by David Wilikofsky
We last heard from Freelove Fenner in 2013 when the group released their debut album Do Not Affect A Breezy Manner. In the intervening seven years group members Peter Woodford and Caitlin Loney operated their own recording studio The Bottle Garden. They filled it with tape machines and homemade equipment, avoiding modern digital production techniques in favor of analog sounds. While this might seem like a superfluous detail, it feels integral to the music they’ve created on The Punishment Zone. Recorded in The Bottle Garden, it’s a record that feels out of time. It could have been made today as easily as it could have forty years ago.
Although there are moments that jump out at me as particularly beautiful (the shimmering textures of “New Wave Pool”, for instance, perfectly evoke rippling water), there aren’t individual tracks that feel crafted to stand alone. It’s an album designed to be taken in as a single statement. There’s a clear flow to the album, songs organically emerging and fading from one another. Look at how “Baxter’s Column” sputters to a stop and seamlessly fades into “Shoulder Season” or how the eerie chimes that bookend “Tied Up” act as a perfect transition between tracks. These may be small details, but taken together they create a seamless listening experience central to the album’s appeal.
There are pretty clear sonic touchpoints (the group sounds like a warmer, more inviting version of Broadcast on tracks like “Whatever Grows”) but that doesn’t take away from The Punishment Zone‘s appeal in the slightest. It is a fully formed sonic universe unto itself; every time I put on the record I find myself whisked away, floating in that headspace for the album’s full thirty minute runtime. It feels vast and endless despite being comprised of pop songs that often barely crack two minutes. Step into Freelove Fenner’s world; you won’t be disappointed.