William Ryan Fritch - The Letdown

$8.00

Release date: 06/12/2020

Genre: Jazz

'The Letdown’ from multi-instrumentalist William Ryan Fritch kicks off Lost Tribe Sound’s new label series “Built Upon A Fearful Void.” The series introduces fifteen new albums to the label’s roster over the next year, five of which will come courtesy of Fritch, including a new release as his alter ego, Vieo Abiungo.

‘The Letdown’ is a record better identified by the vibe it creates rather than a particular genre or style. It’s dirty, unapologetically loud and charmingly haphazard. It’s the sort of self-educated, non-jazz record that critics of Moondog would have written off as impure. Frankly, we’re good with that. The strength of the record lies not with any collegiate-level classification, but in its ability conjure moods that just feel good, are instantly familiar and invite a certain nostalgia. The gritty, noir side of it, brings to mind the old black and white detective stories. The jovial, 1920’s romanticism, lends a bit of class and gives the sense that even though everything is falling to shit, we are going to power through it with a bit of song and dance.

Whatever one happens to take away from this album, ‘The Letdown’ is meant to be fun, help the whisky burn just a bit less, and keep the blood flowing. Read into it too much and you might spoil it. Guaranteed it is unlike any Fritch record to date.

01 Unhinged

02 Free Radical

03 Compulsion / Going Through The Motions

04 Initiative

05 Dream Differently

06 Experiment

07 Curls of Smoke / False Confidence

08 Unraveling

09 Progress Traps

10 Ashen Relics

11 The Letdown

12 Hesitation / Recurring

13 Shuttered

14 Dream Glitch / Fugue State / Broken Barriers

15 What's Left Unfilched