City Center - City Center

"Fred Thomas, for the unacquainted, is one of the most underrated musicians of the last decade, if not all time". Alas, not our words, but those of FACT magazine who were as excited as we were by the prospect of a new project and album from a musician and producer who's been involved with a tonne of different projects and guises over the last decade without really having ever gained the respect and attention he's so clearly deserved. This album is, in our humble opinion, the most well-realised and heart-stopping of all his productions to date, sounding like a cross between Animal Collective / Panda Bear, Fennesz, Moonshake and Brian Wilson without missing a heartbeat. This is an album that's more than happy to layer classic vocal harmonies on top of distorted shards of Gamelan, or plastic sounding drum machines next to shimmering multi-acoustic instrumental strums before then, out of nowhere, conjuring up a two minute lo-fi drone for no other reason than that it sounds bloody great. This is the sort of album that's so often weighed down by the unmanageable scale of ambition and artistic vision of its creator, so it's incredibly lucky and supremely wonderful that mr Thomas has ample supply of skill, charisma and determination to pull it off so perfectly. Exuberance, majesty and pure joy in one gorgeous 50 minute package - if you love the Animal Collective or Panda Bear's classic 'Person Pitch' - treat them as good starting points and dive into this incredible album without delay.

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