[review]
In the five years since his debut album, Fryars (aka Benjamin Garrett) has been busy behind the scenes, writing for people like Mika and Lily Allen, and of course recently collaborating with Rae Morris on her 2014 single Cold. This week saw the release of his second album Power, a genre-spanning masterpiece which fluctuates between the relaxing and the theatrical. It’s orchestral and glitchy all at once, and listening to just one track wouldn’t necessarily give you a sense of the album as a whole – it’s an immersive experience which takes you from RnB through 1930s film score right the way to disco. The album boasts an expansive range of influences, echoing at times Daft Punk, Anthony and the Johnsons, Scott Walker and The Scissor Sisters to name but a few. Touches like a crackle or a microwave ping utilise both headphones and are just the cherry on top of a creatively layered cake of textures and sounds. On Power, Fryars has created a wonderful soundscape which he plays with and explores to its scintillatingly bizarre depths.
Fryars will be playing at Rough Trade East on the 20th November.
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