FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

Searching for a theme to pull together disparate pieces of music is a habitual challenge for your writer. Mostly it does not work as the songs are not chosen because they all do something similar or share a common purpose or sentiments. If they do, it may be more by luck than judgement. While today’s selection has a largely reflective tone to it, the individual pieces are just that; highly distinct works that take you to places. You may not encounter aliens en route though.

So, on with the show. I discovered Phantoms in the Dusk via Fresh On The Net, a little gem from last week’s Inbox. The collective is the brainchild of the admirably named composer/producer Herald P. Cattie who I believe is based in the charming coastal town of Aberystwyth in mid Wales, a place I frequently have difficult in spelling. With a vacant Spotify page, Herald seems to keep a low profile but can be found on Bandcamp and YouTube both in current Phantoms project and in the earlier guise of The Death Particle, a post-jazz/classical noise collective which signed off with the 2022 album Epitaph.

The opening notes of “Hide Among The Roses Till The Fire Comes” put me in mind of the five-tone musical phrase used to communicate with the aliens in the 1977 classic Sci-Fi movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As the track unwinds it has a similarly immersive effect, led by soft yet resonant piano over a swirling backcloth. The entry of cello and violin adds waves of poignancy and builds the track climactically to a pinnacle conclusion. The marvellous title is taken from 18th & Broadway by the late American outlaw poet David Lerner, which inspired the direction Herald wanted to take the track when introducing three highly accomplished musicians - Liz Hanks (cello), Sabrina Tabby (Violin) and Suwon Yim (Piano) - into the fold to add their magic to his soundscape. “The Welsh coast inspired the rest” Herald adds. Enough said.

Photo of Rosie Bergonzi by Yulia Hauer

Next up is London-based percussionist Rosie Bergonzi, another who arrived here via the good offices of Fresh On The Net. Rosie is a foremost exponent of the handpan, an instrument that I have not readily come across before. Be it a theremin or musical saw, I’m your man but a handpan is breaking new ground for me. A handpan is a form of steel drum that looks like two inverted woks with indentations in the top section corresponding to musical notes. Rosie has one of the most populated YouTube pages I have ever encountered should you wish quite rightly to become fully immersed in the wonderful world of the handpan.

From her upcoming album Seasons of Handpan, “Lazy Daze” found sufficient favour among Fresh On The Net readers last week to be voted a Fresh Fave. Rosie describes it as ‘a handpan tune played on a low F2 instrument, bringing the bass sounds.’ As F2 has absolutely nothing to do with motor racing I will leave it at that. The piece has the essence of carefully structured music played with an informality that adds a looser, almost live feel as the melody lines ebb and flow through it. It is light, warm and atmospheric in equal measure and Rosie’s expert touch really highlights the tonal qualities of the handpan. Beautiful, comforting and serene.

Photo of Dorothy Bird by Brian Roberts

It is rare for me to start a Fifty3 Fridays with two instrumental pieces so now let’s move next to a vocalist with a rare individuality. We have previously met Dorothy Bird both through her work with the band Skylon and as a solo artiste who produced the impressive album, Belonging, in June 2022. Operating now between Liverpool and Berlin, the native German, Julia Fiebelkorn, took on the persona of Dorothy Bird as her stage name after completing music studies at the University of Arts, Bremen. Her music spans influences from classical music, jazz, art pop, electronica and more while the purity of her vocal delivery adds a true note of distinction.

“Meteorites” is Dorothy Bird’s sophomore LP expected in spring 2025. It uses meteorites as a metaphor for, in her words, “memories that that seem to come from nowhere.” What was once important might fade over time while other scarcely recalled feelings might suddenly arise irrespective of where we are in life. “We owe it to ourselves to live a full life, no matter what hits us” she fittingly adds. As ever with her songs, vocally Dorothy is spot on, imbuing her words with a nostalgic yearning that seems so appropriate to the theme of memories. From soft whispers to operatic highs, her voice is perfectly matched by plaintive piano and bursts of synth, guitar and drums. Alchemy for the mind and soul.

Our next track is highly appropriate to the theme of memories. [I thought you said there wasn’t a theme. And no aliens – Ed]. Benjamin Keith Murray aka Flakebelly decamped to the Outer Hebrides with his girlfriend a while back and now calls Stornoway his home. Flakebelly’s genre-challenging music takes me back to the kind I used to listen to in the late sixties around the time that Syd Barrett helmed Pink Floyd and we chilled out to The Piper at the Gates of Dawn in tandem with watching a lava lamp. Innocent days, eh? His compelling fusion of psychedelia, folk and jazz is the kind to lose yourself in and gets those memory cells working.

Of course I have many years start on Flakebelly. He learned to play guitar in the early 2000’s and twenty years or so later released a couple of EPs, Behaviours (2022) and Lo Fidelity (2024). All his material is recorded and produced alone in his home studio. He now has a full album out, Apprentice Green, which, picking up the memories theme, he describes as a “journey through time, revisiting songs from my first band around 2003, reimagined in the home studio from Oct 2022 to Feb 2023.” The song you have (hopefully) just listened to is from the LP. “What The Thunder Said” brings together Floyd-like descending chords, Syd Barrett-esque guitar and psych-slacker vocals with an infusion of jazz in an altogether pleasing melange. The title comes from a TS Eliot poem for half-remembered reasons, neatly taking us back to our opening piece today with its equally poetic title. Nice!

We will close today with an inspirational musician in retrospect. It is hard to believe that Nick Drake passed away 50 years ago this month, exactly on 25 November, after sadly taking an overdose of antidepressants. He produced just three albums from 1969 to 1972 in his short career, mentored by the legendary Joe Boyd, and each was special. They earned him a certain cult status as a troubadour in his lifetime and much wider recognition since he passed which endures to this day. Successive generations have discovered Nick’s music and made it their own, though not in the Louis Walsh sense.

I picked “Time Has Told Me”, the opening track from Nick Drake’s debut album, as I had the privilege of seeing him play live at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in February 1970 when he supported Fairport Convention. Despite Nick’s reluctance to perform live, his quiet intensity could leave an audience spellbound and what memory I retain from that evening echoes this. I duly purchased a copy of Five Leaves Left the very next day. Here is producer Joe Boyd talking about the album.

You might also like to check out If Nick Drake Came to My House by the actor, comedian and writer Mackenzie Crook which looks like the perfect stocking filler for us music fans.