Thomas, David & Foreigners

Bay City

Label: Ninth World Country: Denmark

"David Thomas and foreigners started life at a concert staged in the middle of the Gefion fountain, in the rain, in Copenhagen in 1996. Jørgen Teller enlisted Mr Thomas along with 2 other Danish musicians, P. O. Jørgens and Per Buhl Acs. The collaboration, recorded on a farm in Denmark between 1996 and 1999, promised a hard-edged reappraisal of American music, the lingua franca of a planet drifting into strangeness. Contrary to all logic, it is a startlingly specific cultural folkwork.

Bay City is an album of reinvented roots-- part salty melancholic blues, part wounded sultry jazz and part jangling swamp rock. Bay City - tales from Philip Marlowe's lost nights in a town affluent and self-contented on the surface, rife with corruption and nepotism just underneath. Blood on the face of the moon. Bones buried in the hills. Double indemnity and dark visions.

On the other side of every desert is... Bay City.

Founder and lead vocalist of legendary out-rock band Pere Ubu, David Thomas has been re-writing the rules of popular music for over 25 years. Formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975, Pere Ubu developed a sound which combined traditional rock elements with an array of sounds, synthesizers and of course, Thomas's unmistakable vocals. The band's first release was in 1978, titled The Modern Dance, and since then they have put out a consistent stream of fascinating, highly original albums.

David Thomas, while playing a major role in Pere Ubu's development, has always explored implausible creative configurations, and seemingly arbitrary production methods. His first solo release The Sound of the Sand appeared in 1981 and has been followed by a further 9 releases. Thomas's musical/creative aesthetic is as broad ranging as it is, paradoxically, specific - underscored by an almost visionary awareness of our cultural situation. Indeed his tireless inquiries into the nature of social relations, folk traditions and contemporary culture have led him up some unlikely creative paths, soda stops along Highway 61 to the banks of the Yenisei River. Musically, Thomas's work takes in a range of influences, sometimes bluesy, rocky, folky and downright experimental, but always conceived in a unique way.

Jørgen Teller is a guitarist, sampler, songwriter and composer whose works focus on electro acoustics, soundsculpture, songwriting, dronepop, MIDI-guitar, grain-sample-synthesis, sound-works for international dance, performance, poetry, video, film and new architecture.

Per Buhl Acs plays clarinet, guitar and makes sound happen in poetic ways. He started in a punk band that over time developed into an experimental orchestra. Most of his current work, solo or in groups, is in dance/performance projects.

P. O. Jørgens is a drummer / percussionist. He composes for film, performance, video, theater and dance and records with various groups. He has just finished a 2 month tour / collaboration with the Ghana National Dance Troupe."-Ubu Projex