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In this installment of "Album of the Month Club," Tara and Natalie discuss "Happiness" by Fridge and "Dear John" by Loney Dear. Learn more about Record Store Society.
Creators & Guests
What is Record Store Society?
It's time to visit your favorite local record store; a place where music fans spend countless hours flipping through records, discuss the minutia of favorite b-sides, best live albums, and anything else music-related. If you have any questions, you can always find Tara and Natalie behind the counter ready to give a recommendation or tell you about a recent discovery. Join Record Store Society, a music podcast, biweekly to see what’s new or just to hang around for some music talk.
0:00:08 - Tara
Hi Natalie, hi Tara, what's up? Oh, nothing much. How are you Doing?
0:00:23 - Natalie
okay, you doing okay. Surviving this insane heat the best I can, dreadful.
0:00:29 - Tara
Yes, dreadful Summer, nice to be in this nice cool AC store. Yes, same. You know what? It's been a whole month. We should pick our albums of the month. Oh yeah, absolutely, and discuss I got one.
0:00:47 - Natalie
Oh yeah, what is it? It's Loni Deer and his album Dear John.
0:00:53 - Tara
Ooh, I've heard of him. I haven't fully dove dived, dove I haven't listened to it, drove with.
0:01:00 - Natalie
Really no, I think you'll dig it. I'm excited about this one.
0:01:04 - Tara
Cool, I also have one, hit me, it's from 2001,. Fridge.
0:01:10 - Natalie
Oh nice, it's called Happiness Ortex musical playground.
0:01:15 - Tara
Yes, yes, sweet. Oh, hi, how are you? I'm Tara, I'm Natalie. Thanks for stopping by. Let us know if you need anything. So, yeah, I'm excited to talk about music that's not necessarily new and not necessarily on a top five list with you. Shall we just dive into it? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, yeah, I'm all about it, taking care of business, tcb, as Elvis would say. All right, so Fridge Happiness. This album came out in 2001, but I chose it because, for April, was re-released, was restored, reconstructed, remastered from the original tapes, all by Kieran Hebden, aka Fortet himself. Originally, it was released on text records, which was Kieran Hebden's own record label at the time. So, yeah, a refresh, a re-release, a restore, remaster means we should talk about it.
0:02:14 - Natalie
Yeah, a visit, a revisit? Yeah, it's been a while since I've listened to this one.
0:02:20 - Tara
Cool, so you have heard it before.
0:02:21 - Natalie
I have. It was on my studying playlist in school. Oh yeah, I can see that it was the perfect study music. Yeah.
0:02:28 - Tara
It is perfect study music. Well, there's one song I think that kind of would drive me crazy and I'll have to skip it, but yeah, it's pretty good study music, yeah. So Fridge, if anyone in the store isn't familiar, is an English instrumental post rock band formed in 1995 by friends Kieran Hebden, aka Fortet, as I just mentioned, adam Ilhan, ilhan Ilyan I apologize if I'm screaming that up Also known as Dim and Silver Columns, with Johnny Lynch and Sam Jeffers on drums. So Hebden, adem and Jeffers all met at Elliott School in Putney, southwest London, where actually burial and hot chip and the XX all went to school.
0:03:18 - Natalie
Seriously. Yeah, that's crazy yeah that's cool. What's going on over there?
0:03:23 - Tara
Yeah, the creative minds at the Elliott School, that's, it's just very impressive. But yeah, they had kind of like a rhythm heavy sound. They were quite influenced by crowd rock bands like Cannes and Noy. I think it's how I always say new, but I know it's not correct to say it new, it's just how it kind of looks.
0:03:44 - Natalie
But I think it's Noy.
0:03:45 - Tara
And yeah, they are kind of also similar to Tordis. Maybe do make, say, think I hear similarities of the books, except for maybe a little less samples and also boards of Canada. But yeah, their sound kind of started more post-rocky and leaned towards electronic over their career and I would say that this album is a really nice foray into Kieran Hebden's solo career More on the electronic sample dabbling sort of end there. At some point they occasionally backed the band for Badly John Boy which I think is wonderful because I love Badly John Boy and in 2000, remixed his single Another Pearl and then following that is when happiness came out and it was highly regarded and considered their best to date by critics. So yeah, we're gonna just dive into happiness.
