RFI: Bill Fay

Looks like a readable review on Dusted here too.

Hoping for a highish placement for Last Persecution in the 70s poll but probably not gonna happen

It was in my top 20...I really need to get the 3rd album too.

There are actually 5 albums now.

Bill Fay, Last Persecution, Tomorrow Tomorrow And Tomorrow (unreleased until 2005), From The Bottom Of An Old Grandfather Clock (demos from late 60s-early 70s) aaaaaaaaaaaand this month on Durtro there's a double release, one disc of more old 70s demos and a new album recorded in the last year. Waiting for it in the post right now...

http://mog1.state51.co.uk/tid/40802637d548a898547be12fd5e12dbceca64214/ecitrdw/fwoayblac/1225170960054.jpeg

Hope the new album's better than its cover art...

http://copticcat.greedbag.com/buy/bill-fay-still-some-light-cd/

^ how is this new one Jamie?

my post/postman has been playing up so not arrived yet annoyingly.

Oof, that's vexing.

Was just looking at it on emusic, but it'd wipe out most of my credits in one go.

Oh wait, this is one of the 2009 tracks...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo3bW9sEkwg

Sounds like he's just picked up where he left off, you'd hardly know all those years had passed.

Horrible cover art, looks like the Organisation album though, whose cover I like.

The new album has some nice moments but it's mostly ruined by the dreadful production. The real treasure here is the old demos and such: the piano arrangement of "Love is the Tune" is the most shamelessly lovely thing I've heard from him.

http://themagiclantern.tumblr.com/post/397515042/bill-fay-love-is-the-tune

And you can hear it on my tumblr. :)

i just got this and am enjoying it immensely but the production (the bass specifically) on the reissued recordings sounds kinda weird to me. has anyone read the entire liner notes? i made it to the part about john boden and then promptly went blind.

the recent photographs are really cute too. wkiw bill fay.

Those liner notes are great, one of my favourite things about the release. I really love the archive stuff, i could listen to a thousand different versions of those songs and never get bored. Production isn't great but thats to be expected; there isn't really any production!

Yes the new stuff is definitely a little weak, those keyboards are very 80s phil collins/landing on water neil young. but still it's nice to hear him still going. From listening to Last Persecution you'd think he would have imploded/committed suicide from mental anguish some time in the 70s so it's lovely to hear that the guy from those songs is still there.

Love Bill Fay.

'Time of the Last Persecution' seriously fucking me up today. What a bleak, beautiful album. Also, Ray Russell's band is amazing in it; just listen to the perfectly controlled chaos towards the end of the title track.

Some of the new tracks on his latest release oddly remind me of Spiritualized. That's just me, though. I wouldn't expect any of you to agree with me.

Haha, no, I can totally see what you're saying. Esp. in a song like "My Eyes Open".

Also, seconding Jamie ATP upthread:

From listening to Last Persecution you'd think he would have imploded/committed suicide from mental anguish some time in the 70s so it's lovely to hear that the guy from those songs is still there.

Indeed.

Endless SBummer

Some of the newer recordings are actual lyrically pretty beautiful and not that removed from his old stuff, its just a massive shame the production / arrangement lets them down.

Got the first album on. GOD DAAAAAAMN IT'S SOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOD.

http://www.resident-music.com/image/cache/data/pias/july12/DOC061CD-500x500.jpg

New album out in August:
http://www.deadoceans.com/onesheet.php?cat=DOC061

Bill is reunited on several tracks with Ray Russell and drummer Alan Rushton, who played on Time Of The Last Persecution

fuck yes

life is people

great album. also has totally redeemed this from overplay for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4eexG3oaPA

sounds lovely. is the rest of it that spare or are there other players on it?

haven't heard this rec yet, but i know ray russell is on some of the tracks

the rest of it is a lot more band based, but not overly complicated - its fairly similar to some of the quieter
stuff from the first two albums

I had no idea he was still alive!

oof this album *is* great.

Nice bit on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/19/158894907/bill-fay-a-cult-figure-returns-skeptical-but-optimistic

This album is amazing

think i like the sparer piano songs the most, but the whole thing is stellar. "the neverending happening"!

i can't wait to hear this

his collection of demos/outtakes is probably my favorite thing he's done (maybe that's just because it was the first thing i heard though?)and i just noticed that it's going for like $100?! on cd? crazy.

Got the first album on. GOD DAAAAAAMN IT'S SOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOD.

