Genre: Electronica
FOLD, consisting of David Bickley, Cork (Ireland) based composer/filmmaker, and Dare Mason, a record producer from Penzance (Cornwall), have recently completed their debut album, “Slowburn”.
Bickley and Mason met in West Cornwall in the mid 90’s. Both had a fascination for this remote area of Britain and found themselves meeting up at various impromptu musical events. Dare Mason made the move to Penzance in 2001, having worked as house engineer at The Townhouse studios in London till 1991 and then going freelance as a producer, racking up several credits including Placebo, The Church and AC Acoustics. Setting up his own commercial studio, the VIP Lounge, in Penzance, he recently “discovered” Thirteen Senses at a local gig and produced the demos that led them to being signed by Mercury Records. A talented musician in his own right, Dare has also released two ambient albums, “Dive” and “Mother of Pearl”, written numerous TV themes for BBC World and collaborates with Marty Willson-Piper (The Church, All About Eve, The Saints) in their side project, Noctorum. He is currently mixing an album by Brix Smith (The Fall).
David, meanwhile, first achieved success at the age of 17, producing a short film with an accompanying soundtrack for the BBC. He carried on producing films and documentaries throughout the 80’s as well as releasing his own ambient albums, “Rare Earth” and “Earthscope”. Moving to Dublin in the late 80’s and noticing the dearth of electronic music in the country led to the formation of "Hyper[borea]" with singer Una O’Boyle and "Orb" collaborator Tom Green. The band released a flurry of CD’s all to critical acclaim and scooped up a "Hot press" award for best dance act in 1998. Recently Bickley collaborated on Four releases with German ambient legend Hans Joachim Roedelius. David recently released a number of musical projects including an ambient groove project with contributions from Kieran Kennedy , Still Rivers at Night, on Dublin Label Psychonavigation and Erebus & Terror with Tom Green on the HS label, both distributed worldwide by Arabesque
The fusion of these two talents has produced an album that is full of surprises and very difficult to categorise. Chill out dub sounds on “Day of the Dread” , the lush ambience of “Pacific”, the big beats of “Red Rubber Dress” and the beautiful ethnic melodies of “Camboia”. If anything ties the 7 tracks together, it is the Celtic influence - the sumptuous flute on “Colophon”, the hypnotic bodhran on “Castle Freak”.
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