Fred Thomas’ album The Beguilers weaves crafted song-writing into the narratives of poems by William Blake, Emily Brontë, William Shakespeare, James Joyce, Walter Savage Landor and Thomas Carew. Drawing on a wonderfully strange repository of musical influences – English folk, Joao Gilberto, Minimalism, the Aka Pigmies, The Beatles, and the English Madrigal School – Fred Thomas’ settings delicately bring the poets’ images and metaphors to life with finely wrought harmonies and luscious melodies. ‘The Beguilers’ features vocals from Ellie Rusbridge and instrumental contributions from Dave Shulman, Liam Byrne, and Malte Hage.
“A beautiful thing….The Beguilers is absolutely gorgeous” Guy Garvey, BBC Radio 6
“A beautiful, unique album that dazzlingly recasts these poems in new and unexpected ways” Resonance FM
“A beautiful, unique album that dazzlingly recasts these poems in new and unexpected ways” Nest Collective Hour,Resonance FM
“The Beguilers’ version of Blake’s ‘London’ is the finest setting of the poem that I know – the human ear adorned with manacles more beautiful than any earring” The Blake Society
“The Beguilers create a mellifluous, graceful sound that entirely justifies their band name. Rose has a touching, pure, sweet voice, well suited to the affecting melodies Thomas writes, and Shulman provides just the right amount of textural and tonal variety.The Beguilers plough a singularly rich furrow and clearly entranced an attentive Vortex audience” London Jazz News
“The Beguilers took William Blake’s poetry and wove a rich tapestry of intricate acoustic guitar and clarinet, over which Ellie Rose’s exquisite vocals were allowed to shine. Blake’s work was given new life with this simple but textured approach, which made these classic works come to life” The Liminal
“The Beguilers start with songs based on some of the greatest poetry in the English language, but it’s the combination of Ellie Rose’s haunting voice with Fred Thomas’s beautiful compositions that give this band its unique and unclassifiable quality – a treat equally for lovers of poetry, jazz, classical music and folksong” Peter Slavid (UK Jazz Radio)
Since its foundation in 2007, the Jiri Slavik/Fred Thomas Duo has been exploring the common ground between improvised and contemporary classical music. Much of this ensemble’s soundworld is produced by experimenting with instrumental techniques, always within an acoustic setting. Their debut album Repose was released on the F-IRE Collective label in 2009. Buy Reposehere.
Jiri Slavik – double bass
Fred Thomas – piano
“’Repose’ is the debut CD of Jiri Slavik’s music with the fine pianist Fred Thomas who, together, are in sync with a clear multiple vision of sonic beauty” Mark Dresser
“This is music requiring patience and application, but it is rich and original enough to reward both” Chris Parker
“There is a sense of spontaneity and originality which runs through this album” Jonathan Freeman-Attwood
“These were musicians that were indeed in creative synergy. Particularly virtuosic was the dynamic control and pacing, with incredible breadth made possible by their superb technique. Their set was compelling and the audience were nothing but mesmerised by their programme….an evening of colourful pieces, virtuosic in their construction with inventive sonorities as much as the technique of the playing” Steve Berryman (I Care if You Listen)
“High class” The Telegraph
“Composition and Improvisation exquisitely merge as these two young masters converse, creating dramatic musical landscapes of extraordinary colour and dynamic contrast. At once intense, primal and highly sophisticated, this is contemporary music at it’s most inspiring best. A visionary work made by great artists with a lot to say.” Oren Marshall
Jamie Doe and Fred Thomas have been making music together since they were 11 years old.
The Magic Lantern is the musical moniker of British Australian singer-songwriter and composer Jamie Doe, an artist dedicated to examining the limitless depth of human experience in our search for meaning.
To Everything A Season is his unashamedly emotional fifth album written in the months following his daughters birth and his fathers death six weeks later. Describing their brief meeting in a dementia nursing home Jamie says:
“In that cathartic moment I saw myself in my father, and my daughter in me and I felt joy and grief in overlapping waves, beautiful and complicated, which continue to ripple outward. These songs are my attempt to make sense of this incredible time where both ends of the circle of life touched.”
To Everything A Season crackles with the quiet intensity of a family’s rawest and most intimate moments. Recorded live over over four days at the legendary La Buissonne studio in France by Gérard de Haro, the sound of To Everything A Seasoncaptures a vivid emotional immediacy, the richness of the ensemble arrangements and spirited improvisation belying the devastating songwriting. Working with a septet drawn from London’s thriving jazz scene To Everything A Season is both dreamy and direct, making use of the space around Jamie’s arresting voice to emphasis it’s emotional weight.
