In our interview, Bingo Fury describes a particular track taken from his staggeringly accomplished, innovative new EP Mercy’s Cut as a “bit of a Frankenstein song.” It puts one in the mind of some dark and unknowable entity, and from what Fury describes of the sometimes difficult places and times this EP emerged from, it seems to have similarly dogged its creator’s steps like the famous creature of the novel itself. From the cuts and incisions made to stitch together the melodic amalgam of styles, tempos and moods the EP embodies, this cutting-edge Fury takes opens up new possibilities, new avenues for what music can do, and what the purpose of music is in itself.
With the untamed fusion of jazz, noir, post-punk and ballad styles in his repertoire, I feel it’s fitting to describe Fury’s music with the perhaps more cordial avant-garde too, and not simply because it adheres to the radical, experimental character of the phrase suggests, but as a literal interpretation of its etymology. This is the vanguard, the ones who lead us into battle at the forefront of a movement. And indeed, as we discuss, Fury literally describes this particular track “putting up a fight” during the writing process – the militant, revolutionary approach to writing, composition, and performing demands the listener reconsider everything they thought they knew about the experience of music itself.
One cannot be complacent or neutral in the face of the unstoppable advance of this Bristol-based artist; from his early releases, such as the sizzling Happy Snake or the sharp shock of Birchall and King’s, each new track from Bingo Fury feels like a singular and incomparable listening experience. This new EP, then, will present new listeners with a furiously alchemical concoction, taking them right to the crumbling edge of what they thought they knew before hitting play.
Where did Bingo Fury come from? Can you give us an idea of where this extraordinary project, and its name, emerged?
Bingo Fury is from the shadowy part of the brain that everyone has. I use him as a buffer to help perform the songs. We have a strong working relationship.
Your music combines an extraordinary arrangement of sounds and styles, from frantic jazz to an easy-going British attitude reminiscent of The Streets. Was there a particular, singular style that acted as the progenitor, which you complicated as your sound developed, or did you always have this innately amalgam nature to your music?
You just take in a lot of music and experiences into your brain and then make sense of them. I don’t want to complicate anything though. Everything’s complicated enough. Making sense of abstract feelings and thoughts and putting them into song form can feel like more of a dumbing down if anything.
Listening to your tracks feels like a discovery of its own, of a new way of listening and appreciating music. Tell us about a time you felt you made a personal discovery with or through music, and how important was it to the artist you are today.
I think this kind of thing happens more in a live context for me. Getting into more industrial/techno/experimental music in Bristol when I was a teenager had a big impact. Seeing Giant Swan on the island back in 2016 was my first experience of underground experimental music at that point. To experience that kind of thing for the first time in a live context, without having listened to anything like that before was totally mind-bending. Think I was still using a fake ID at that point. That show was the gateway to acts like Bad Tracking (to unjustly simplify the project – they are a two-piece experimental industrial group, performing totally naked, one wandering the room screaming through a ball gag into a microphone). Knowing that live performance could be that extremely made me feel that whatever I was doing was totally tame, even if it’s slightly more left-field than your run-of-the-mill four piece guitar band. I think this pushed me further and broadened my horizons at that age.
When talking about your new track, Cash for Chloe taken from your new EP, Mercy’s Cut, you characterised it as “the bridge between the book of revelation and a doorbell tone.” I find this such a unique and engaging expression – are you suggesting your music combines something of the highbrow and lowbrow simultaneously? The divine and the mortal? The avant-garde and the accepted?
I like thinking about music in religious terms, it’s a familiar thing having grown up in church. My first experiences with music were my parents being in the church band (which I joined at 8 or 9 years old as the drummer). It’s the same with a lot of those worship songs – attempting to harness a huge feeling while trying to be as direct as possible. I think that’s what I was referring to.
You described Cash for Chloe as “putting up a fight” during the writing process. How so? Do all your tracks antagonise you like this?
It’s a hard song to play because it was written in such a convoluted way. We vaguely jammed the structure in rehearsal as a group, none of us really understanding the song yet, then went into a studio the next day to demo a bunch of other songs we had written and had a spare 20 minutes in the end. We decided to just improvise the song once through (still none of us knowing the structure) without any vocals to guide it. I then took the recording away and pieced it together as a full song at home, adding guitar, percussion and vocals. It feels like a bit of a Frankenstein song with welded parts. When I brought it back to the band it was very hard to get all the changes/timings right as it was pieced together on a computer.
