Baby, It’s Cold Outside may be seen alongside other KeplarRev reclaims (e.g. optimal lp, Herbstlaub) as unearthed ambient-electronica treasure, or a cold case re-warmed by fresh investigation; and what still distinguishes it 15+ years on is that it not only raises the ghost in the machine, but elevates it above.
Generating fuzzy febrile loops
The Fun Years (hereinafter TFY) having pursued oblique inquiries at the interface of post-rock, ambient, drone and turntablism since just past millennium turn, though lately little has been heard. This rare sighting is due to Berlin label Keplar’s KeplarRev series, whose curation of vinyl re-issues of essential 90’s and 00’s ambient electronica albums has seen reanimation of a number of unsung gems (see igloo-’views), latest being Baby, It’s Cold Inside [2025 remaster], arguably high point of the TFY oeuvre, originally a 2008 release on now-defunct Barge.
Ben Recht and Isaac Sparks are main men, but the turntable’s the thing, generating fuzzy febrile loops (cf. Philip Jeck) in a sound aptly described as ‘churning, roiling, hissing, atrophied textures further articulated with nuanced processing and buoyed by baritone guitar drones and anti-riffing’ (blurb). Purveying both micro-tonal minutiae and harmonic heft, at once Zeitgeist, retro and avant, TFY make like a felicitous encounter of Chicago School post-rock (cf. Tortoise, Gastr del Sol) with late-’90s/early-’00s German post-digital ’tronica (cf. Oval, GAS), i.e. a play of decay, clicks ’n’ cuts, bass+guitar noodle, and ambient detritus; think Jan Jelinek, and his Loop-finding Jazz Records, with those records swapped from jazz to post-rock or Americana (and played at 16 r.p.m.).
Opener “my lowville” (eponymous nod to iconic slowcore duo?) puts some scratchy post-rock guitar figures in lo-fi suspension, only to be eroded by distorted harmonic effluvia. Despite the dynamic of the sound design and composition leanings (i.e. downtempo, recursive), Recht and Sparks won’t let it lie, as seen on “auto show of the dead,” a slithery piano/guitar inquiry replete with particulate detail, and drolly titled “fucking milwaukee’s been hesher forever,” wherein the sensory prickle of clicks’n’cuts, let out of the clinic, falls prey to tape saturation and retro reverb. The set’s shape then shifts through the expansive yet stifling dark ambience of “re: we’re again buried under” to closer “the surge is working,” a shoegaze loop degraded till only filtered noise and black hole yawn remain.
All in all, Baby, It’s Cold Outside may be seen alongside other KeplarRev reclaims (e.g. optimal lp, Herbstlaub) as unearthed ambient-electronica treasure, or a cold case re-warmed by fresh investigation; and what still distinguishes it 15+ years on is that it not only raises the ghost in the machine, but elevates it above.
Baby, It’s Cold Inside is available on Keplar [Bandcamp]