0:04:53 - Natalie
Sweet, was this their last album?
0:04:55 - Tara
S-Fridge? Oh, good question. No, it was not their last. So happiness came out in 2001 and was, I guess, like I said, considered their high point, but then they had a double album called the Sun that was released in 2007. And I think they had quite a long period of inactivity after Kieran Hebden started his solo career. They never officially split up, though, so I guess there's a potential that they could reunite. Oh and, interestingly, soon we will get a big years announcement. Yeah, that's coming up.
I just think that it would be really cool if Fridge reunited for big years, Since it is their what like 20 year anniversary. Oh, that's true, that's true, if that actually happens.
0:05:44 - Natalie
I'm gonna be spooked. You're just officially a sage. That's cool. This is my dream Also.
0:05:49 - Tara
Apparently DJ Shad is unrelated slightly. Dj Shad was announcing a new album. Oh really.
0:05:54 - Natalie
Yeah, I completely missed that. When's that happening? I'm so excited?
0:05:58 - Tara
I don't know, that's a good question. I just know that something new is coming. Well, that's dope. We'll just wait with bated breath, yeah, so yeah, no, that was not their final album, but yeah, happiness re-released in April of 2023 on vinyl. And let's just dive into it.
The first track is Melodica and Trombone. It's kind of ambient with Melodica, I like. So. This is a funny thing about this album is that all the songs are labeled or titled or named in such a way that you're not surprised by what you get. I like it. It's very literal. I like that. It's very literal.
But what I love about this song is that it's I love the disarray of this song as the opening track. You listen to the song. It doesn't really give you any insight into the rest of the album. It's quite chaotic, but in a fun way. And yeah, there is a lot more chaos in this album, but there's also more organic moments that are less chaotic. So, yeah, I just love the disarray of this opening track. And then track two. I'm probably not going to go through each and every track, but I will say a few things. But track two Drum Machines and a Glockenspiel. Again, no shockers here. This one's long tracking at 13 minutes and there's like no structure to it whatsoever. At least done that I can really tell. But it's a very fun exploration of sound. I enjoy it.
0:07:49 - Natalie
This one. I'm of split mind with this one. I like the groove for studying, you know, because it kind of just sits in the same spot, but I just don't think there's enough of a payoff for it to go on for 13 minutes. Like it kind of moves up and it has that really kind of irritating percussive thing happening towards the end and I'm like, really, that's what I get for sticking around for 13 minutes, you know it's just not that interesting after a while, but I do dig it a lot for like the first half.
0:08:17 - Tara
Yeah, I will say. If you're talking about payoff, maybe the reward is actually in track three. If you've gotten through the 13 minutes of Drum Machines and Glockenspiel, you are rewarded with the beautiful cut up piano and xylophone.
0:08:31 - Natalie
That is fair, very fair.
0:08:45 - Tara
Yeah, this one, I think, is very similar to that four-tet sound that has, you know, the effective live instruments, the electronic patterns, the reverb. A little bit, I don't know. This one reminds me the most of four-tet and I even chose another four-tet song to compare it to. And again, it's not exact but I think you can somewhat hear the similarities. The four-tet song I chose is my Angel Moves Back and Forth from Rounds.
0:09:30 - Natalie
I don't recall that four-tet song, just from the title, honestly. But I believe you because I also thought it sounded very four-tety. But you know what song it reminded me of, that open, that beautiful cut up motif. It's four-tets remix of the Weight of my Words by Kings of Convenience.
0:09:57 - Tara
Oh, I haven't heard that remix.
0:10:00 - Natalie
He kind of has the same effect. Like you hear the, he cuts up the guitar riff that they play in the original in a really beautiful way and it sounds a lot like that opening motif in this song, that's cool, nice.
0:10:10 - Tara
I'm going to jump to track five because it's my favorite, yeah, my favorite of the entire set list here. I think. Why I like it and you can probably guess, is that it has this almost low-key indie guitar, alternative rock feel, but with the experimental tinge to it, so like experimental pavement almost. Maybe a little bit of sonic youth, but less noise. Maybe a little bit of Yolotango too, but a little bit more noise than Yolotango. I don't know, I just this one is definitely like the most terror of all of the songs on the album.
