Mark Fry :: “Dreaming With Alice” - IT Dischi
Through the deprecating seasons of sonically driven seances and its multiple sunsets of obscured obligations to the obliteration of song, Epping, Essex-based singer-song-writer and painter, Mark Fry, recorded one of the most cosmically compelling masterpieces in the early 1970s, entitled “Dreaming With Alice” that has since been atmospherically acknowledged as one of the greatest psychedelic folk albums ever recorded. A stunning collection of poetic pastels exploding unto a historically flesh toned canvas, Fry conjured something totally original, while navigating the drug-drenched decade. The musician's effortless abilities established an ageless artifact that is both a religious experience as much as it is a spiritual, while simultaneously conflicting the two demographics with pungent creativity and extraterrestrial excellence. Coming from an exceptionally creative background, the Fry family were painters, creative critics, members of the Bloomsbury Group as well as heiresses to the Bristol-based chocolate business J. S. Fry & Sons, known around the world as the founders of Quaker. After graduating from Darlington Hall School in Devon, Fry relocated to Florence, Italy to study painting at the Academia di belle arti under world renowned Futurist painter, Primo Conti. Diving head first into the cascading commodities and the rambling Renaissance of Italy’s rich cultural history, the young musician soon met Vincenzo Micocci, a local record producer, showing him examples of his early songwriting capabilities and was quickly signed to RCA’s subsidiary label, IT Dischi sometime in early 1971. Recording the galactical guts of what would eventually become “Dreaming With Alice” over a three-day period in Rome during the summer, Fry called on producer Laura Papi and local session players nearby to help bring his vision of a splendid surrealistic saga of both the imaginative and poetic pleasantry of a lavish landscape in folklore fashion that has since gone on to inspire as well as motivate generations of musical students and the solace sorcery of sound.
“I wrote songs, recorded some demos, played a few gigs and pushed the tapes I had of our band in front of anyone who would listen”
With a number of exceptionally exquisite numbers, such as “Roses For Columbus”, “Mandolin Man”, the mesmerizing masterpiece known to many, “The Witch” and countless other atmospheric anecdotes for the mind’s eye, Fry single-handedly bottled lighting and shelved its contents someplace both sacred and out of sight. Upon wrapping up production, Fry began touring around Italy in support of multi-instrumentalist, actor and songwriter, Lucio Dalla, before returning to England prior to the album’s official release. In the years to follow, the young musician continued his electrifying expedition in music, playing alongside folks such as Pete Thomas of The Attractions as the decade began to fade into the harmonious horizon of space and time in its delicate brilliance. After traveling both the US and West Africa at the beginning of the 1980s, Fry eventually returned to his homeland of London with a newfound love for music, while further pursuing a cosmic exploration of the arts by achieving a renowned status in solo exhibitions as well as gallery residencies in London.
Fry’s folk masterpiece laid dormant in the undeciphered depths of antiqued anticipation, where its ruling magic only grew stronger, Fry released multiple works in the following decades with titles such as “Shooting The Moon”, “South Wind, Clear Sky”, his most recent EP “Heavenly World” as well as time spent recording and performing with short-lived outfit, The Dreaming Alice Band. Today, Fry is celebrated by many around the world for something that wasn’t noticed over half a century ago, but to this today, his music stands the tests of time as being something completely manifested out of the feverish imagination of a forgotten fable told by a master at his craft.
