There’s something endearingly unpretentious about RECONNECTION EP. It’s not trying to reinvent music, save the industry, or make you tweet about how “raw” it is. It’s just a person; Charlie Freeman, aka FREE/MAN, quietly figuring things out in public. After years of silence, a cancelled 26-city China tour, and a pandemic-shaped pause, Freeman’s decided to stop pretending the world makes sense and just sing about it. The result is a small, four-song EP that feels like someone coming back to life in slow motion.
You can hear the years in his voice. Not in a “he’s aged” way, but in a “he’s stopped pretending not to feel things” way. The opener, “Not Tomorrow,” has that weary optimism that only exists when you’ve hit bottom a few times and decided to try again anyway. The acoustic strum isn’t flashy; it just moves, steady as breathing and Freeman sings like he’s talking himself into the next sunrise. It’s not profound, and that’s why it hits. Think something close to a Milky Chance song, complete with a subtle funk nod.
Then there’s “Bluebird,” which sounds like it wandered out of the 1970s after a long nap. It’s all light and breeze, but the kind that only shows up after rain. It’s got a bit of Van Morrison’s looseness, a touch of Cat Stevens’ quiet ache, and the kind of warmth that happens when you leave the studio imperfections in because they feel more honest than perfection ever could. It’s music made by someone who’s stopped chasing polish and started chasing peace.
Covering “Redemption Song” is a dangerous move, but Freeman somehow makes it work by doing the opposite of what you’d expect. He doesn’t try to be Bob Marley. Instead, he just slows it down, strips it bare, and finds something small and human in it with respect; a kind of quiet personal prayer for grace in an era allergic to sincerity.
And then there’s “Two Witches,” the most macabre Snow Patrol song never made. It’s haunting in that “bonfire at the end of the world” way; tender, spectral, and just a bit cursed. The guitars glimmer like candlelight on wet stone, and Freeman’s voice drifts somewhere between confession and incantation. It feels familiar at first, like a lost anthem from some melancholy alt-rock timeline, but it keeps slipping out of reach, too strange to settle into sentimentality. By the time it fades, you’re not sure if you’ve been comforted or hexed. Which, for a song like this, might be exactly the point.
That’s what RECONNECTION EP does best: it doesn’t resolve. It lingers. It’s an in-between moment; not the triumphant return, not the final statement, just the part where someone starts feeling human again. Freeman’s been through the usual artist trials: loss, stasis, cancelled tours, the creeping suspicion that the world’s stopped listening. But instead of reacting with cynicism, he’s doubled down on vulnerability. There’s no irony here, no streaming-era cynicism disguised as depth. Just a man and his guitar, trying to tell the truth without flinching.
And maybe that’s what makes this EP quietly radical. In a time where most music feels like product, Reconnection feels like a process. You can practically hear Freeman exhale between takes. It’s imperfect, hand-built and crucially, alive. It’s not here to impress you. It’s here to remind you that being earnest isn’t a flaw.
If his upcoming album Gift in the Shadows is the destination, this EP is the moment he remembers the map still exists. It’s small, but it matters. Because sometimes the bravest thing an artist can do isn’t to reinvent themselves; RECONNECTION EP is to admit they never really lost who they were.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
