Mark Fry @ Stone Nest, London, 16.05.25

It seems appropriate that sometime singer-songwriter Mark Fry’s latest one-off gig, marking the launch of his new albumNot On The Radar, is at Stone Nest. Both artist and venue have gone through several transformations over the years and wear their history well.

A gorgeous building indeed, the former Presbyterian chapel has been, since the '80s, the Limelight nightclub, infamous Aussies-in-exile piss-up mecca The Walkabout and a squat. Despite its central London location, when you step inside, the central room’s high ceilings and sympathetic acoustics - now home to a performing arts space - seem to shut out the modern world. It is the perfect setting for the pastoral, personal songs of a man who lives in Normandy and whose aforementioned new LP according to his elegantly written press release, expresses Fry’s “existential disconnection from the entrapments of modern life”.

Many of the 230 capacity audience appear to be old friends of Fry’s: well-heeled bohemians of a certain vintage delighted to see the man who became an accidental, slow-drip cult hero after 1972’s Dreaming with Alice slowly found its way out of barely-released obscurity and became the sort of sought-after work that attracts influential muso disciples and staggering Discogs valuations. Fry’s songs tonight span his unconventional, two-part musical career, which he revived after decades working as an artist; and a life seemingly spent following his own star.

He and his crack band (more of whom later) play much of the new album, some tunes from its predecessor South Wind, Clear Sky, much of which was inspired by French author, aviator and explorer Antoine de Saint-Exupery (author of children’s classic The Little Prince) and of course, selections from Dreaming with Alice.

Fry’s smooth delivery helps every song sip down easily like chocolate dessert. His opening act is for more ambitious palates. Daisy Rickman arrives on-stage looking every bit the early 70s progressive folkie. Her charmingly shy manner soon transforms into tranced-out reverie as her distinctive guitar technique and startling vocals begin to work their magic. Rickman’s set includes odes to her native Cornish landscape; a tribute to those no longer with us (Sam’s in the Stars) and tunes associated with English folk legends Anne Briggs and Bert Jansch. Her guitar fills the entire space with a combination of knotty folk melodies and one-handed, unfretted atmospherics.

But it’s not her lyrics or her tunes that make Daisy intriguing: it’s her amazing voice. She alternates between a pure, soaring folk tone that neared Sandy Denny-esque transcendence on her closer, a cover of Jansch-associated traditional song Black Waterside; and a low, almost subterranean tone that sounds almost unearthly. It’s spooky stuff indeed… the voodoo is upon us!

Mark Fry shuffles diffidently onstage with a band to die for, whose pedigrees include stints for the likes of Death in Vegas and Barry Adamson. Drummer Ian Button is muffling his drum-heads with tea-towels to stop them buggering up the sound (take note, Union Chapel!); double bassist John Parker is endlessly amused and dextrous; guitarists Iain Ross and David Sheppard provide classy detail and fluid playing, while multi-instrumentalist pianist / vocalist Angèle David-Guillou can turn her hand to anything and is the sharpest-dressed of the lot of them. Most importantly, they look like they’re having a ball - and if the band are enjoying themselves, odds are we will too.

The man himself looks suave, elegant, slightly tired (he’s 72, after all). His elegant, well-modulated conversational vocals are in good nick as the band - crammed onto a fairly small stage - begin with tunes from the new album. Stormy Sunday has a touch of Mark Knopfler in the vocals and a mid-period John Martyn ambience in its relaxed atmosphere and restrained bluesy guitar. Where the Water Meets the Land addresses an existential truth: in our youth we feel we have “All the time in the world” and spend it carelessly: when most of it is behind us, we watch it carefully as it starts to run out.

Big Red Sun (“l will run away to Africa”) seems to evoke Fry’s travelling years, post-Alice and before his years as a working painter. A gizmo creates a sort of Robert Fripp sound that appears to turn a guitar tone into something more like a synth… intriguing. Only Love is one of several recent songs hymning the pleasures of a long-term, committed romance. The younger, distinctly more stoned Fry is magically rematerialised during the airing of various songs from Alice, much to the audience’s delight.

Song for Wilde is a sweet ode to his then-baby brother as he learned to walk. Fry gets a sitar-style tone from his guitar, bongoes do their thing and if you really concentrate, the air appears to get more fragrant… The title track - eccentrically split into eight sections on Alice - gets an airing in its platonic, complete form. Unsurprisingly, 50 years on, Fry uses a lyric sheet prompt, as he does throughout.

Two tunes from South Wind, Clear Sky are followed by In Times Like These, a song about noticing every little detail, when you are bearing witness to the death of a loved one. It is dedicated to the children of Gaza. Daybreak (started in Mali in 1980, finished last year!) and shows that Fry makes a good jazzy balladeer. Not On The Radar’s title track is genuinely funky, thanks to its shuffling drum groove (Soft Cell / Grid bloke David Norris has done a great remix) and Only Love is another sweet lullaby.

Hilarity and a certain amount of chaos ensue when the band decides to finish with The Witch, the trippiest number on Alice. The self-described ‘psychedelic freakout’ was inspired by a bad acid trip and is great fun, though possibly the only number that seems a tad under-prepared. Fry gets maximum suave points for introducing it as "Written in an 18th century palazzo" - you can do this sort of thing if you hail from an artistic dynasty! (His cousin is Bloomsbury Group artist Roger Fry).

The band then take their bows - but Fry isn’t even offstage before his bandmates have returned for the inevitable encore. If I Could ("Life audit as folk song") ends things in sweet, philosophical fashion to extremely enthusiastic applause.

After the gig has ended, most of the crowd hang around for a chat with the man of the hour. All pre-gig worries have dissipated: Fry's return was a success and the double-bill was a well-chosen combination of mystery and polish: the opening set’s pagan folkie vibes meeting a more refined troubadour approach. Serendipitously, a phrase overheard from the women’s bathrooms seems to sum up both artists’ openness to their muse: ‘struck continually with wonder’...