Irish DJ – producer – soundtrack composer David Holmes originally conceived The Free Association as a means of taking his music live – and whilst that seems an impossibly grand ambition, it may go some way toward explaining the polarities of the record: at one pole loungey and jazzy, at the other a squealish hybrid of industrial rap. So excuse me if this sounds odd – but it’s an odd record.
The Free Association (as is the name of the band) surfaced in a slightly clandestine role on David’s March 2002 released mix album ‘Come Get It I Got It’, in which David provided atmospheric, if largely instrumental interjections between the glorious mix of southern fried funk and general weirdness of fellow free associate Steve Hilton (Steve is also with David Arnold on the soundtrack to the forthcoming James Bond movie, ‘Die Another Day’).
Now expanded out to a core four-piece with fellow associationalists, Sean ‘gravily-voiced’ Reveron and vocalist Petra Jean Phillipson – ‘Presents’ sees Holmes paring down the oddball esotericism and atmospherics in favour of some rowdy urban gun-totting and a bit of Billie Holiday stand-up.
A fifty-fifty album if ever there was one – fifty-percent inspired and enjoyable (those with Petra Jean Phillipson at the wheel), fifty-percent bewildering (those with Sean Reveron).
Not at all bad. Not at all good – but if you’re half interested in the lush downtempo of folks like Telepopmusik or the bounding ecletricism of FC Kahuna, you just might very well enjoy the lot.