Normandy-based singer-songwriter Mark Fry makes a rare live appearance in London to mark the launch of his new studio album, Not On The Radar, released the same day on independent label Second Language.

Mark Fry is perhaps best known for his debut album, the acid-folk benchmark Dreaming With Alice, recorded in Rome in 1972. After a hiatus of almost four decades, in which Fry focused primarily on painting, he began recording again, with a critically acclaimed 2011 collaboration with The A. Lords, I Lived In Trees, and a further album inspired by the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, South Wind, Clear Sky, both released on Second Language.

The new album’s title speaks to both Fry’s rural isolation and his existential disconnection from the entrapments of modern life. As Fry explains, “When I’m working, I need a sense of solitude in order to find that space towards the edge where there’s a point of connection between now and then. That’s where my songs and paintings are hiding.”

Mark Fry performs at Stone Nest with a full band: drummer Ian Button (Death in Vegas, Wreckless Eric), pianist / vocalist Angèle David-Guillou (Piano Magic, Klima), double bassist John Parker (Nizlopi), guitarist Iain Ross (Barry Adamson, Laika) and guitarist / percussionist David Sheppard (Snow Palms, Ellis Island Sound).

Opening this one-off show is Daisy Rickman, who weaves the spiritual history of her native Cornwall into hypnotic folk songs that feel like spells, speaking to something ancient and unknown.

Daisy Rickman 7.15pm

Mark Fry 8.30pm

Photo credit: Jackson Pearce White