Fat Freddy’s Drop
4th November – Manchester Academy
Seven piece band Fat Freddy’s Drop is internationally regarded as one of the world’s finest live draws.
Over the last four LPs the New Zealanders have navigated their way from the incubator of sunshine reggae through a colour-saturated field of soul psychedelia before swerving onto a desolate Detroit superhighway at night. It’s a sound that demands to be heard live, a potent mixture of jazz virtuosity and diaphragm-wrecking digital sonics.
These influences have not only been formed by the band’s individual predilections but also experiences on the road: Fat Freddy’s appearance at Detroit’s Movement festival in 2006 was a watershed moment for the band, fuelled by hearing May’s, Atkin’s and Craig’s stark futurism ricochet off the cold concrete of America’s broken dream.
This stoked producer DJ Mu’s love of analogue techno, balancing and fusing vocalist Dallas Tamaira’s adoration of soul and reggae with the band’s collective passion for Jazz, Rhythm & Blues, Rock, Disco, House, Post Punk and Balearic oddities.
For FFD this osmosis begins at the start of a composition. Groove after groove, horn line after horn line is laid down by the entire band in their Wellington-based studio BAYS and then edited by trumpeter Toby Laing, DJ Mu and Dallas Tamaira. It’s out of these epic live recordings that they sieve the gold that lies within.
The band’s most recent release is studio album BAYS a 9-track LP written and recorded at their BAYS Studio in Kilbirnie, Wellington. Pre-BAYS, their albums were formed almost entirely on the road; the songs slowly evolving live at festivals such as WOMAD UK, SONAR, Bestival, Lowlands, DEMF, Pukkelpop, Glastonbury, The Big Chill and Roskilde. Stand alone concerts also feature heavily, with sell-out mayhem ensuing at Alexandra Palace and Brixton Academy (LDN), Paradiso (Amsterdam), Vega (Copenhagen), The Coliseum (Lisbon), Henry Fonda Theatre (Los Angeles), Columbiahalle (Berlin), Sydney Opera House, and Le Zenith (Paris).
Now, Manchester Academy joins the list. Fat Freddy’s Drop have added an extra stop at Manchester Academy, following the sell out of 3rd November. Don’t miss out on this one.
Manchester Academy, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PR
0161 232 1639
www.manchesteracademy.net/
