SHARES DETAILS OF LONG-AWAITED THIRD ALBUM
GOD MELODIES OUT 16TH JULY VIA FICTION RECORDS
Fryars today announces details of his third album God Melodies, due for release on July 16th via Fiction Records. His first release since 2014’s Power, the new album features the album’s previously released title track, ‘Quail’s Egg No.1 In C Sharp Major’ and new single ‘Orange Juice’, out today. Pre-order God Melodies here.
Today’s deceptively upbeat yet introspective new release ‘Orange Juice’ describes a personal experience of Fryars’ and how he dealt with it: “This next song is Orange Juice in which I tell the story of receiving an awful diagnosis, not confiding in anyone and then going out on the town solo to drown my sorrows. Juice is off the menu. A Miami driving anthem to blast in the Uber. I don’t care who’s gonna drive me home now I’m on my own.”
God Melodies came together in Fryars’ London home studio with his wife Rae Morris and Beach Boys / Stereolab collaborator and The High Llamas frontman Sean O’Hagan; emerging as an utterly unique record brimming with warmth, colour and beatific urge. Inspired by cool counter-culture Jews Fryars has always admired, Paul Simon and Randy Newman, it places their songwriting tradition firmly in the modern day: ultra HD production reminiscent of the melodic sensibilities of Brockhampton and Dirty Projectors.
Across eleven varied sonic worlds brought to life by thoughtful electronic notes and soaring strings, Fryars dives deep into the humdrum of the human experience in beautifully intricate detail; “People often talk about music being cathartic, that we use it to work through our sadnesses. But it can also be used as a preservative for joy and the small things that pass us by. We don’t acknowledge happiness enough because it’s really hard to admit when you’re happy and it often doesn’t make other people that happy either! But joy translated well into music has an inflationary effect. That’s what the record is all about really.”
God Melodies track listing
God Melodies
Moscow
49
Pair Of Dancers
Lionel
Orange Juice
I Won’t Hurry Love
Your Parade
Wonder
Feeling Lonely Is A Shadowy Glow
Quail’s Egg No.1 In C Sharp Major
Fryars – dubbed the “mad professor of pop” by the FADER – is the musical brainchild of Benjamin Garrett, whose peerless sound has won him fans from Kanye West to Lily Allen to Depeche Mode. Following the buzz around his early work, Fryars released his debut album Dark Young Hearts in 2009, while his second studio album Power – a journey through the imagination built around a story that spans three continents and deals with all the deliciousness of life; love, greed, loss and death – arrived 5 years later through a plethora of difficulties to critical acclaim. Dazed called it “a dazzling electro-pop construct”, while The Guardian praised Fryars for “mixing regret and basic human desires to create something strangely uplifting”. Since the release of Power, Garrett has worked extensively with Lily Allen, co-writing tracks on her number one album Sheezus and 2018’s Mercury nominated No Shame, as well as writing and producing for Rae Morris’ acclaimed 2018 record Someone Out There.