― I'm A Genius, Too! (Jamie_ATP), Wednesday, July 13, 2011 11:30 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^ this! It's been a while since I've played it (came to Bill via the alt 70s poll back in 2009, went through a period of intense listening, and then shelved everything until yesterday).

this album is v good

this is sort of what i'm expecting the next album by the apartments to sound like

The new one is sooo good.

yeah it is.
though with all the religious stuff -- is he a straight up born again christian? was he always? obviously there was religious imagery on his earlier albums, but not quite as straight up as some of this.

I've no idea. I've not found much info about him. (Not that I've really searched that hard, to be honest.)

Fay on Time of the Last Persecution:

"It was a religious album - my Slow Train Coming, I suppose," says Fay today. "Biblical ideas, prophecies and so on, had started to permeate and gradually I came to believe. I wasn’t trying to convert people, though. The record’s Christian, but hopefully not in a narrow way".

Tweets going round that Bill is on Jools Holland tonight, although there's no confirmation of this on any BBC page afaics.

https://twitter.com/DeadOceans/status/271627766544363520

and here you go...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xa7EhiCTyA

Any idea what's going on with the Life Is People record?

c21m50nh3x460n

― goat news for people who love boat news (how's life)

buzzz

― a barbie girl in a barbie world

going on with it? in what respect?

Dead Oceans sold out of the LP. So I'm wondering when they will do a second pressing. And some of the records from the first pressing were damaged I heard.

Yes, my local record stores tell me the first pressing was faulty and the second pressing is still nowhere to be seen.

Bollocks, spent ages looking for a copy. Hope they sort it out...

what was faulty about it? mine played fine, though i guess it may vary depending on country

Alright, chaps, some semigood news.

Today Dead Oceans said a second pressing is in the works and that they should have it back on their site 'soon!'.

According to SC Distribution, it should be back in record shops. I'll check this weekend.

This album is a slept-on beauty.

http://pitchfork.com/news/58537-bill-fay-announces-who-is-the-sender-shares-war-machine-lyric-video/

the new album is too beautiful

Pep is a fan:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45918581

Wow, Pep!

your boy Bill is back, new LP in January

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PxfcGYd12I&feature=emb_title

Loving this new one.

I came here to post the same thing. It's sombre and I want to give him a cuddle but there is a spidery lightness to what he's doing.

These songs are instantly love-able and feel as if they've always been around. So glad he's still making music. This piece about it was great too https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/arts/music/bill-fay-countless-branches.html

I struggled with the last one, so wasn't sure whether to get this. I loved Life Is People though.

Not heard anything of him since Life Is People myself, but so far I think this is rather lovely.

Holy shit, I just finished my first listen to Time of the Last Persecution. This is incredible. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn't it.

oh dude this year is not a good time for a bump. but you're right, it's immense. I don't think it'll ever fall out of my personal top ten.

The debut is also fantastic, as are the three comps of unreleased stuff from around the time... this one is a standout

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBlqIzdf2B8

then once you've processed that, the three recent comebacks on Dead Oceans are a lovely low key comeback.

Ah, shit, yeah. I forgot about the risk of bumping an old thread in this of all years. I actually ended up ordering his new one last night, so I'm looking forward to that.

I just didn't expect TotLP to resonate with me so strongly. I guess the "folkie" tag I'd read and the slightly disheveled photo on the cover had me expecting something less... polished, for lack of a better word. But, man, I guess I could have bumped the "classic albums you were knocked out by".

Must put this on again. I haven't list3ened to it in ages.

Since that last post I've picked up both the new one and Who is the Sender?, both totally different in tone from TotLP but really beautiful.

And someone needs to reissue that From the Bottom of an Old Grandfather Clock comp. Upthread someone noted that the CD was going for over a $100, now it’s going for close to $500!

I just heard Time of the Last Persecution recently. His voice sounds to me more like a very glum Ian Hunter than Dylan.

The whole record has a weird, grey, bleak numbed-out feel that I associate more with post-punk than anything else from 1970. The plain lucidity of the production looks forward to Pere Ubu or the early Mekons that I have heard (even of nothing else is similar) instead of singer-songwriter records of the time.

Never heard of the comp jon mentions! o_O

Probably something for a new thread, but Bill Fay is one of the very few artists I both love and find it ex-tre-me-ly hard to listen to, as it reduces me to a mess. Really have to go slow and take small portions, because it's just too beautiful and it hurts too much.