Lyrically, To Everything A Seasonis The Magic Lantern’s most powerful and accomplished achievement, a mature work that establishes Doe as one of the most confident lyricists writing today. With themes of loops and cycles threaded through the album, the lyric draws on references as diverse as the Bible, the records of John Coltrane and the helix structure of DNA.
Born in Australia, before moving to the UK at 12, Jamie adopted the stage name of The Magic Lanternand began writing songs while studying philosophy in Bristol. He lives in London and has released four full length albums and two EPs in addition to a compilation of other artists versions of his songs for the male suicide prevention charity CALM. He has toured the UK, Europe and Australia with acts as diverse as folk singer This is The Kit, Sam Lee, and Alabaster Deplume. He is a Professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and teaches on the songwriting faculty at the Institute for Contemporary Music Performance.
The Magic Lantern has received praise from numerous publications including The Guardian, Songlines, Acoustic Magazine and Folk Radio UK as well as BBC Radio 1’s Huw Stephens, BBC 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne, Guy Garvey, Tom Robinson, BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction , Night Tracks and BBC Radio 2’s Jamie Cullum, Mark Radcliffe and Bob Harris among others.
To Everything A Season is out via Hectic Eclectic / La Buissonne Records
“Extraordinary. Beautiful poised singing, amazing lyrics and hypnotic production” Tom Robinson, BBC Radio 6 Music
“Gorgeous, beautiful. This stopped me in my tracks. Slightly surreal, in all the right ways” Jamie Cullum, BBC Radio 2
“Dreamy, beautiful. Something very, very special” Lauren Laverne, BBC6 Music
“Bitter sweet, beautiful music” Verity Sharp, BBC Radio 3 Late Juntion
“A classic album. I love it!” Bob Harris, BBC Radio 2
“Pretty special i think you’ll agree” Tom Robinson, BBC 6 Music
“Warmly recommended, especially to anyone who thinks meaningful eccentricity and sheer originality are rare commodities in contemporary music” Chris Parker, The Vortex
“Quirky and charming” Timeout
“The Magic Lantern fuse delicate folk flickerings with the depth a richness of a jazz timbre. Their sounds combine to provide a refreshingly deep and mysterious atmosphere, full of imagery….extremely accessible, but in no way due to the following of common formulae” Pejhy
“The Magic Lantern’s set was a heightened sensory experience that contained all of the dramatics of a piece of theatre. There is a certain Jeff Buckley quality to the arrangements and diction, a songwriting capacity that, like Joanna Newsom’s, is utterly otherworldly and densely descriptive….a symphonic fuzziness to the band’s sound in which the instrumentation intermingles to create an overwhelming experience” Folk Radio Live Review
“They’re making bold, heartwrenching (and still bloody clever) songs” Neu Magazine
“9/10 – Something quite special, The Magic Lantern have produced a remarkable, enchanting and genuinely affecting album that’s sure to bring them the attention they deserve” Planetnotion.com
“An 11-Track Stunner. There’s no real way of putting this in a subtle manner, so it’s better to be blunt and open about it from the off – ‘A World in a Grain of Sand’ is a must-buy” Clixie.co.uk
This trio produced sounds that were a synthesis of Fred’s compositions and free improv, exploring those made possible by delving into the bowels of a grand piano – using bluetac, rubbers, pegs, coins, plectrums, mallets, and cymbals – and uniting these discoveries with the exquisite playing of Robin Fincker and Ben Bryant. Their E.P. ‘It’s Time’ came out in 2006 and was Fred Thomas’ first ever release. Buy it here.
