Opening with a dialling tone, one-sided snapshots of a phone call and warm, widescreen synths, Trick FM’s new single evokes a kind of late ‘90s / early ‘00s electronica. Fractured drum beats and ambient found sounds create an assembled sound that evokes urban Britain.
What is surprising is that Tricky FM is the musical pseudonym of Hana Freed, based in San Francisco. Whilst Sugar in my Drink basks in the kind of open skies and warmth I associate with the Bay Area, I haven’t heard anything quite like this from a US artist before. Cymbal crashes flip from one channel to the other, centring the listener amidst all the colours Freed is painting with. The result is warm and hopeful, as reflected in vocals that depict someone cautiously embracing a love and newfound self-respect. Everything feels good, and yet the only question is whether that, in and of itself, is a problem.
When I first heard Sugar in my Drink, it reminded me of Underworld’s Scribble. Both because of how they similarly combine drum & bass with thick, uplifting synths, and also because both songs make the use of the found phone call recording aesthetic. The snatched words of Scribble always captured my curiosity — a little mystery box within a record. Here, Freed adds backstory and texture to her performance in a way that connects us to her story, and it adds to the emotional stakes of her performance.
Having established herself across a variety of clubs, venues and punk bars in the Bay Area and beyond, Hana established her sound with her debut album, Peace, Love, Unity, Rave, on Cherub Dream Records. That record arrived amidst urgency and anger. The follow-up, Twin Star Fantasy, is born the other side of this reckoning — within a newfound stillness. That is reflected in the quiet contemplation snatched amidst the rolling drums here on Sugar in my Drink. The result is a dynamic yet beautiful listening experience.