The music world is filled with talented artists whose names are reserved for the liner notes, over-shadowed by the name of the artist on the front cover. One such person is composer, orchestral arranger and violinist Fiona Brice. She is responsible for orchestral arrangements for artists such as John Grant, Anna Calvi, Midlake, Placebo, Vashti Bunyan and Jarvis Cocker, scores for concert performances by Roy Harper as well as countless violin performances for the likes of Kanye West and Robbie Williams. Fortunately for us, there was a moment of clarity and vision when she decided that her own work deserved an audience…it was time to spread her wings and this is one of those pieces that will now reach a wider audience with the announcement of her debut album “Postcards From”…listen to Berlin below:
“I was so busy sustaining a living from music, and with other people’s music, I forgot to prioritise my own work, and lost sight of its potential,” Brice explains. “Though I didn’t set out to make an album. The pieces were written over five years, but they started to hang together.”
With the exception of ‘Tokyo’ (inspired by a National Geographic article after Brice had visited the city), the tracks were conceived in the places they’re named after. Closer to home (for us at least) is a track dedicated to Glastonbury, not the festival but the small town in Somerset which we are a short distance from, one which has been inhabited since neolithic times. The track is described as ‘upbeat, swirling energy’, inspired by it’s pagan history and ley lines for which it is the centre for several.
She describes Postcards From as “one foot in the classical world and one in rock, but if anything, it’s more like film music. Either way, it represents me well.” Though Brice refers to the tracks as “musical selfies” of her mood at the time, she concedes that some psycho-geographical influence has also seeped in. Whatever has shaped them we’re looking forward to the musical tour.
Postcards From will be released 3rd June on Bella Union.
Postcards From tracklisting…
1. Berlin
2. Paris
3. Glastonbury
4. Dallas
5. Antwerp
6. Verona
7. St Petersburg
8. Koh Yao Noi
9. Tokyo
10. Denton