Listen: Sugar in my Drink by Tricky FM

Tricky FM Sugar in my Drink Opening with a dialling tone, one-sided snapshots of a phone call and warm, widescreen synths, Trick FM’s new single evokes a kind of late ‘90s / early ‘00s electronica. Fractured drum beats and ambient found sounds create an assembled sound that evokes urban Britain. What is surprising is that Tricky FM is the musical pseudonym of Hana Freed, based in San Francisco. Whilst Sugar in my Drink basks in the kind of open skies and warmth I associate with the Bay Area, I haven’t heard anything quite like this from a US artist before. Cymbal crashes flip from one channel to the other, centring the listener amidst all the colours Freed is painting with. The result is warm and hopeful, as reflected in vocals that depict someone cautiously embracing a love and newfound self-respect. Everything feels good, and yet the only question is whether that, in and of itself, is a problem. When I first heard Sugar in my Drink, it reminded me of Underworld’s Scribble. Both…