Freedom Fry have released 11 EPs this year (with one to come): Here are the highlights

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Freedom Fry

* Updated, Dec. 7

So how have you spent your 2019? Busy, productive, rewarding? Feel good about it? We were feeling good about ours … until we got a missive from Los Angeles husband-and-wife duo Freedom Fry that made us feel like slackers.

Back in January, Bruce Driscoll and Marie Seyrat welcomed their first child into the world … a small Fry, if you will. So they had their hands full. The rest of the year? Freedom Fry birthed 33 recordings (so far) — making good on their vow to release a three-song EP every month, featuring two originals and a cover song. (This month’s three-song “Holiday Soundtrack” was the exception to that format.)

Ever since Driscoll, a Midwesterner who once partnered with his sister Erica in the band Blondfire, and Seyrat, a Frenchwoman, got together eight years ago, they have eschewed releasing albums. They have one in their catalog, 2018’s “Classic.” Stylistically, Freedom Fry apply their keen knack for melody and harmony to bright, dexterous songs that orbit the folk and pop worlds, hopscotching between modern production and a simpler, retro sound.

The highlights of this year’s output are many — from the duo’s mini-obsession with the calendar (“The Summer,” “The Seasons,” “September Sea”) to their more cinematic moments (“Avalanches”) to the collaboration with Clara-Nova’s Sydney Wayser (“Matchstick”). Their cover songs were choice, too, as they put their little twist on songs by the Smiths, Carly Simon, Serge Gainsbourg (of course), Gorillaz, Elton John, the Strokes and more.

Since Freedom Fry have made all of their 2019 songs available on Soundcloud, we took the liberty of rolling our favorite original songs into an “album.” Find it below, or find them on Spotify.

The final EP came out Friday, Dec. 6, highlighted by the single “Zoom.”

||| Stream: Freedom Fry 2019 (Buzz Bands LA’s picks)

||| Also: Stream everything from Freedom Fry in 2019, in release order