Fyfe Dangerfield
Fyfe Dangerfield, perhaps best known as the frontman of the band Guillemots, was born in the land of Birmingham, England in July of 1980, and found himself tottering towards the family’s piano by the age of three.
A childhood of listening almost entirely to the Beatles followed, and in 1988, Worcestershire replaced Birmingham as home, the doorstep countryside nurturing a growing love of birdwatching, alongside the daytime playlists of BBC Hereford & Worcester.
Teenage songs led to a badly-named school band getting invited to record a John Peel Session for Radio One in 1999, before splitting up the following year, and the fresh century brought new musical adventures - commissions for the choir Ex Cathedra, a stint playing guitar for Black Country fringe institution The Courtesy Group, and the birth of free-jazz-gone-wrong improvising quintet Gannets.
Throughout these years, though, songs still appeared on countless four-track demos, and in 2002, a move to London in search of outcast musical playmates - who transpired to be a Canadian, a Scotsman & a Brazilian - led to Guillemots releasing their debut album “Through the Windowpane” in 2006, sneaking in both a Mercury Music Prize nomination and, in a joyful circling-the-circle moment, an on-air nod of approval from Sir Paul McCartney.
Three more Guillemots albums - “Red” (2008), “Walk the River” (2011) and “Hello Land” (2012) followed, alongside a solo record, “Fly Yellow Moon” (2010), whilst new instrumental compositions were scored - a trio of solo pieces for cellist Natalie Clein, and an orchestral work for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
Something of a vanishing act then followed, but in September 2018, after six fruitful years of hibernation & play in the making warren, Dangerfield, now a father, re-emerged with a new channel - www.channelsmaychange.com - and on it, to be unveiled in weekly broadcasts, a free, mammoth new 12-part series: “Birdwatcher”.
A surreal mix of songs, instrumentals, sounds & characters, with each episode sat alongside its own original artwork and restaurant “menu”, Birdwatcher was borne out of an urge to playfully share some of the gigantic amount of music that was cooking up behind the scenes, even if it wasn’t necessarily “finished”.
In Fyfe’s own words: “we casually share informal photos of ourselves all the time these days, and I need to be able to operate the same way creatively ... to happily show myself in my musical pyjamas, rather than only ever presenting the smartened up ‘first date’ version of myself to the world.
“Making the Birdwatcher series was the first time I’ve really felt able to capture how music sounds in my head, with no filter .. just having the space & time alone at my studio, to let the music morph & evolve in its own curious ways, at its own pace .. it was a delicious journey to be on. And I’m sooo happy it’s out there now, for people to discover”.
The opening song from the series, “Woah! Life”, was released officially as part of “The Birdwatcher EP” last year alongside a handful of other tracks from the series, with a dream-weaved accompanying video - the debut visual feature from the Channels May Change production house.
More recently, on April Fools’ Day of this year, Dangerfield put out the first of many planned releases from his archive collection, “Ludlow (August 2013)”, an improvised piano & vocal album recorded nine years ago on the aforementioned old family piano.
And as the sauces simmer away, so the rainbow breadcrumb trail leads on...
