Anna Meredith – FIBS

Anna Meredith’s second album is filled with hushed, acoustic torchlight songs. That, unsurprisingly, is a fib. There is, however, a small element of truth buried within that cheeky statement that rings true when listening to FIBS, because it doesn’t repeat the sound Meredith boldly fashioned on Varmints back in 2016. Indeed, she abandoned her previous tools to forge a new arsenal of instruments – both electronic and acoustic – with which to experiment.

Armed with this fresh palette, Meredith has established an album that’s maximalist yet intricately composed, one that continues to see her blur boundaries between the organic and the electronic. Single moonmoons interweaves sweeping, atmospheric cello and arpeggiated synths in a swirl that gradually gains momentum and Paramour maxes out at a heart-racing 176 BPM. Squalling guitars come to the fore again on Limpet, with the exuberant pop tendencies of Inhale Exhale and Killjoy providing even more intrigue.

Yet though FIBS skips swiftly between moods and sounds, Meredith’s innate ability to bring these parts together into a collection that’s both bursting with compositional creativity, while still maintaining its own sense of cohesion and an accessible edge, inspires awe. It’s no lie: Meredith has struck gold once again. 

Listen to: Inhale Exhale, Paramour