A quiet figure on the periphery of this generation of British electronic music, George FitzGerald has spent the last half-decade carving out a space for himself with a series of increasingly refined EPs, singles, and remixes. If you want to think of that space in purely geographic terms, it's somewhere between the pop-friendly house and garage of his native London and the patient, muted techno of his adopted home, Berlin. You can also think of it as music with one foot in the club and another in the aisles of your local fast fashion emporium, living in that liminal realm between body music and headphones-oriented composition. FitzGerald isn't an innovative force by any means, but he's an expert synthesist, able to fold a wide array of influences into radiant, splashy cuts like 2013's high water mark "I Can Tell (By the Way You Move)". Fading Love is his first full-length release, and it's marked by a maturity that FitzGerald's earned through his time in the trenches, writing and mixing and performing dozens of live sets.
As part of the larger arc of FitzGerald's career, Fading Love is a natural step forward: it's his most writerly album to date, largely eschewing software and completely avoiding sampled vocals in favor of more rounded, organic sounds and live guest vocalists. Its best qualities are ones that typically lurk in the background of electronic music: restraint, consistency, and an eye on achieving larger thematic goals. The album is built around a relationship that fell apart, and it's appropriately overcast given that fact. There are moments where you can hear FitzGerald toying with a melody that could easily fill a club or send a festival crowd into a frenzy, only to pull back and focus on melancholy once again; "Knife to the Heart" is the best example, with a titanic synth line worthy of EDM's bro princes relegated to spot duty.
Its other highlights find a middle ground between the genteel, bookish techno of label-mate Jon Hopkins and the ruthless pop-house of Disclosure, electronic music's reigning boy kings. Single "Full Circle" and "Crystallise" manage an impressive balancing act: you can imagine them slotting in on the radio somewhere, but they also don't sound quite like anything else in that sphere. Delicately constructed and heavy with emotion, they're the best examples of what FitzGerald can accomplish working in this transitional vein.
Fading Love is set up to reward the same focus it demonstrates: if you dig into each new muted meditation and immerse yourself in FitzGerald's bubbling little temples of thought, you'll find yourself entranced. It doesn't have the same impact when it's flipped on in the background, soundtracking chores or a morning commute: then, it verges on soporific. The guest appearances by singers Oli Bayston (a.k.a. Boxed In) and Lawrence Hart don't help: they're meant to complement FitzGerald's arrangements rather than create any sort of spark. FitzGerald has talked about playing these songs live and reaching the live proficiency of artists like Caribou, an exciting prospect—it's easy to imagine the bulk of Fading Love blooming into something more cathartic and immediately engaging. But even in this basic state, the album is a complete statement that's comfortable in its own skin.