0:11:03 - Natalie
I agree, I kind of predicted you would like this one the best, but funnily, because I'm more of like an electronic kind of person, this is the one that resonates with me the least you know that's so funny yeah. Yeah.
0:11:15 - Tara
Okay, but another note that I have about this track is that you start to hear these children's voices sampled within, and it reminds me of Boards of Canada, like the song Color of Fire, or even another like Roy G Biv from Boards of Canada.
0:11:42 - Natalie
Yeah yeah, that's fair, and it's also really long too.
0:11:45 - Tara
So it is yeah yeah, it has more of the live instrumentation and less of the samples and edits and bleep bloops. So, yeah, maybe that's why I like it, I don't know. I like bleeps and bloops. I like the guitars too.
0:12:01 - Natalie
Bleeps and bloops are my jam.
0:12:03 - Tara
Yeah, true, okay, I'm going to skip forward again to track seven drums, bass, sonics and edits. And yeah, this one just has pretty sick drum and bass parts again. No surprise there, drums, bass, sonics and edits being the title of the track. But yeah, it has some nice electronic keys sort of ambling over the drum and bass parts and a little more than halfway through it takes kind of a complete turn and you get more of a somber feel, somber notes and keys from the affected guitar sounds. So yeah, I like this one a lot. Next up we have track eight, harmonics. Again, with a title like that harmonics you get what you might expect from something called harmonics. There are quite a lot of harmonics in this song, but something about this song reminds me of the books.
0:13:34 - Natalie
Yeah, good call, I can hear that comparison.
0:13:37 - Tara
There are similarities, for sure.
0:13:39 - Natalie
Yeah, I had a more distant comparison too. It made me think of Björk's Vespertin era with all the music box and the Celest and all that. Yeah definitely, and rhythmically too, they were kind of similar, and that album came out in 2001 as well.
0:13:54 - Tara
Oh yeah, I can hear that. And then the last song that I'll call out here from happiness is track nine, and it's another live instrumentation with kind of a swaying, long swelling vibe, almost explosions in the sky, mono, that kind of thing.
0:14:27 - Natalie
Actually, I'm singing Really like this song surprisingly. Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah, it's real chill. It makes me feel like I'm camping or something wholesome like that.
0:14:37 - Tara
Yeah, it does have a nice wholesome vibe. Yeah, louis, you being the electronic girly that you are, which one is your favorite here?
0:14:45 - Natalie
I like track three and track eight, the cut up. What is it cut up something?
0:14:50 - Tara
Yes, yep cut up piano and xylophone?
0:14:52 - Natalie
Yeah, and then harmonics. Those two are my favorite. Got ya nice.
0:14:56 - Tara
And then on the remaster you get, I think, some deluxe version editions, Extras, maybe the Japanese version or the songs that were released originally on the Japanese version Five Combs and Surface Noise and Electric Piano. Five Combs to me has, because of the samples, reminds me a little bit of Kraftwerk, but not entirely. But I think it's just the samples. Yeah, that's it. Happiness, four-tet, pre-four-tet, just on the verge of being four-tet, you're the seeds being planted nonetheless, you can definitely.
0:15:28 - Natalie
Yeah, I'm gonna have to pull this one out and dust it off for my work-focused workflow time.
0:15:35 - Tara
Yeah, good call. I think that's a good usage of that album. I may do the same. All right, nice pick. I dig it Oldie but goodie. Thank you. Everyone in the store pick up a copy of the remastered version and that came out.
0:15:48 - Natalie
you said what? In April?
0:15:49 - Tara
Yeah, april of this year.
0:15:50 - Natalie
Okay, this was fresh out of the press, cool, yeah. So I am going to take us we're gonna fast forward about eight years to 2009, with Loni Deer, swedish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Real name Lord Beer Me Strength Emil Svanangen. It's as close as we're gonna get. I hope it's somewhere in the ballpark, but anyway, he's fantastic. He's known for making sort of kind of like Tweed in D-Rock. You know, yeah, peter Gabriel described him as Europe's answer to Brian Wilson.
