Label: Go Beat Format: 12″,CDS
Appearing in four differing takes from the album version, “Of” is a slippery little track in its “Version” form, with various sound-science vocal samples drifting across its fairly straight-ahead riff with accompanying synth squeals, blips and fallout to tingle the spine and drop down into the realms of pitch-bent fun. The “Remix” gets more jazzy in the bass department, with the drums dropped right down into brushed and stroked arenas for the most part, making a more relaxed take on what is barely recognisable as having the same origins as the former track, shuffling around softly head-nodding melodies and shimmering percussion additions.
The “Edit” is more of a rejigging into upbeat realms, propulsive and really quite groovy in a Hammondy sort of way, with a nice tendency towards dropped-out drums and a nodding acquaintance with not only the finer points of both Lounge and Dance techniques, but a nifty use of reversed drum loops too. As for the “Dub,” it is essentially just that; bass up and somnolent, drums minimal and echoed, main riff looped and stretched into drifting serpentine plucks on the dope beat wash below, recursively built up and dispersed in proper Dub style for a tinkling fadeout. Fridge are constantly trying everything and anything it seems, and the “Of EP” shows them to be quite capable of making whatever they do sound progressively more and more of themselves, and less generic than they have sometimes been before.
-Antron S. Meister-