Fred Thomas – (prepared) piano
Robin Fincker – clarinet
Ben Bryant – percussion
“The Fred Thomas Trio captures the imagination of the listener with hypnotic soundscapes, whilst challenging boundaries and traditional roles of the instruments within the genres of improvised music and contemporary composition. Most importantly though, it’s beautiful music” Gerard Presencer
Basquiat Strings is a strings-based jazz quartet led by the cellist Ben Davis. Released in 2007, their first album, entitled simply Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford, was one of the 2007 Mercury Prize nominees. The second incarnation of Basquiat Strings now features:
Ben Davis – cello and composition
Seb Rochford – drums
Graeme Stephen – acoustic guitar
Fred Thomas – double bass
“With the completion of the second album, I’d reached a point where I needed to experiment with different instrumentation and approaches to writing. I am still very interested in blending specific sounds, but want to get away from heavily arranged parts so I’ve brought a natural comping instrument, in the form of Graeme Stephen, into the frame. Graeme’s steel string playing combines perfectly with the broad tonal range of the cello and allows the band to play entirely acoustically if needed. Bass player Fred Thomas was brought up in a classical household which reflects in his sensitivity as a jazz musician. His main instrument is the piano but I’ve seen him as a drummer on many occasions! Seb Rochford, of course, has a great sense for the overall sound of a group and adjusts accordingly. Its been a pleasure to play and record with him over the years. The repertoire well include some material from the second album but will mainly be made up of new material. An interpretation of a standard or two will be included. I’m looking forward to touring this band in a double-bill with Jonny Phillips’ stunning band Oriole. We will be starting again on the exhilarating road of developing new sounds.” Ben Davis
“Music is everywhere. Countless radio stations pump it out 24/7. It sells cars, shampoo, drinks – even political parties. Music is always there to cover up a lull in the conversation; it soothes us on take-off and on landing, and it makes us feel good… or does it? Subconsciously we crave for something that goes much deeper: well-crafted, inspiring music with real emotional meaning.
Thankfully, each new generation is blessed with a few young people who embrace music as an art form. They explore, invent, discuss, rehearse, and live their music. What they create enriches and entertains the audience without patronising it.
The artists in the F-ire Collective will give you depth, inspiration, surprise, and above all, hope.”
2013 marks the tenth anniversary of Stephen Cracknell’s project The Memory Band whose first EPs were released on his own Hungry Hill label in 2003, run in conjunction with Spinney Records. Cracknell’s intention from the outset was for the band to be “an imaginary band, built inside a computer and made flesh by the contributions of numerous musicians. Live an acoustic band of ever changing numbers and on record a new approach to traditional music”
That manifesto has been applied for a decade now. In 2004 their eponymous debut album was released, displaying an early fascination with landscape and place. There followed a prolonged period of live work, travelling all over the country and being embraced by the emerging independent festival circuit. The second album Apron Strings followed in 2006, licensed to Peacefrog in the UK and to Discristina Stairbuilders in the US.
After taking a sabbatical to produce and perform on “There Were Wolves” by The Accidental in 2008, Cracknell returned to re-cast the Memory Band, expanding its range of work, the number of musicians involved, and developing a number of specific side-projects. These included performances of the music and songs from Paul Giovanni’s score to classic film The Wicker Man as well as The Balearic Folk Orchestra; conceived in conjunction with Welsh film-maker Kieran Evans. And in 2012 Cracknell most recently revealed a new show entitled Folk on Film, continuing his fascination with soundtrack music. In 2011 The Memory Band found time to release its third album “Oh My Days” it’s most soulful album to date.
2013 sees the release of the fourth Memory Band “On The Chalk (Our Navigation of the Line of the Downs)” which was conceived by Cracknell in the downtime between live performances and marks a full circle “return to the machine” in it’s programmed style. After ten years of leading a band predicated upon the inevitability and necessity of change it stands as another turning point, another beginning on one of the oldest journeys we know.
The Memory Band features Fred Thomas on piano, percussion and arrangements.
Born into the great line of Kouyate Griots in southern Senegal, Kadialy plays original songs inspired by his traditional repertoire. Kadialy and Fred have been playing together for over 15 years, with Kadialy on kora and vocals, and Fred on double bass.
“Senegalese kora virtuoso/singer Kadialy Kouyate showcases his fleet-fingered skills on this mesmerising instrument, complementing it with his hauntingly, darkly beautiful voice, to create a Toumani Diabate-meets-Youssou N’Dour sound.” Time Out
The Irreverents is a 5-piece instrumental party funk band, an organic groove factory, providing hard hitting funk, sweet riffs & bouncy tunes for ass-shaking occasions.
Some of the music is composed by Francesc Marco; some of it is left unplanned. The band has been developing for some time its own way of collectively improvising music for dancing, focussing on groove and form, seeking to move away from the jazz-funk territory where solos and improvisation tend to detract from dancing. The band’s approach might be better desrcibed as spontaneous composition than improvisation as such. All the musicians are familiar with jazz in one of its incarnations and strongly rhythmical musical traditions from Africa and Latin America.
