Mark Fry

I am thrilled to be in such good company on this special Second Language compilation, Avenue With Trees, released on 15th August. “A paean to the eclecticism of label compilations on early 80s pioneering labels like Les Disques du Crépuscule and Factory Benelux”, it comes in a beautifully designed six-panel, die-cut, concertina CD sleeve and is accompanied by a special 7-track bonus CDR of synchronous recordings, ‘Secondaries.’ More info/listen/buy on Bandcamp, here.

I wrote ‘In Our Heavenly World’ last winter before the pandemic hit us all. It felt like a song for our times. I recorded the vocal in Normandy and sent it through the ether to my good friend Iain Ross, who played all the instruments and mixed and produced it in his  studio in London. The track is available to download on Bandcamp here. All proceeds will go to Help Musicians, the UK charity working to support musicians facing financial hardship as a consequence of Covid-19.

Since last winter I have been
working on a new album with Nick Franglen.
Nick is producing, and numerous wonderfully talented
people have been collaborating with us.
More news soon…

I was lucky enough to be invited to play at this amazing festival in Catalonia. It’s a very special event curated with great love and care by Antoni Gorgues. I was joined by Iain Ross on guitar, Giles Barrett on bass, Angèle David-Guillou on keyboards and David Sheppard on all kinds of percussion. The whole experience was magical.

We played a lovely gig at The Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon Road and we couldn’t have enjoyed it more. The evening was long and the crowd was lovely. I was joined by my fantastic band including Iain Ross on guitar, David Sheppard on bongos and John Parker on double bass. We were supported by Dan Davies, my old friend Steve Krakow (who somehow organised the whole thing) and Sara Gossett from Chicago and Alisha Sufit, and the set was brilliantly engineered by João de Sousa.
A pretty perfect rainy autumn evening.

I’m extremely pleased to be returning to Gallery 286 in London this autumn to show my new work. This is Impasse, one of the paintings from the exhibition.

To view or download the full catalogue, click on the image below.

I am hugely honoured to be invited by The Clientele to join the bill at Islington Assembly Hall on Friday 23rd October. This special one-off show celebrates the release of ‘Alone and Unreal: The Best of The Clientele’ which Mojo, awarding it five stars, described as “an affirmation of genius”.

I’m also delighted to be playing again with four wonderful musicians: John Parker (double bass), Iain Ross (guitar), Angèle David-Guillou (keyboards) and David Sheppard (percussion).

Tickets are selling fast so should be booked by clicking here.

Last summer the Argentinian film-maker and photographer Felipe Sanguinetti came to stay with me in Normandy along with my cousin Orson Fry. Over the weekend Felipe and Orson shot a short film in my studio, and this is the result. Felipe saw the late afternoon light and it was exactly what he wanted. This song, Nursery Rhymes, is as yet unrecorded but I hope it will make it on to my next album,
whenever that may be.

The song River Kings (from my latest album South Wind, Clear Sky) was inspired by the months I spent in the Inner Niger Delta in Mali in 1980, as well as by the writings of Mungo Park, who went on two expeditions in the 1790s to try to discover and map the course of the Niger river. On his second, fateful trip, his canoe was ambushed west of Timbuktu, at the Bussa rapids, and he and his company were drowned. His journals of that expedition, which were kept in his top hat, have never been found.

During my adventures by the River Niger I came across the annual fishing festival of the Bozo people, who live along its banks. I was lucky to get a rare glimpse of this mysterious event and to be able to photograph it on an old Leica. Glen Johnson of Second Language Music has made my photos into a montage to accompany the song. You can look and listen here.

“Can’t stop listening to this album”
Lauren Laverne

“The eight songs here exert a tremendous pull”
Record Collector

“Quite possibly the most under-sung album of 2014″
The Line of Best Fit

For more details, click here

I will be playing a concert in London on Tuesday 30th September to coincide with the release of my new album South Wind, Clear Sky on the wonderful Second Language label on 29th September. For more details about the album and  how to order it, click here.

The concert will be in a beautiful church, St Mary’s Rotherhithe, right by the river. I’ll be playing with some lovely musicians who appear on the album, including John Parker (double bass), Angèle David-Guillou (piano and backing vocals), Guy Fixsen (synths, guitar, samples), Iain Ross (guitar and percussion) and Jack Hayter (pedal steel). There’ll be special support from my good friend the very talented Oliver Cherer. Tickets can be booked now by clicking here.
I hope you can come along.

I can now announce the publication of the Dreaming With Alice songbook – which really is a dream come true. For many years I had been wanting to collect together in one place the lyrics and music for all the songs on Dreaming With Alice.

My friend Iker Spozio, the brilliant illustrator and artist who designed the concertina sleeve for my last album I Lived In Trees (Mark Fry / The A. Lords, Second Language, 2011) created 12 specially commissioned illustrations to accompany the music.

I was very fortunate to meet the designer Jeff Kindleysides, who together with Steven Ubsdell took the project under his wing and brought it to a splendid outcome in this special, collectable book with its red stitching and green linen cover with gold-blocked lettering.

You can buy the Dreaming With Alice songbook by clicking here.

I am honoured to have a new song on this lovely compilation from Second Language, Music and Migration III, the third in a series of three albums highlighting the work of the worldwide conservation alliance BirdLife International.

I wrote my contribution, In Times Like These, in the depths of a January snowdrift. I could not be more pleased that it’s found a home on this beautifully produced and designed release. It’s been very well received and copies are selling fast, so buy yours now by clicking here.

I will be playing some of my songs at Phonofestivalen
in Bergen, Norway, on Friday 13th September.
There’s a lovely line-up of artists including
the wonderful Bombino from Niger.
David Sheppard of Ellis Island Sound
(and many other guises)
will be coming with me.
We plan a quiet set…

Click here for the Phonofestivalen site, with all the details,
and here for more pictures and information.

I have always been intrigued by the various ways  in which place, sound, and movement have been depicted – ancient maps, celestial and maritime charts, musical scores, dance notation. Occupied by the search for an explanatory visual language, the transcriber has in different times and places created his own particular visual poetry. In the process of interpreting one mystery, he incidentally creates another.

Some years ago, as I moved towards a more abstract approach to painting, I began to look at these things in a different way. I caught a glimpse of something up ahead. These recent paintings are the maps and charts and musical scores of my imagination: a way of tracing something backwards in order to find the beginning.

Mark Fry, Normandy, 2013

I’ll be playing three gigs in Tokyo on 19^th, 20^th and 21^st April. The first two will be at Mandala-2 in Kichijoji . The third one, on Sunday 21st, will be at the UFO Club in Higashi-Koenji. For tickets and more information in Japanese, please consult the esteemed Captain Trip. For details in English, see the Tokyo Gig Guide.