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.
Fred Thomas – (prepared) piano
Robin Fincker – clarinet
Ben Bryant – percussion
Buy here
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWwmmuPCZAM[/youtube]
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Old friends, songwriter Barnaby Keen and Fred Thomas have collaborated since 2009. In 2022 their duo EP ‘At Sands Films’ was released on October House Records. Buy it here.
Fred arranges traditional tangos for Madrid-based Tango Orchestra, Ayahuasca Tango.
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Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the lea
Stevie Parle’s Dock Kitchen: music by Fred Thomas
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT_sJfTQuBU[/youtube]
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Nicolas Sarkozy: music by Fly Agaric
[youtube]www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg1Cda8wN40&feature=plcp[/youtube]
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the lea
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
El Ultimo Tango is a quintet created by Eduardo Vassallo, Principal Cello of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, in 2002. The ensemble consists of flute, sax, cello, bass and piano and it specializes on Argentinian music with particular emphasis on the music of Astor Piazzolla. Fred Thomas was pianist from its formation in 2001 until 2007.
Buy their record here:
“The high spot is Adios Nonino, here given an unusual treatment with the opening half entrusted mostly to the piano, with the rest of the ensemble taking up the final half, quite the best arrangement of it that I have heard” – Gramophone
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.
www.alivism.com/projects/theirreverents
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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.
Listen here
Fred Thomas was Musical Director 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.
Listen here
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 on iTunes here
Press:
“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
“… the group occasionally lets rip, but Fly Agaric sees no need to roar when you can whisper, or even mumble suggestively… The dead hand of the jazz solo is simply ignored as a device in favour of group music-making.” – Clive Bell, the WIRE
“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
“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.” – London Jazz News
“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
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.
Jiri Slavik – double-bass
Fred Thomas – piano
Buy Repose here or listen to Jiri Slavik’s large ensemble album La Jeunesse here.
“‘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
“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
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:
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No shows booked at the moment.
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 Season captures 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 Season is 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 Lantern and 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
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