Do you feel I’m right in proposing your music has an uncomfortable, sometimes quite uneasy quality to it at times? If so, what made you take this direction in your work?
I don’t think it’s intentional, but if that’s how you feel when you listen to it then that’s a valid proposition. I guess this is referring to the dissonant sections and changes in the songs. Since I was about 14 or 15 I’ve found dissonance and atonality weirdly comforting to listen too. It’s something that resonates with me in other people's songs so it comes through in my own. I can see how this can make people uncomfortable though.
Are you able to give us a sense of your compositional strategies? The complexity and depth of each track suggests a painstakingly minute process, but you never lose this impression of astonishing energy, vibrancy and immediacy.
That’s very kind of you to say. If you think too much about what you're doing it becomes painstaking and generally a waste of time. But if you let things happen unforced and stay present in the moment it’s an easy and enjoyable process. How you reach that ‘in the moment’ mindset is a whole different question I’m not able to answer.
With this in mind, how was your experience of writing the new EP, Mercy’s Cut? How does it feel to bring together this particular collection of tracks?
Mercy’s Cut took everything from me. It was an incredibly draining collection of songs to write. Some of them I still find hard to sing at times. They all came from a very confusing, dark period of leaving and isolation. Lots of leaving at that time. I think it’s a good articulation of that period though, I’m very proud of it as a body of work and proud of the band for their incredible input. In hindsight, I also proved to myself that I was able to make good songs at a time when I had little self-worth and didn’t believe in anything I was doing. I still go back to that place sometimes but now I can reassure myself with Mercy’s Cut.
You’ve spoken before about your visual influences, particularly classic cinema and photography. How does this medium relate to the tracks on Mercy’s Cut, if at all? Does it feel visually continuous with your previous work?
I don’t think it feels particularly continuous from the previous stuff but maybe I don’t have the perspective to see that yet. I got to work with Peter Eason Daniels on the videos for the EP, he’s incredibly talented and definitely brought something fresh to the visual side. He has a real vision which comes through so starkly in his work. My girlfriend Holly took the artwork for the EP, she’s also taken all the press pictures surrounding this release as well as the previous single Birchall & Kings, she has an amazing eye.
Which interests you more as a musician, the past or the future? Your tracks balance a sense of both dimensions, an engagement with a jazz-infused tradition, but also carving a new way forward too.
I think it’s universally agreed that good songs transcend time and genre. It’s important to be open to that and to try listening to styles you wouldn’t usually gravitate towards. My listening falls pretty evenly between current music and more traditional stuff.
Bingo Fury has a couple of siblings, right, Robbie & Mona? Could you describe your relationship with your musical family, and how closely you influence each other on your respective projects?
Yes! This is the first time I’ve been asked about those two in an interview. Exciting stuff. Robbie & Mona (not going to refer to their real names here) came into my life during quite a difficult period after the collapse of my previous band and during the inception of Bingo Fury. They brought a wave of inspiration and reignited my passion for music after a long period of disconnect. Robbie helped us demo the first-ever Bingo Fury songs, even before the whole Bingo Fury band had been assembled. He also helped me record a demo for the EP title track Mercy’s Cut the day that I wrote it so he definitely has a stake in this next release. Mona took the pictures that became the artwork for our first two singles Big Rain and Happy Snake and helped me explore the visual side of the project very early on, recommending films and artists.
They both massively informed the development of the Bingo Fury character. We met after they asked me to sing on their song Venice off their first album Ew. Robbie had a studio in the basement of a venue in Bristol called The Louisiana (which is where we recorded half of the Mercy’s Cut EP), he taught me how to be a live sound engineer in the venue upstairs (now my profession) and I ended up becoming Robbie & Mona’s sound engineer for their live shows. Me and Robbie were in the studio most days working on what would become the next Robbie & Mona album (set to release next year) which I’m fortunate enough to have played on and helped engineer. The album stands peerless. You can come to see us play together on tour this October.
Where will Bingo Fury’s next voyage of artistic discovery take you, you think? Do you have a vision of where you’d like to go next?
I’m trying to write an album at the moment. Writing music for Bingo Fury has become more collaborative between myself and the band (Henry Terret, Megan Jenkins, Rafi Cohen and Harry ‘Iceman’ Furniss). They are a devastating force by which I am grateful to be flattened. The songs we have so far are sounding solid and we’re hoping to record in the first half of next year. The plans I have for the album at the moment are extremely ambitious.