0:16:20 - Tara
Oh.
0:16:21 - Natalie
Yeah. In 2003,. He's self-released four albums in Sweden. He then signed with Subpop in 2007. And then in 2017, peter Gabriel signed him to his label Real World Records, where he's released three more albums, including his most recent in 2022, a live album called Atlantis.
0:16:40 - Tara
Cool. Have you listened to any of the new things? Are they on the same? I haven't.
0:16:45 - Natalie
I haven't. There's kind of a thread with that too, because I'm just now. Oh okay. Dear John was the first album of his I discovered I've been like going through the backlog so I haven't made it to the modern albums yet, but I expect a lot out of this live record because I hear that he's like just spectacular live, so I'm sure it's gonna be good, cool, yeah. So this album, dear John, in 2009,.
It would seem that his sound had turned like from its usual quirky, bubbly love songs to something a bit darker, which is probably why I gravitate to this one in particular. The songs are still really sweet and charming, but there's something more epic, like well, maybe not epic is not the right word, but it just feels big and it has weight, you know, and it's definitely gloomy. So all of these things I like. He has this method of like building up this thick, full sound with the instruments and strings and horns and vocals, and the energy keeps ramping up and by the end, you're just caught up in this whirlwind with him and I think it's very effective. So not every song plays out that way, but the ones that do are my favorites.
So right away, the album starts on a high with the track Airport Surroundings. Oh my God, oh my God. You, you were all I wanted. You were all I wanted. You were all I wanted. So this is such a catchy pop song. It's got a great buildup and this urgency as it goes along. I like how people point out that the melody is basically Warren G's regulators.
0:18:12 - Tara
Yes, I thought the same thing. Oh my gosh.
0:18:15 - Natalie
Which is funny. It didn't occur to me at first and that's totally bizarre, because regulators is like one of my favorite songs of all time. That's one of those songs that's like my karaoke. Go to, you know, and I'm just screaming out. It's weird. Decades will go by and you can just play that track and I'll know I'll just regurgitate the lyrics like nothing yeah, yeah, yeah.
But yeah, that's, that's fun. Yeah, I really like that song. I think it's a great way to start the record and, unlike Fridge, I think this one does kind of set you up for what's to come.
0:18:42 - Tara
Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yeah, it's very catchy and it builds and builds and complexity. And I also heard or read that he recorded this album by himself in his basement and that song like what? How? It doesn't sound like that whatsoever.
0:18:58 - Natalie
It's insane the kind of production quality and what he was able to accomplish recording stuff at home in his parents' house. It's wild, yeah, All right. So another favorite of mine is the second track Everything Turns to you.
0:19:14 - Speaker 3
All the Times I Make it Wounds, All the Times I Make it.
0:19:22 - Natalie
I Don't have too much to say about that one. It kind of feels similar to the first one. It's a little, maybe a little darker, a little more kind of driving with the beat, but I just like it. It's groovy. I don't know, not everything has to be all deep, right, yeah. The next one I love is track five, called Under a Silent Sea.
0:19:41 - Tara
Under a silent sea with nothing to fear. Under a mile of sea.
0:19:51 - Natalie
His voice is just so gentle and sincere and like, even as the music builds up around him, he maintains this restraint that, I think, really increases the emotional tension. And like these, big drums come in and pulsating synths are going off and then suddenly out of nowhere, this full on house beat drops toward the end and you end up like, if you hear the first, like the first minute of the song, you would never expect to end up where you do.
0:20:17 - Tara
So you really go on a ride with this one. Number five is one of my favorites, for sure, of this album. It reminds me of Midlake, his voice In this song in particular sounds like a Midlake song.
Yeah, there's a weird instrument that makes like a sort of a nose-blowy sound Towards the latter part. It's not in a gross way but kind of a like what was that? Kind of a way, just a curious, what was that? But yeah, and this one, I love the way it swells as well, and while I do like this shift it makes towards the end, I like I wish it had stayed in more of the indie-balance Sebastian mid-like land, but it shifts to more of like I don't know, radio head means Father John Misty vibe towards the end with that drum machine part. It's not bad though. Yeah, it's just I kind of. I think I would like the song even more if it just kind of stayed where it was.
