STACK #182 Dec 2019

MUSIC FEATURE

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FAT FREDDY'S DROP words in lots of different ways, and then changing one or two INTERVIEW

words and try to morph it around a little bit. As a band, we've spend hundreds and thousands of hours improvising together. So, we have a bit of sense of when someone's really on fire and when you should follow them, or when someone's running a bit cold and perhaps you should be looking somewhere else for ideas. It's just a collective history – musical history, which comes to bear on that sort of thing. How do you understand the way that that shared musical history emerged? Every musician has their own collection of phrases that they use, much like an author does, you know, where they have a literary style. Bands end up with a musical language too. Freddy's has got quite a strong musical language because we've been involved in these conversational style of performances for such a long time. We just sort of have an ability now to read where each other are going. Even by looking at someone sometimes you can get a sense that, right, he's about to hit off on one here: watch him and follow along. It's always an evolving thing. ZKR

With the release of Fat Freddy's Drop's dynamic Special Edition Part 1 , STACK spoke to saxophonist Chopper Reeds about the beloved NZ dub-soul group's endlessly inventive vision.

Are your favourite moments live the ones where you can lock into a groove or a trance, or the ones where you improvise? I personally like the ones where we stretch out a little bit further. I find that quite exciting, that sort of energy of not knowing exactly what's going to happen. I mean, I really like watching people sing along and knowing when the horn parts drop or where the bass lines come in, which is what you get when things are a little bit more settled. That's got a certain type of energy. But, where it gets a bit loose and we don't know quite what's going to happen and the audience definitely doesn't know what's going to happen, that's got a whole other crazy energy, and that's kind of the stuff I like. Which bandmembers are coming up with the mad ideas about when to improvise and when to keep it solid? Those ideas come from everyone all the time, to be

Is there a way to practise improvisation?

honest. That's one of the good things about the band: there's no shortage of ideas in terms of how to keep the performances fresh and how to keep the music fresh. It's funny because we haven't put out that many records but we've definitely got material to burn in our brains and in our memory banks.

I actually went to music school and studied jazz, [so] I guess I've been improvising since I was a student. And, yeah, you do practice it. An analogy would be to come up with a sentence of words or whatever, and then try to say the same sentence using the same

Special Edition Part 1 by Fat Freddy's Drop is out Dec 6 via The Drop/ Remote Control.

Read the full interview online @ stack.com.au

A lmost four years after A Head Full of Dreams , London’s own Coldplay have released their eighth studio album, Everyday Life , which was teased back in October when eager fans heard the first two singles: Orphans and Arabesque . They followed up with two more – Daddy and Champion of the World – in late November. The four-piece took a unique approach in distributing early information about Everyday Life to their fanbase: mysterious posters and billboards erected around COLDPLAY the world teased the record's cover art, 50 fans across the globe received hand-signed, type-written notes (pictured) containing information on the album and its content. The album features a generous 16 tracks: eight on each of the two

Everyday Life by Coldplay is out now via Warner.

become one of their biggest releases yet, with Chris Martin describing the work as "sort of how we feel about things", a soundtrack fit to play over the life that the band want themselves – or their fans – to live. Tom Mackie

France.

The band, who

formed in 1996, have sold over 100 million records worldwide, and boast an enormous list of awards

discs, with side A titled Sunrise and side B titled Sunset . The tracklist was unveiled via classified ads in local newspapers in New Zealand, Wales, Australia and

– notably, seven GRAMMYs. Everyday Life has predictably

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DECEMBER 2019

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