The Latest
Hello! Allow us to introduce you to FantasizerPlus, the long-awaited new albums from Freezepop.
A little history… wayyy back in the day, Freezepop held a Kickstarter campaign for what was to become their fifth studio album, Fantasizer. This initial album was delivered in 2020, but the Kickstarter had been such a surprising success that a few stretch goals, in the form of bonus albums, had been promised. Which is great! However, in the intervening years, life had taken some twists and turns, a lot of them honestly being pretty terrible. For a band whose whole *thing* is making mostly-happy pop music, it triggered a creative drought which took a few years to recover from. However, the floodgates finally opened again, with a lot of music to show for it.
FantasizerPlus combines the original Fantasizer release, the new bonus album Further Exploits, and the collaboration/remix album …and Friends. This collab features contributions from founding bandmember The Duke of Pannekoeken, Kurt Larson from synthpop heroes Information Society, an incredible cover version by nerd-folk siblings The Doubleclicks, a duet with Freezepop’s mortal enemies Paul and Storm, as well as many other long-time Fpop associates and all-around musically amazing folks. FantasizerPlus has been released as a signed/numbered limited edition triple-CD release, with a bonus album, B-sides 2020-2024, collected from the maxi-singles that the band had been releasing digitally.
Speaking of the floodgates being opened, this past New Year’s Eve Freezepop also dropped a surprise techno album, Fog, recorded in a fever-dream span of about 2 weeks. Celebrating their milestone 25th anniversary (which is seriously crazy), Freezepop are excited to have regained their momentum and are plotting up some nice stuff, including new music, old music, and even returning for some live shows.
The Backstory (from Liz):
• We (Liz Enthusiasm, The Duke of Pannekoeken, and The Other Sean T. Drinkwater) formed in Boston in the summer of 1999, a time and place where electropop bands were exceedingly rare.
• Released two homemade EPs, built a website, animated a video (these things were BIG deals back then, and it even got us a writeup in Wired for our DIY-meets-techy-goodness aesthetic)
• Our debut album, 2000’s Freezepop Forever, was released domestically on our own label, Archenemy, and licensed in Europe by the Spanish indiepop label Elefant.
• In 2004, we put out our sophomore album, Fancy Ultra•Fresh. I still think of that one as being the most classically “Freezepop”-sounding album.
• In 2008, after eight years of self-releasing our music, we partnered with Rykodisc/ Cordless Recordings for our third album, Future Future Future Perfect, and the single “Less Talk More Rokk” was the iTunes #4 dance/electronic song that year.
• The Duke mostly-retired from the band and we brought Bananas Foster and Christmas Disco-Marie Sagan on board. (We do still occasionally play shows with The Duke, when we’re on the same coast.)
• The label experiment was cool, but we decided it was smarter to return to self-releasing for our next album, Imaginary Friends, which went on to receive Best Album honors in the 2011 Boston Phoenix/WFNX Best Music Poll and Best Electronic Act in the 2011 Boston Music Awards.
• Over the years, we’ve been in a ton of video games, including cult favorites Frequency and Amplitude, and the massively popular Guitar Hero series, Rock Band, and Dance Dance Revolution.
• Our tracks have been featured on TV shows ranging all the way from PBS kids’ series Arthur to The L Word.
• We and our keytars have played a great many shows over the years. We’ve hit 4 continents, and even got to play at NASA once.
Some People Have Said Nice Things:
“Ultimately, Fantasizer is an impressive body of work which, arguably, is Freezepop’s finest album to date… In a year that’s seen a wealth of accomplished electronic pop albums, Fantasizer seems somehow to be way ahead of the pack.” — The Electricity Club (Album of the year, 2020)
“Boston synth champions Freezepop have painted another beautiful planet of sound in Fantasizer… Freezepop has effortlessly known exactly what their sound is for over two decades, and they just keep getting better.” — That’s Good Enough For Me
“How good is this new album? My ‘best of’ list was pretty much completed by early December, but after hearing this, I HAD to get it on my list.” — Last.fm
“A marvel, to put it mildly.” – BPM
“It’s the retro-futurism of Freezepop and their romantic, danceable, and perfectly crafted electro-pop that won our hearts.” — The Boston Globe
“The electro pop quartet fuse delightfully danceable synths to warm ethereal vocals, making for a sound that’s as intelligent as it is infectious…Freezepop cook up the perfect hybrid of dance, pop and rock—while looking extremely cool doing so.” — ArtistDirect.com
“Whatever these sexy freaks are on – we suspect they knock back sugar packets before their hyperactive shows – it’s working for them.” – The Boston Phoenix
Above pix by: Rick Webb, Violet Shuraka, Frank Veronsky, Carla Richmond, Rick Webb again, and Kevin Church.