0:21:23 - Natalie
Yeah, I definitely prefer the beginning, where it's just more about his voice. You know, yeah, but yeah, I agree, I wasn't mad at it, it wasn't like jarring or anything, it's just a little shocking. But you know, whatever, let's do it, yeah, all right. Next we have track six. I Got Lost. I think this one is a perfect midpoint for the album. It's a really nice contrast to all these big, heavy instrumentals that come before it. Here it's just him and some gentle strings and guitar and you get to really appreciate his soft, almost fragile voice. You know, and I'm not usually into indie voice, like they seem to have this kind of whiny twang that I find off-putting. But I wouldn't include Lony Deer in that category. I actually really like the timbre of his voice and he sounds great live too, in the videos I watched.
0:22:24 - Tara
Yeah, I like this one too, and for me it had almost like a red, a blonde redhead vibe His voice here.
0:22:30 - Natalie
Oh yeah, yeah, I can see that.
0:22:31 - Tara
And then I think, or I also read, that Andrew Bird played violin on this album, and I don't know if it's the whole way through or just one or two songs, but maybe on this one, because I definitely could tell there was a lot more prominent violin on this one. Oh nice and yeah again, I'm just like I cannot believe this was a basement album, because the composition of these orchestral components just kind of blows me away. I don't understand, how did he do that?
0:22:59 - Natalie
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's just he's got a lot going on, but he really cleverly integrates all of the pieces and they just kind of float together nicely. Yeah, yeah, gotta respect it. I think. If the other songs are like frolicking out in the open fields, this one is wrapped in a blanket next to a cozy fireplace. The melody kind of feels like some old timey mid-evil tune, you know, I think it's really charming in that way.
0:23:23 - Tara
Definitely Actually thinking about those type of environments. For each of the songs track four reminded me of, maybe something you'd want to hear when you're on an airplane and you're taking off alone on a travel, on an adventure by yourself, or maybe while you're taking a ride on your bicycle in a faraway land and you're playing, you know, some lovely songs on your earbuds. That Track four, those are the moments.
0:23:54 - Natalie
Nice, these are all great scenarios for this music. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, alright. So then we have track nine, harm Slow, and I must have slept for many years.
0:24:08 - Tara
Because, I had forgotten how the morning fell. I didn't mind the danger at all.
0:24:18 - Natalie
This is easily the most heartbreaking song on the whole album. The song we just talked about before called I Got Lost. Like, think of that one as the Amuse Bouche. This song is where I really fell in love with his voice, right. It's as if he's just on the edge of completely shattering. You know, I think if you are someone who's ever experienced significant lows or loss in your life, this is one of those songs, I think, just grabs you on some subconscious wavelength. Whether or not you're a fan of the artist, you know what I mean.
0:24:48 - Tara
Yeah, this one is. It's funny that you skip track seven and eight and goes straight to this one, because I also did the same. It appears that I also enjoy the slow, brooding ones on this album. I love the soft vibrato tones in his voice and again so similar to Tim Smith's, formerly of Midlake. I just love that sound of his voice.
0:25:12 - Natalie
Yeah, it's really really pretty. The last stanza of the song reads that's how I fell from top of 12 stories to the ground. For the reasons I had the ones I know, the ones I don't. For all I forgot. That is all I could do. That is how I want you. Now it's debatable whether or not he's alluding to an alive one's self, right, but the song does end abruptly just beyond that point, which certainly kind of strengthens that impression. I think yeah. So this one really really gives me all the feels for sure.
0:25:44 - Tara
Plus harm the title. Harm is in the title and violent is the next one.
0:25:49 - Natalie
Gosh yeah yeah, well, I'm gonna actually skip over that one, unless you have something to say about it. I usually I skip that one. I don't. Yeah, we're gonna go straight to the end, because I think the album does try to end on a more comforting note with the title track Dear John, dear John.
0:26:13 - Speaker 3
Dear John.
