Joni Mitchell - River.

Dreaming With Alice by Mark Fry.

It is cold here today, 0 degrees C at the moment. There was a spell of wintery sunshine this afternoon, so I spent about an hour in my tiny garden, just cutting back dead stuff and putting it in the compost bin. I felt quite pleased with myself for making the effort. Later on I sat in the kitchen listening to yet another CD which arrived a few days ago. It is called Dreaming With Alice by Mark Fry. I discovered it when I was reading about English psychedelic folk music. It was described as a lost classic recording. That aroused my interest because I like discovering music that most people have never heard of. The album was recorded in a home basement studio in Rome in 1971. Mark was studying art in Italy at the time when he was introduced to a record producer called Vincenzo Micocci. After playing him a few songs, Mark was given a recording contract with a label called IT Dischi, a subsidiary of RCA.

He had returned to England before Dreaming With Alice was released in Italy in 1972. As well as Mark on acoustic guitar and vocals the album also features Scottish session musicians Eric & Ian McCreadie and Ken Andrew who purely by chance happened to be in Italy at the same time and were signed to the same label. Those session musicians were later members of the pop group Middle Of The Road. On Mark’s album they play a variety of instruments including bass guitar, drums, electric guitar, sitar, and flute. Because the album was only released in Italy Mark Fry was unknown in Britain and elsewhere for many years. After years of travelling the world, including a six months stay in Mali he returned to England to pursue his other interest which is painting. His father Anthony Fry was a very distinguished artist, and another family member was Roger Fry one of the leading lights of the famous Bloomsbury Group. 

Mark has enjoyed a very successful career as a painter with many exhibitions in London and elsewhere. I like the paintings I have seen online, some of which reminded me of Bridget Riley. Unknown to Mark, as the years went by, his album slowly acquired a cult following among aficionados of psychedelic folk music. Because copies of the original vinyl pressing were so rare, they became highly collectible. At auction one copy sold for $4,061, a quite astounding sum. Finally, the album was re-released by Sunbeam Records in 2006 to great acclaim. This renewed Mark’s interest in music and he has since recorded four more albums and performed live. The CD which arrived here was released by Now Again Records in 2020. The picture on the cover shows Mark Fry with his younger brother Wilde. 

On first listening I wasn’t all that impressed and wondered why it is thought of so highly by some people. I found the mix a bit fuzzy, and I couldn’t make out the lyrics very easily. After a few listens it has grown on me a lot. The title track Dreaming With Alice is actually divided up into eight verses which are sung in between the other tracks. That is very unusual. From what I can deduce the song is inspired by Salome in the bible, leading to the Queen Of Hearts in Alice In Wonderland. “Off with his head, etc”. The Witch has sitar to the fore. If you like Ravi Shankar or raga rock music I think you might like this track. The words are a bit scary, I think it was written after a bad acid trip. Some of the more whimsical tracks like Lute And Flute remind me of some of Donovan’s songs. As well as folkie type songs, there are also some quite frenetic jams such as Mandolin Man which has wah wah guitar, flute and drums. 

Song For Wilde is about his young brother, and Rehtorb Ym No Hcram is the melody of that song played backwards. If you read the title backwards it reads ‘March On My Brother’. This CD also contains six bonus tracks which were recorded later in the 1970s. The production is a lot clearer on these tracks, and there are other instruments such as the synthesiser. I found the final track most interesting. It was recorded in the Inner Niger Delta in Mali on just a portable cassette recorder. It is Mark accompanied by his acoustic guitar singing Rock Island Line to what sounds like Tuareg tribes people. You can hear them in the background, along with what might be camels. It is very atmospheric. Finally, I think if you like  music of the late 60s such as ISB, Tir An Nog, early Pink Floyd or Donovan then you might enjoy this album.