I've become convinced that the best way of marketing an album is to make it as scarce as humanly possible. Were I the head of a record label (star light, star bright!), I'd connive all manner of misfortune to justify ultra-low press runs. "The album was found to contain dangerously high frequencies and/or seizure-inducing strobe rhythms; we had to recall it." "John Ashcroft has seized the majority of our inventory and shipped it to Guantanamo Bay under suspicions of anti-Americanism." Or maybe tell the band the album is "too experimental", drop them from my label, leak the music to the Internet, and re-sign them under a different imprint... oh, wait, that one's already been done. Steve Case, you magnificent evil bastard!
Whichever story I choose, I'd cast it out there, wait a couple years while the hype train builds to immense speed, then BAM!, reissue the album and watch the bank account swell. I'm not accusing the assumedly fine lads at Temporary Residence Ltd of such unsavory practices, nor am I suspicious of London post-rock-ish trio Fridge. But hey, the story fits the mold, as the press kit makes clear: EPH was released in 1999 on British label Go!Beat, but only using the highly unpopular, hard-to-find, and absurdly expensive rollout plan. Now it's being reissued for all us neglected statesiders and poor people, with the added attraction of a bonus disc featuring EPs of that same pre-millennial era, plus a couple new remixes. This mini-Fridge has been converted into a Kegerator! Haw haw, thanks folks, I'll be here all week!
Unfortunately, the music world might've passed EPH by while it languished in high-priced import bin obscurity. Back in 1999, when Tortoise's TNT was a mere one year old, this disc probably sounded like some fresh dope shiznit, what with its atmospheric instrumental rock sound laced with chopped-up reel-to-reel drums and a veritable genus of keyboard species. Much of the album has that movie score quality that many of the band's peers were also flogging at the time, Krautishly named tracks like "Ark" and "Aphelion" riding hypnotic grooves for upwards of eight minutes at a time.
It's too bad it kinda sounds dated these days, since Fridge had the goods to be considered one of the top performers of the genre. The band excels at crafting a happy medium between organics and electronics (guitarist Kieran Hebden is aka Four Tet), with compositions like "Transience" and the horn-stuffed "Bad Ischi" maintaining a fluid, improvised vibe rather than the overly calculated constructions of other post-rock acts. EPH isn't quite past its expiration date ("Meum" has a delicate musicbox sound that would fit right in with recent Björk fare), but it's got just a small, distracting whiff of sourness in a genre has since proven distinctly limited.
Holding up better is the bonus second disc, compiling the "Kinoshita Terasaka" single, the Of EP, and remixes of EPH tracks by Matthew Herbert and P Pulsinger. The single might be the highlight of the set, coupling a short piece propelled by a tentatively booty-shaking bassline with a long, trancy groove set that rewards the patient of heart... before kicking sand in the eyes of said patient of heart with a completely gratuitous outro drum solo. The Of EP features four dull versions of the EPH track of the same name, but stay tuned for the remixes, which do Fridge the favor of updating their songs to the conventions of the modern day. Herbert's take on "Ark" radically reconstructs the Very Serious original as thinking man's dancefloor anthem, adding minor-key piano chords and a chopped-up diva vocal. P Pulsinger, meanwhile, distorto-amplifies the bassline of "Bad Ischi" into a window-rattling irregular skip-hop that Scott Herren would be proud of.
Too bad these two reworkings emphasize how dated the actual reissued album sounds today, when cutting edge electronica seems to have rediscovered its sense of humor while overcoming its love/hate relationship with the club scene. But don't worry your pretty little head about the boys of Fridge, as they've already moved on to more electronic and experimental pastures with last year's Happiness. So while EPH doesn't quite cause the ripples it might've caused back in '99, the record still nobly stands as pivot of Fridge's musical development. Too bad it may have been kept in the cryogenic containment unit just a smidge too long.