0:26:18 - Natalie
So this one has sort of a jaunty 60s pop vibe and then these lovely warm horns come in and these marching band drums and it feels like a little village parade. It's all very celebratory, you know. So you get a little relief from all the heaviness from the rest of the album yeah.
Yeah, I think it's a great way to end. I love it, it makes me feel happy. But yeah, that's it. I've heard he's just spectacular live, like almost to the point where, like being one of those artists where once you see them live, it kind of spoils the studio albums oh yeah, do you have any artists like that, Like you saw them live and you just couldn't, you just didn't care about the studio records anymore.
0:26:55 - Tara
You know there has to be and I can't think of them right now at the top of my head, but I know there is.
0:27:01 - Natalie
Well, I'll tell you mine and maybe something will pop into your head.
0:27:03 - Tara
Pop into your head.
0:27:04 - Natalie
Okay, Mine would be Erica Badu. I saw Erica Badu live the first time and I just didn't go near her studio albums for years. They just couldn't live up to it. She's such a force on stage she really is yeah.
0:27:19 - Tara
I've seen her live a few times and, yeah, she definitely puts on a stellar show. One I immediately think of is Feist. Oh, I love.
0:27:29 - Natalie
Feist.
0:27:30 - Tara
Yeah, she shreds live and her voice is so beautiful and I think sometimes the studio is too shiny, glossy, you know.
0:27:40 - Natalie
Yeah, yeah, and she does have that kind of like unique quality to her voice that shouldn't be messed with with computer's. Yeah, I never got to see her solo. I loved her solo work so much. I saw her with oh God, my memory is terrible. Please help me the band, oh, Broken Social Scene. Yeah, yeah, Broken Social Scene. Yes, but yeah, I love Feist.
0:28:01 - Tara
Yeah, I know there's more, I just can't think of any. Well, that's it.
0:28:05 - Natalie
That's my album, dear John, from Loney Deer. It's a great one.
0:28:07 - Tara
Yeah, that's a good one.
0:28:09 - Natalie
So I say all that, we're coming full circle. Now you asked me the question at the beginning. This album and the four before were meant to be a sort of creative quintet, and he said that this album is a literal Dear John letter to his career up to that point, indicating some sort of like big shift or transformation to come. So I'm going to catch up on his discography and I'm curious to see how he's going to do it, how he's evolved since then.
0:28:33 - Tara
Well, thinking of evolving one's career, saying goodbye to the past, moving on with the next step, I think that's our commonality here. Oh my God, fridge.
0:28:44 - Natalie
Fortet oh, and I'm going to hit us with a double whammy. Not only that, I think these albums are both considered the height of these artists' discographies. Maybe not the artist, but you mean like the group Well, fridge, well, certainly a Fridge, specifically Fridge, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:29:01 - Tara
Okay, gotcha, no, yeah, that's definitely true for Fridge. So, dear John, is Lonnie Dears' top also?
0:29:09 - Natalie
I think so it was really, really. It was met with high praise. Like Magnus, is it Magnemopus? Yeah, magnemopus territory.
0:29:18 - Tara
Yeah, well, that's cool. I love it when we find our commonalities. I mean it's so easy sometimes. It's just perfect we set ourselves up for it.
0:29:26 - Natalie
Got a good record going, man. What's going on like two years? Yeah, that's true?
0:29:31 - Tara
Well, I'm glad you brought this album to me to listen to, to check out.
0:29:36 - Natalie
Yeah, and thank you for reminding me of Fridge. I'm going to bring that out of retirement.
0:29:40 - Tara
I can't wait to hear what the next one's going to be. Come on Big Ears. Yeah, oh my gosh, seriously, I can't wait, I have to know. Well, let's go home early today.
0:29:52 - Natalie
Oh yeah, that's like the best idea you've ever had. Yeah, let's do it.
0:29:56 - Tara
All right, we're locking up the store. Get out now while you can.
0:30:00 - Natalie
Thanks for coming, and we'll see you all next time. Have trails Bye.
0:30:04 - Speaker 3
Bye. Record Store Society is hosted by Natalie White and Tara Davies. If you'd like to contact the show, visit our website at recordstoresocietycom, or you can find us on all your favorite social media sites with the handle at Record Store Society.
Transcribed by https://podium.page