Folkadelphia Session: Fred Thomas

On musician Fred Thomas‘s Bandcamp page, a collection is building. Thomas, in preparation for a future release, has been compiling a library of organic and synthesized sounds he has been creating. Most are very short, perhaps meant as an audio diary of sorts, but I mention it because it gives us, everyone who isn’t Fred Thomas, a chance to see through his eyes, listen through his ears, think his thoughts. And man, it’s a colorfully active world in his brain – buzzing, humming, shining, twitching, spinning, convulsing, swaying, and throbbing along. It’s really no wonder that Thomas’s musical output has been varied and prolific – Saturday Looks Good To Me, City Center, Flashpapr, Mighty Clouds, Lovesick, just to name a few in addition to his solo work. One could even say that Thomas has a compulsion to create and collaborate on music – you’ve got to admire that ambition.

On Fred Thomas’s recent release All Are Saved, monikers and facades are dispelled with and I think we hear the songwriter at his most honest and personal, perhaps his most autobiographical. We also hear, in the music, a little bit of all of his past and present, all of those bands, all of those experiments in sound and synthesis and chemistry, bleeding into the collection that makes up All Are Saved. It’s for that reason that I would strongly recommend starting with this album for all you out there unfamiliar with the oeuvre of Fred Thomas. The world could use a few more Fred Thomas devotees.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTonAVFDzYA&w=560&h=315]