Secret Life is the new collaborative ambient album from Fred Again.. and ambient composer icon Brian Eno, which was recorded between 4th April 2020 – 23rd December 2022.
It is released on Four Tet’s Text Records label, which Kieran Hebden called “the most beautiful album of 2023.”
It runs at 45 minutes and feels like a mix of Fred’s cerebral slow ambient and Eno, known as the godfather of ambient music’s extensive forays into cementing the genre as its own music space.
The album is available on DSPs, Vinyl via Bandcamp or Spindizzy. Eno took the cover art, and it was mastered by Four Tet.
“I have to say, and this is not modesty or false flattery or anything like that, I think of Fred as my mentor as well,” Eno told Zane Lowe recently, “in that I learnt so much about contemporary music from watching him working. When I first worked with Fred I could see he was brilliant. It’s very clear. He’s a very very sensitive and good artist, and I was very impressed by that. But I didn’t really understand a lot of what he was doing. It took me quite awhile to think ‘oh my gosh, this is really a new idea about how you can make music.’ So I learned a lot from him. It’s a two way relationship….
I started listening to music differently when I watched how Fred was making it. He’s often recording on his phone, and he’s often recording in quite noisy places, and he doesn’t clean everything off. So in every piece of recording, there’s a context comes with it as well. The sound has a history built into it. He’s actually letting it pour through his art and through his spirit.”
There’s also a 3-hour version.
Eno has been known to be a mentor of Fred. They met at age 16 when Fred’ ‘s family lived near Brian, and he joined an a cappella group at Brian Eno’s studio in London, before going on to co-produce the collaborative album with Eno and Karl Hyde of Underworld.
Secret Life is the first album from Fred again.. since the November 2022 release of his third studio LP, ). Eno’s last album, his 29th, , ForeverAndEverNoMore, was released in October of 2022 while Fred released Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 22, 2022) last November, and has been on the road DJing with Skrillex and Four Tet a lot since then, culminating in their recent Coachella performance.
Fred has been accused of working from privilege having been born into the British peerage, a position that has allowed him to connect with Brian Eno originally. Making an album with him won’t silence the detractors, but here we are.
Tracklist:
Side 1
01. I Saw You
02. Secret
03. Radio
04. Follow
05. Enough
06. Pause
Side 2
01. Safety
02. Cmon
03. Trying
04. Chest
05. Come On Home
