy jam sessions into a ‘proper’ album. Fortunately the answer is “very well thank you”.
“Based on a True Story” begins with a trick previously used by Andy Weatherall on his remix of St. Etienne’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” – in a reverse of reggae tradition opening track “Ernie” starts out life as a dub before drifting slowly into a heavy vocal track. It’s a trick that eases you into the album like you’re slipping into a warm bath, and as such showcases the almost horizontally laidback feel of the whole album. Those lengthy jam sessions have been nipped and tucked, but their atmosphere and feel remains, every track seeming to do just exactly the right amount to keep the listener in a state of happy suspension.
For those unfamiliar with the band, the music is a strange antipodean brew of sunny, loose limbed, dub inflected reggae, a mournful horn section and Joe Dukie’s plaintive soul vocals. In this day and age a reggae band from New Zealand should perhaps not be too much of a surprise, but the understanding they clearly possess of the driving force behind reggae – the interplay of the drum and the bass – is still a rare thing outside of the music’s birthplace.
If there’s a criticism to be made of the album it would be that the music, and particularly the production style is so lacking in rough edges that if the listener is in the wrong mood it sometimes drifts into coffee-table muzak territory (“Ray Ray” is particularly guilty here). These moments are few and far between though, and they are more than adequately compensated for by the rest of the album.
“Flashback” for example is fast establishing itself as one of my favourite records of the year, not least for the section where it suddenly flips into a straight beat for a few bars before plunging back into the skanking reggae theme – something that definitely seems likely to have originated in a jam session. Or there’s the organ led “Roady” with it’s “It feels so good when I know you’re skanking with me” hook and vocal interplay or the heavy, rolling “Cat’s Cray”.
In the end though the real achievement of “Based On a True Story” is how well constructed it is as an album – a nice balance of more laidback tunes and slightly more up-tempo numbers, but each and every one played with real feeling and purpose. A winner.
Duck
