A car wreck proved to be fortuitous for British DJ and musician Adam Freeland.
| “I was fine, but my car was totaled,” Freeland recalls. We’re hanging out backstage at Le Poisson Rouge before soundcheck for his namesake band’s show. “I didn’t want the cops to find me, so I hid in the bushes and called up my friend Rich and told him ‘you gotta come get me now.'” |
Freeland | Under Control Please do not hot link this MP3. |
To make a long story short, Rich showed up – along with former Distillers and current Spinerette guitarist Tony Bevilacqua. Adam and Tony got along famously, and before you know it, both Tony and bandmate Brody Dalle were contributing to Freeland’s new album, Cope. They’re just a few of music’s biggest names to put in an appearance on Freeland’s groovy electronica record, which counts Tommy Lee, The Pixies‘ Joey Santiago, and DEVO‘s Jerry Casale among it’s contributors.
The heart and soul of Freeland, however, is the group’s main trifecta: Adam, vocalist and bassist Kurt Baumann and guitarist Hayden Scott. It’s this self-described “make shit happen” trinity that’s hit the road together to tour and promote Cope, which is a well-crafted, nuanced dance record that touches on a range of musical styles yet always manages to get its groove on and stay loyal to its electronica core.
Adam embraced the chance to step outside of the DJ box and explore different genres. “What I was setting out to do,” he says, “was to span from my love of layered-up, textured, just kind of cool desert-drone rock to the shoegazey epicness of My Bloody Valentine‘s Loveless kind of thing to the extreme digital opposite end of Soulwax, Justice, meets what I do. I always saw a lot of my rock influences and my stuff beyond dance music as something I should keep separate. There’s my passion in that world and then there’s my electronic producer-head. Then I kind of had an epiphany sand said, ‘hey, there’s no reason why I can’t combine all of these things.'”
The album is indeed an example in variation. Under Control wouldn’t be out of place on an LCD Soundystem record – with Kurt steadily crooning “Just relax / Nothing is under control” before the whole thing explodes into a frenetic clubland chorus. Strange Things begins with a Justice/Daft Punk-esque electronica ditty then delves into verse anchored by a rockin-yet-super-steady drumbeat. Silent Speaking is an example of the group wandering into lush, shoegazey territory, with rich instrumentals and haunting vocals supplied by SoundPool.
Taking off his DJ hat has switched up more than Adam’s musical style. He’s gone from working, producing his music and flying around the world on an airplane alone to collaborating and hitting the road in a tour van with others. It’s a welcoming change, he says.
“It’s awful being on your own sometimes, because it can get lonely,” he says. “It’s nice to have a third party to bounce stuff off, ya know? You can get so lost in your idea, that you lose objectivity. It’ good to have pretty cool ears around to go ‘ah, that’s all right.'”