With so many archival releases chronicling a world inherited but long gone by, it’s strange to realise that 20 years have passed since General Magic and Pita’sFridge albums, records which in many ways still colour the sonic world we inhabit today. It’s a refreshing, rewarding and much needed realisation; the anniversary of a renaissance. Fridge Trax Plus compiles the visionary sonic efforts of Peter Rehberg, Andreas Pieper and Ramon Bauer in a lovely double LP which assembles all of the tracks made from placing microphones inside fridges during the mid-‘90s. Many-headed, and amazingly unconventional, the tracks move from the airy grandeur of “Spring Fridge”, to the borderline industrial, threatening soundscape of “Ding Fridge”, to the cerebral crispiness of “Thaw Fridge”, to the superb rough textures and elegant glitch of “Final Fridge”.
While of course it’s historically important to note this reissue revisits a pivotal moment in the relationship between experimental electronics and dance music, the record is also an engaging, satisfying listen that still sounds alive and inspired. The issue of Fridge Trax Plus also marks twenty years since the birth of Editions Mego, which has kept endorsing a curious approach to electronic music since day one. In the period since these fridge records were first released, people have been born, started buying records, begun making music, even started record labels. The past isn’t so past after all, and the future, thankfully, might still be present.
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