Executive Editor, Music

Fred Gibson was already a successful pop songwriter when his rousing trilogy of “Actual Life” albums came in surprisingly quick succession once the pandemic lifted. Released in just 18 months, the albums were a kind of living musical diary, filled with sophisticated dance/house/electronic sounds but also a sense of emotion and songcraft rare in the genre, which is typically more production-driven than song-driven. Built around vocal notes by himself and friends, internet messages and samples of other artists’ work, Fred’s musicianship, gently pulsing beats and melancholic songwriting — he’s written hits for Ed Sheeran, Rita Ora and others, and was mentored by his childhood neighbor, Brian Eno — made many of these digitally based songs as vividly human as any singer-songwriter’s.

Gibson’s star deservedly rose quickly when those albums arrived, and he’s been on something of a collaboration binge ever since, spinning roof-raising DJ sets at Madison Square Garden and Coachella with Skrillex and Four Tet, collaborating on entire albums with them as well as Eno and Romy of the XX, and dropping single tracks or remixes or features seemingly every month. As powerful and emotional as those efforts are, they felt like an excessive, almost too-happy Fred Again — and let’s be honest, it’s hard to be intimate and vulnerable when you’re trying to move an audience that wants to dance.

Well, rest assured, sad Fred fans, because while “Ten Days” isn’t officially part of the “Actual Life” series, it does continue their ethos — due to (or because of) a breakup, according to a lengthy Instagram post Fred uploaded the morning after this album’s release. It’s so inherent to those albums that at times it feels repetitive, but on other tracks he refines that versatile template into enchanting new forms — and with an unexpected set of new collaborators (nearly every song features at least one featured artist).