There are many influences. Groove, sound and attitude are inspired by old style funk bands such as the Meters, the JBs and Fela Kuti’s Orchestra. For composition and arrangement, the M-Base movement has paved the way for decades. On a local level , the F-IRE Collective, with which all band members have collaborated, and especially Barak Schmool’s Timeline, has helped and inspired the them to explore creative and meaningful rhythmical music.
Fred was electric-bassist with the band from when it was formed in 2006 until 2009.
Fred Thomas formed this band with singer Emine Pirhasen in 2006. Band members included Alexis Nuñez, Ben Moorhouse, Jiri Slavik, Johnny Brierley, Nat Keen & Jim Hart.
“The sexy wah-wah sounds of London lying on a bed of blues from which it is impossible to roll off from – so snug and stinky is the allure. Em Pirhasan’s voice truly leaves Amy Winehouse banished in the ‘whine house’ and lyrically, they leave Lily Allen in the La La land of lightweight candy floss. Thank you for opening my ear waves into my soul” Billy Jenkins
“From the opening rump-moving bass notes, the self-titled debut by London’s Sister Mary & The Choir Boys impresses and entertains throughout…These guys have their own character and plenty of soul… Emine Pirhasen and Fred Thomas have produced a catalogue of tunes documenting modern woebegone love-done-gone life. I doubt many bands could go from a Cow-Cow Davenport boogie-woogie to Wurlitzer-drenched soul without it jarring, but here you go. This has been on my portable Victorola since I got it” Blues in London Records
Fred Thomas was Musical Director and pianist for Mor Karbasi between 2008 & 2011. He wrote the arrangements for Mor’s album “Daughter of the Spring”, released on Harmonia Mundi, as well as playing piano, bass, percussion and cello on the record and live on tour.
FLY AGARIC draw their inspiration from the Kingdom Fungi, also known as the Mushroom World: these curious growths which appear within a very short space of time, pushing their way up through the undergrowth with great force, containing the heavy metals and elements deposited in the earth that produce the great range of colours found in different mushroom species, and which carry the spores – the vital, reproductive agents. Our vision of Jazz, inasmuch as we are jazz musicians by background (among other things), is a playful one and we plumb its depths of meaning only to have a good laugh at what we find. The impetus to form this band came from a long-standing network of friends to which we belong and was brought to fruition by a sort of ‘disturbing of the ground’ which resulted when we were kindly asked to perform to a large audience in Luxembourg. In this way too, the band is like a mushroom springing from the mycelium, a complex network of fibres, and often growing near footpaths and other byways. The material we play is mostly original and is composed by all members of the group.
Zac Gvi – Sax, Clarinet Francesc Marco – Piano Jiri Slavik – Double-bass Fred Thomas – Percussion, Toys
Their debut album “In Search of Soma” was released in October 2012 on the F-IRE Collective Label. Buy it here.
“An adventure in sound and performance is exactly what the quartet delivers on this powerful, eloquent album.” Chris Parker
“In Search of Soma demonstrates a confident grip of jazz orthodoxies, but the LP is also eager to move beyond those realms. Fly Agaric understand the distinctive freedom that can be cultivated by scholarly discipline and attentiveness.” The Skinny
“In Search Of Soma is, as its title suggests, an attempt at finding a new way of seeing – a contemporary jazz album that is less about jazz language and technique and much more about sound, concept and imaginative juxtapositions. Here are suggestions that Fly Agaric are a multi-faceted band with feeling and atmosphere in their music to match the pointed deconstructions.” OMH Music
“If you don’t know or haven’t flown with Agaric Airlines (AA) then you should check them out! Fresh, fun and butt kicking when called for. It’s a real pleasure to hear such excellent musicians in their deeper creative moods performing their own compositions” Barre Phillips
“A halting accordion, as if played by a child, a wodden flute hovering above piano and bass, some raw sax swoops, and finally train whistles receding into the distance – is this a list Morricone score? In fact it’s the debut release by a young, London-based jazz quartet, but it’s quite a while before it sounds like any such thing. If there are debts scattered here to Morricone and Nino Rota’s melodic flair, the second tune, “Serenity” – understated sax glissandos and exquisite pianissimo phrasing – seems a love letter to Ellington. The Duke’s range of colour and twinkling eye – as if he could hardly believe the sheer wonder of being a jazz pianist – offer a way out of the contemporary jazz cul de sac, and Fly Agaric grasp it with tenderness and wit.
