Fat Freddy’s Drop – Record-facts…

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Blackbird is the third studio album by the New Zealand group Fat Freddy’s Drop, released on 21 June 2013 on their own record label, The Drop.

Fat Freddy’s Drop’s third album Blackbird blasting through the headphones.
They’ve gone back to their under-produced (yet so slick), off the cuff roots and are working their Kiwi magic once again.
As their reggae vibes pump around my ears I can’t help but let Fat Freddy’s Drop’s dub wash over me and transport me across the world.
From their opening track ‘Blackbird’ the deep bass grabs your attention right through to sax solos and raucous guitars; Blackbird grabs you straight off the bat and doesn’t let you go.
Fat Freddy’s Drop are some seriously talented and creative musicians, thank god they all found each-other way back when to create such amazing music.
As the big drums of ‘Russia’ fight with the twisting horns, lead singer Dallas Tamaira comes in and soothes it all back to glorious dub vibes; it does ring bells with a few track from Based On A True Story, but this is in no way a bad thing, it feels like the follow on.
‘Clean The House’, the second release from Blackbird, is one of the more laid back tracks of the album, a slow, almost off-beat, rhythm slides along as a jagged piano line moves through to a build up of inimitable horns and a cascade of cymbals, as things then slide back in pace like that post-coital cigarette smokers often relish!
The jumpy, distorted pulse of ‘Silver and Gold’ soon subsides to Dallas’s superlative vocal,s as horns bring it back you can’t help but want to move to this track.
I’m on my own in the park grooving away – I don’t give a crap, this shit needs to be appreciated anywhere, any time!
The track itself is about breaking away from a bad love but being lured back in, you know the one that keeps pulling you back….yeh…you know! ‘Bones’ has possibly the most different sound I’ve heard from Fat Freddy’s Drop, mostly due to the strong presence of an acoustic guitar but make no mistake, its undeniably them!
It’s actually really nice to hear this side to them and just proves how diverse they can be. Dallas’s voice suits the style and it’s still perfectly draped in their summery sounds.
On all of Fat Freddy’s Drop’s albums there’s always a really down-tempo track, that inevitably I end up skipping once I’ve given the album a good work out.
On Blackbird that track is ‘Soldier’. Whilst it’s not because it’s ever a bad track, it tends to be, for me, that it just doesn’t fit with the flow of the album and it’s just unfortunate that they stuck ‘Soldier’ in the middle of Blackbird.
It does pick up towards the end but not enough to get me through it. When ‘Never Moving’ starts I think Fat Freddy’s Drop are continuing down the sultry road. However, once it kicks in, fuck me; I’m blown away! Possibly their most electro sounding track to date, it doesn’t really move much, kind of like an episode of Breaking Bad; not much happens but EVERYTHING happens! In fact I could totally see Mr. White and Jessie cooking up a batch with this dope track pounding out (pardon the pun)! ‘Never Moving’ is exactly 8 minutes of perfection – definitely a stand-out track on Blackbird.
Intricate drum patterns play off synths and fractious horns to create the sumptuous backbone of homage ‘Mother Mother’.
And as the mini breakdown builds back into a hip-swaying rhythm you can’t help but wanna dance to this one – carnival vibes all round – another stand-out track.
Twisted synths and a simple groove set us up for instrumental closer ‘Bohannon’, but I swear I can hear Dallas’ voice in the jolts of guitars…tell me you can too?!
‘Bohannon’ calls to mind some of the epic tunes that used to be on Grand Theft Auto way back…makes me wish I had a convertible to cruise around in blasting this out, then I think it’d truly be understood and appreciated!

Track listing

Blackbird – 9:27
Russia – 5:31
Clean the House – 4:14
Silver and Gold – 6:10
Bones – 7:31
Soldier – 6:33
Never Moving – 8:01
Mother Mother – 8:59
Bohannon – 7:20

The lineup comprises:

Chris Faiumu aka DJ Fitchie aka Mu – Band Leader, Effects, Drum Programming, Synthesisers
Dallas Tamaira aka Joe Dukie – Lyricist, Vocals
Scott Towers aka Chopper Reedz – Sax
Toby Laing aka Tony Chang – Trumpet
Joe Lindsay aka Ho Pepa – Trombone
Tehimana Kerr aka Jetlag Johnson – Guitar
Iain Gordon aka Dobie Blaze – Analogue Keyboard, Piano, Synthesisers

Companies, etc.