I Lived in Trees

Mark Fry is best known for an acid folk album ‘Dreaming of Alice’ recorded in 1972 but like much of these ‘lost’ albums dained prominence when the great and good (ie: Jim O Rourke and Kieran Hebden) name checked it as a classic and it received a re-issue on the hip Sundazed imprint. Now 39 years after that landmark album and with the likes of Plinth’s Mike Tanner and Directorsound’s Nick Palmer on board Mark Fry returns in a Vashti Bunyan-esque rise from the ashes. The comparisons with Bunyan aren’t just reserved for the back story, the music has a similar rural folk feel to it and the hippy-ish air of someone who has been cryogenically frozen in the idealistic early 70’s. The music is slow moving, churning almost soporific. Fry’s guitar playing is full of beautiful full rolling folk chords and his singing has a youthful innocence not the worn raggedy leathery voice of many of his vintage. He has a neat way with a chord change exemplified on the likes of ‘Chalky Down’ where the music shifts like the rolling sea. Its beautiful stuff, absolutely perfect for a late afternoon nap by a gaggle of trees in this stunning Indian summer. …