“Arrete ca tout de suite” features a blues strut where the group occasionally lets rip, but Fly Agaric see no need to roar when you can whisper, or even mumble suggestively. Zac Gvi’s sax and clarinet are eloquent at low volume, and all four move as a team. The dead hand of the jazz solo is simply ignored as a device in favour of group music-making.
The musicians arrive from Spain via Luxenbourg, Czech Republic via Rome, and the UK. It’s tempting to hear this a a quintessentially London album, with its cunning understatement and Euro-tinged cosmopolitanism. Both Gvi and bass player Jiri Slavik are fluent composers, and Slavik’s “Ill Neige a Pontault” is a melancholy classic. Finally, Fly Agaric’s secret weapons: they don’t take themselves too seriously (“Chanson D’Ivrogne” is a florid pianist in a bar full of drunks), and drummer Fred Thomas nips any slickness in the bud with his splendidly creative messiness” The WireMagazine
“In Search of Soma, like much of the F-IRE Collective’s work, views the musical world as a smorgasbord, combining snatches of blues, waltzes, free (and structured) jazz etc. to form a restless, constantly shifting soundscape that – appropriately enough, given the psychedelic references in the band’s name and album title – is often frenetic, edgy and kaleidoscopic, but can also be serene, mellow and meditative. Chattering percussive effects, honking rumbustiousness, roiling fervour jostle promiscuously with (deceptive) calm and – on one track – the voice (from a speech on employment) of Nicolas Sarkozy to make up a fascinating set of multi-hued pieces, all delivered with extraordinary panache and assurance by a band that is clearly as open-eyed as it is open-eared. ‘An adventure in sound and performance’ is promised in the band’s publicity material, and that’s exactly what the quartet delivers on this powerful, eloquent album” London Jazz News
The Fred Thomas/Oren Marshall Duo, a London-based F-IRE Collective project, draw on their deep experience in classical, jazz and improv to conceive a music at times highly structured and composed, at others boundless and playful. Their performances employ an abundance of mood and colour, often through use of instrument preparation, travelling seamlessly from serenity to anarchy occasionally by way of humour.
Fred Thomas – (prepared) piano
Oren Marshall – tuba, orenophone
Listen to live recordings from F-IRE Klang Codex below:
A New Series presented by F-IRE Collective and Kammer Klang, curated by Fred Thomas.
Fourteenth century France was a place of radical musical developments, particularly in rhythmic structures, polyphony and notation systems. The greatest testament to this style is the Chantilly Codex, a book of music by Ars Subtilior composers featuring the exquisite mannerist notation of the time. This Codex, with it’s heart-shaped musical scores, staves representing the strings of a harp and riddle canons set out in 33-bar spirals, has become something of an obsession, hugely influencing my own composition. The experimentation of composers such as Solage, Johannes Ciconia and Baude Cordier gave birth to a brief effervescence of richness and complexity, a period of highly idiosyncratic art which left little in the way of posterity. In this respect it seems to me to have the capacity to connect deeply with contemporary artists; this fleeting and isolated style, in leaving no immediate descendants, retains its perennial novelty and remains forever gilded in mystery.
The F-IRE Klang Codex monthly concert series is an attempt to gather my musical thoughts and influences into one beautiful place: a church. Churches are profoundly peaceful spaces in which deep focus and concentration become a little easier, but they are also resonant spaces where, tired of grating PA systems and excessive volume, one can revel in rich, natural, acoustic resonance. The beautiful St. George-in-the-East Church is one of six Hawksmoor Churches in England and houses an organ and a very special Bluthner grand piano. It is also situated by the infamous Ratcliffe Highway, an old Roman Road known in the 19th century as home to, according to one visitor, the “lowest types of humanity of almost every nation”, as well as the opium dens frequented by Oscar Wilde, and was later the site of the historic anti-fascist Cable Street Riots.
In the programming of this concert series my own musical experiences have been combined with those of other F-IRE Collective and Kammer Klang members – in particular Lucy Railton – to compile an unwritten codex that represents our present-day activities in London. The music therein is full of bizarre and inescapable 21st Century contrasts – from Ars Subtilior to Griot music, from Gyorgy Kurtag to Hildegard von Bingen – and certainly has a more nebulous identity than the Chantilly Codex. That is an inexorable fact of our current musical lives, but the hope is that through the haze of eclecticism these strange combinations will be strangely illuminating.
Listen to live recordings from F-IRE Klang Codex below:
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