Don't mistake Mark Fredson for a newcomer. A larger-than-life frontman, songwriter, pianist, and producer, he's been releasing albums since his sophomore year of high school, back when he landed his first record deal as a teenager in Port Angeles, Washington. His music deepened and diversified throughout the following years, touching everything from the outlaw country of Margo Price's breakout song "Hurtin' (On the Bottle)," which she co-wrote with Fredson, to the theatrical, guilty-pleasure pop sounds that filled 2020’s solo debut, Going to the Movies. 

 

Fredson expands upon his debut with his meticulous sophomore effort, Nothing But Night. He recorded the songs at his home studio in south Nashville mostly alone but with the integral help of a few friends. He spent countless hours obsessing over the placement of every last analog synthesizer sound and vocal track along the way. Despite those solitary origins, the album is full-bodied and cinematic, shot through with a sense of over-the-top spectacle and super-sized swagger that's playful, yet still genuine. Fredson approaches the album with a mix of tongue in cheek debauchery and straight-faced sincerity, and where one ends and the other starts is up for debate. 

 

Nothing But Night brings you the story of an aging hipster who finds himself on the edge of his thirties and decides to take up residence hanging off his own personal edge before the slog of true adulthood sets in. All in the name of anthropology and the art that comes from getting low to get high, of course. There’s the women that fill the voids, the drugs that keep him going, and the alcohol that blurs it all together into one endless weekend. Follow Fredson on a sonic journey through the underbelly of the city as he seeks some sort of light at the end of the tunnel but instead finds…Nothing But Night.