Bay City by David Thomas and foreigners

Press Quotes:

"One more David Thomas recording, one would think, only to once again end up open mouthed in front of the loudspeakers." - Rolf Jager, Intro

"Yet another deeply affecting set." - Joe Cushley, Mojo

"For those of you familiar with Pere Ubu's ground breaking discourse in art and language, this disc will make an easy transition to your stereo. For people less aware of Thomas' many significant contributions, Bay City will be a more startling revelation." - Mitch Myers, Alternative Press

"The most important thing to know is that it is wonderful. A glorious mélange of clattering rhythm, neon and noir, poetry, discord and melodies that skidder and streel. Musically, Thomas is accompanied by PO Jørgens, Per Buhl and Jørgen Teller. Together, they supply a beauteous and lilting cacophony of vibraharp, guitar, melodica and clarinet. Like everything the great man touches, this is different and strange. It is also curiously compelling, irresistibly perverse and artfully profound." - Ross Fortune, Time Out

"Bay City comes steeped deep in the desperate gloom and half-light of Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled noir. Thomas takes the genre's associated musical forms (smoking jazz, the primal bay of wounded blues) and eviscerates them. There are huge holes where the solid body of the song should be: tracks echo and clank with absence, with clarinet snaking distantly... Tracks like "Shaky Hands" are pure Beefheart in the way that they rollick and tumble along in the guise of damaged blues before collapsing... Bay City is at its best when generating an air thick with midnight dial tones and slow tailing cars." - David Keenan, The Wire, June 2000

"The jazzy quartet brings Chandler's noir-stories convincingly into life in twelve atmospheric miniatures... we can almost hear the rain patter on the pitch-black asphalt. Right next to a growing pool of blood." - Robert Heeg, Oor (Holland)

"Fractured, bent, steamy, lyrically gruff and introspective--kind of in the Tom Waits/Capt. Beefheart/Col. Bruce Hampton (Ret.)/Shockabilly-Chadbourne vein...you'll just have to check it out for yourself...it left me slightly crippled when it was all over." - jennyt, Tom Waits Bulletin Board

Release Notes:
Bay City is an album of reinvented roots-- part salty melancholic blues, part wounded sultry jazz and part jangling swamp rock. Bay City - tales from Philip Marlowe's lost nights in a town affluent and self-contented on the surface, rife with corruption and nepotism just underneath. Blood on the face of the moon. Bones buried in the hills. Double indemnity and dark visions.

On the other side of every desert is... Bay City.

David Thomas and foreigners started life at a concert staged in the middle of the Gefion fountain, in the rain, in Copenhagen in 1996. Jørgen Teller enlisted Mr Thomas along with 2 other Danish musicians, P. O. Jørgens and Per Buhl Acs. The collaboration, recorded on a farm in Denmark between 1996 and 1999, promised a hard-edged reappraisal of American music, the lingua franca of a planet drifting into strangeness. Contrary to all logic, it is a startlingly specific cultural folkwork.

Founder and lead vocalist of legendary out-rock band Pere Ubu, David Thomas has been re-writing the rules of popular music for over 25 years. Formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975, Pere Ubu developed a sound which combined traditional rock elements with an array of sounds, synthesizers and of course, Thomas's unmistakable vocals. The band's first release was in 1978, titled The Modern Dance, and since then they have put out a consistent stream of fascinating, highly original albums, the latest being Pennsylvania (1998).

David Thomas, while playing a major role in Pere Ubu's development, has always explored implausible creative configurations, and seemingly arbitrary production methods. His first solo release The Sound of the Sand appeared in 1981 and has been followed by a further 9 releases. Thomas's musical/creative aesthetic is as broad ranging as it is, paradoxically, specific - underscored by an almost visionary awareness of our cultural situation. Indeed his tireless inquiries into the nature of social relations, folk traditions and contemporary culture have led him up some unlikely creative paths, soda stops along Highway 61 to the banks of the Yenisei River. Musically, Thomas's work takes in a range of influences, sometimes bluesy, rocky, folky and downright experimental, but always conceived in a unique way.

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David Thomas and foreigners

David Thomas and foreigners David Thomas is the founder of the legendary Pere Ubu, a group The Wire described as "the greatest out-rock 'n' roll group of this millennium, and probably the next."

Jørgen Teller is a guitarist, sampler, songwriter and composer whose works focus on electro acoustics, soundsculpture, songwriting, dronepop, MIDI-guitar, grain-sample-synthesis, sound-works for international dance, performance, poetry, video, film and new architecture.

Per Buhl Acs plays clarinet, guitar and makes sound happen in poetic ways. He started in a punk band that over time developed into an experimental orchestra. Most of his current work, solo or in groups, is in dance/performance projects.

P. O. Jørgens is a drummer / percussionist. He composes for film, performance, video, theater and dance and records with various groups. He has just finished a 2 month tour / collaboration with the Ghana National Dance Troupe.

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Produced & mixed by David Thomas & P. O. Jørgens at Ninth World Studio, August 1999.
Recorded at Ninth World and Hearpen studios.
Mastered at Suma by David Thomas & Paul Hamann.
Package design by John Thompson/idrome

All songs written by (Thomas-Jørgens-Teller-Acs), Bug Music.

Band:
David Thomas - vocals
P. O. Jørgens - drums, percussion, steel drum & vibraharp
Jørgen Teller - guitars & casio
Per Buhl Acs - clarinet, melodica, slide & bass

Release History:
Thirsty Ear THI 57085.2 (US) 4/18/00 cd.
Hearpen/NWM HR111 (UK & Scan.) 5/2/00 cd.