User:Roundhillmusic

Nick Pynn
Nick Pynn is a musician and composer noted for his use of bass pedals and live looping with electroacoustic stringed instruments. His early interests were in world folk and experimental music, busking around Germany and Holland,having taught himself guitar and fiddle.

His early work includes playing with various bands, recording sessions (including rockabilly legend Ray Campi) and TV commercials. In the mid-80s, he studied instrument making and built several instruments he still plays and records with now.

Nick joined Steve Harley in 1990 on acoustic guitar and fiddle, taking the lead guitar role in 1996. The 'Stripped to the Bare Bones tour of 1998 with Nick accompanying Steve on mandocello, dulcimer, acoustic guitar and violin was a resounding success; a CD Stripped to the Bare Bones-Live and acoustic from the Jazz Café, London was released, and the two-man show received a 5 star review at the Edinburgh Festival.

Nick’s debut solo CD In Mirrored Sky (1995) is a collection of autumnal pieces, and features bass player Herbie Flowers and Adrian Oxaal of ‘James’ on cello. Herbie introduced Nick to Richard Durrant, which led to the joint album ‘Nick and Dick’ (1997). Music from Windows followed in 1999. Its theme is summer, with melodies drifting from open windows in Brighton streets. The album ends with four pieces commissioned for a dance performance: ‘Flood’.These two solo albums were re-released in 2007 as a double package.

In 1999, Nick joined girl band B*Witched for a tour of UK arenas.One of the highlights of the tour was Nick being hoisted high above the stage in a 'metal cage' for a fiddle solo.

Nick then started playing with the new acoustic version of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. In 2002, the band opened for Robert Plant’s ‘Dreamland’ tour and double-billed on tour with The Pretty Things. Nick still plays with Arthur as a two man show, and contributes most of the instrumentation and arrangements on their new album 'The Voice of Love'.

In August 2001, Nick went to Edinburgh with The Life and Death Orchestra for a Festival production of poetry written by survivors of the Holocaust put to music. During the second half of the month, he joined American Perrier-Award winning comedian Rich Hall in his band Otis Lee Crenshaw and The Black Liars. Nick also met ‘Queen of the funky harmonium’ Jane Bom-Bane, and together they wrote and produced Rotator, a CD of palindromic (forwards and backwards) songs for 2002, and the Fringe show ‘Year of the Palindrome’.

Nick premiered a solo show in 2003 called 'Music from Hotels Rooms, Forests and Submarines'. Using wine glasses, playing cards and live sampling, in addition to his various stringed instruments, his show was well received and was nominated for an award. In May 2004 Nick's third solo album Afterplanesman was released. In the following year at the Edinburgh Festival,Nick won a 'Spirit of the Fringe Award' for music.

The latter part of 2006 saw a very successful two-man show tour of Germany, Norway, Michigan and Toronto with Arthur Brown, and 2007 started with sellout shows at the Sydney Opera House with The Lost and Found Orchestra in which Nick was playing musical saw, bed bass, bellows organ, bottle bellows, metallophone, traffic-cone berimbau and squonkaphone amongst other instruments. Later that year, Nick won the 'Star of the Festival Award' in Brighton, and was co-winner of the '3 Weeks Editor's Award' with Jane Bom-Bane. In November he played solo shows in Dubai & Abu Dhabi.

He is currently writing for a new solo project and regularly performs at the café venue he co-runs with Jane Bom-Bane in Brighton. www.bom-banes.co.uk