Anna Meredith readily admits to her cautious nature, but is an established career as an in-demand composer really enough to prevent questionable indulgences? How far away is she really from having two Diet Cokes in one day?
Varmints turned out to be the non-verbal answer to that needless question, as the 2016 release — which ultimately earned plenty of accolades in Meredith’s native UK and internationally — was a noted departure from the relatively straightforward, commissioned work that had more or less defined her career up until that point (+ the release of the two preceding EPs in 2012/2013). She humorously remarked in an interview with The Guardian about how some people thought she was “selling out and raking in the cash” by choosing to release an eccentric pop album; but as she notes, it ain’t an easy thing to put your day-job on hold and undertake something that’ll almost certainly have a negative ROI from a strictly financial standpoint. Anna Meredith: taking risks.
FIBS, out October 25 on Moshi Moshi, is alleged to be a musical risk in its own right, since Meredith ditched a lot of the hardware and software that helped make Varmints a thing and attached her compositional mind to an array of brand new instrumentation. Lorenzo Senni totally (not actually) shared his VST patches for the track “Inhale Exhale,” which you can listen to below.
“moonmoons” and “Paramour” are also down there. Pre-orders, meanwhile are over here.
FIBS tracklisting:
01. Sawbones
02. Inhale Exhale
03. Calion
04. Killjoy
05. Bump
06. moonmoons
07. Divining
08. Limpet
09. Ribbons
10. Paramour
11. Unfurl
More about: Anna Meredith
