Long before Fred again.. became a successful pop songwriter and one of the most popular figures in dance music, he worked with Brian Eno and Underworld's Karl Hyde on their 2014 collaborations Someday World and High Life, receiving credit as co-producer. The two both referred to each other as mentors, and they finally released a proper collaboration, Secret Life, in 2023. The album melds Fred's soft, weepy vocals and sampled vocal snippets with Eno's meditative atmospheres and submerged piano melodies. The title track interpolates a Leonard Cohen song, with detached guitar strums barely poking out behind Fred's yearning but hopeful vocals. The entire album exists in a similar state of intimacy and barely there-ness, sounding half asleep but occasionally yawning an optimistic message like "don't you even think of giving up." Occasionally the vocals get caught up in the textural wizardry, sounding fragmented and distant on tracks like "Safety" and "Cmon." "Trying" almost approximates a sort of lonesome space country wail, and final track "Come on Home" is based on a song from John Prine's final album. While far removed from the ecstatic rush of Fred's usual work, Secret Life has its moments of beauty. ~ Paul Simpson