Jeremy / HI54LOFI
“Kicks off differently than previous WRF releases, more upbeat & jazzy, and really caught my headphones off guard (in a good way). Amazing front-to-back listen as always, but really dug the unexpected smokey jazz club vibes which *spoiler alert* eventually transform into something dark & haunted. A 'letdown' this record most definitely is not.”
Favorite track: Free Radical.
Sailcloth
I've been revisiting this album a lot since it's come out. William found a good vibe, and leaned into it hard. Sonically the instruments all seem to hit this perfect saturation point that feels like a pre-amp is about to melt out of it's channel strip. Well done!
Favorite track: Free Radical.
Nic Brown
“The Letdown” starts off jauntily enough but swiftly devolves into something far darker. The latter half, in particular, makes Bohren & Der Club Of Gore sound like Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen. Wonderfully spooky stuff.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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Subscribe to the Lost Tribe Sound album series "Built Upon A Fearful Void" and receive 'The Letdown' on CD or digitally at a discounted price here: https://losttribesound.bandcamp.com/album/fearful-void-series
Purchasable with gift card
$6USD or more
Limited Gatefold CD
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
STILL HAVE CD EDITIONS OF 'THE LETDOWN' AVAILABLE WHEN YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THE SERIES: losttribesound.bandcamp.com/album/fearful-void-series
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• Glass Mastered CD
• Gatefold heavy stock, reverse printed case
• Artwork by Dorota Jedrusik
• Limited to 100 Editions
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IMPORTANT: Subscribe to the Lost Tribe Sound album series "Built Upon A Fearful Void" and receive 'The Letdown' on CD or digitally at a discounted price
Includes unlimited streaming of The Letdown
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
‘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.
BEST ALBUMS OF 2020 - "Unusually jazzy record for Fritch (at least in its first half), but nevertheless marked with the seal of a heady strangeness, with its atmospheres of retro cine-club and nocturnal wandering to the sound of an opiate jam between Lynchian jazzmen in full descent from euphoria to bad trip." (translated from French) (Rabbit) INDIE ROCK MAG
TOP ALBUMS OF 2020 - THE SILENT BALLET
BEST COVER ART OF 2020 - SON OF MARKETING
"As the first album in Lost Tribe Sound’s new series Built Upon a Fearful Void, The Letdown is anything but. It’s also the first William Ryan Fritch album that doesn’t sound like William Ryan Fritch" - (Richard Allen) A CLOSER LISTEN
"This is music for mood. We’re talking Henry Mancini’s Experiment in Terror, Tom Waits Black Rider, Bohren and Der Club of Gore, jazzy cinematic darkness with hints of noir. Amazing." - (Bob Baker Fish) CYCLIC DEFROST
"Highly atmospheric, slightly eerie, experimental electroacoustics, modern classical and noir jazz gems. Unique, fun and varied listen to this album at night while sipping on your favourite tipple of choice." - (CF Smith) TWISTED SOUL
"Fun, laid-back and steeped in a classic film noir atmosphere, it's upright and respectable music from a bygone era, nicely dressed in a suitably old-fashioned outfit while bringing something fresh and daring to the table." - (translated from French) ROCK DECIBELS
"The sepia shades of the cover of The Letdown mingle with the images of (post-) modernism suggested by a sequence of concise chamber-jazz miniatures. Their rapid succession, like black and white frames, also appears to come from a distant time and a surreal present." (translated from Italian) - (Raffaello) MUSIC WON'T SAVE YOU
"It is unpolished, compelling, sepia-colored, old-sounding but also new and of an exceptional splendor. Sometimes very dark and at other times more cheerful." - (translated from Dutch)(JW Broek) - SUBJECTIVISTEN
"Retrospection and nostalgia, moments of clarity, mindfulness and silence. All that is represented in these fifteen compositions with the touching narrative and abrupt endings. Each episode let you know and feel more, while the time is playing its game." - SELECTED GOOSEBUMPS
William Ryan Fritch is a composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer currently based in Oakland, California.
His compositions are characterized by his unique range as a multi-instrumentalist and audio engineer, allowing him to realize large ensemble arrangements found in folk, Indie-rock, electronica,
Hip-hop, World and orchestral music as a solo endeavor....more
Quietly intense, dense, and claustrophobic - yet offset by its relentlessly hypnotic nature and tactile, bubbling textures. You'll get the bends, but you won't mind. A glorious mix of Night That Thunders by Rapoon and Fishy by Mookoid, this is THE must-have album for your bathysphere. Recommended. 400 Lonely Things
Lost Tribe Sound has been responsible for some of my best 'getting lost in my headphones' moments of the last many years and it sounds like with this series that shall continue. Jeremy / HI54LOFI
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