Fosca was a British band, combining
indie pop
Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and sub ...
songwriting with
synthpop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...
instrumentation. Initially, the band was formed by bassist Peter Theobalds and
Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...
guitarist/lyricist
Dickon Edwards
Dickon Edwards (born Richard Dickon Edwards; 3 September 1971), also known as Dickon Angel, is a London-based indie pop musician and diarist. He was a founding member of the bands Orlando and Fosca, and briefly played guitar in the band Spearmin ...
plus Orlando drummer David Gray, before settling into being a vehicle for Edwards and his songs. Over the next decade, Edwards fronted several (predominantly female) lineups of the band including guitarist
Charley Stone
Charley Stone is an English multi-instrumentalist musician based in London, UK. She has been a notable part of the London indie music scene since the early 1990s.
History
Charley Stone first came to notice in short-lived riot grrrl band Frant ...
(formerly of
Gay Dad
Gay Dad were an English rock band that formed in London in 1994 and broke up in 2002. The line-up of the band has included Cliff Jones (guitarist/vocalist), Nick "Baz" Crowe (drummer), James Riseboro (keyboardist), Nigel Hoyle (bassist) and ...
). They released a total of three studio albums between 2000-2008. The band was named after the protagonist in
Stephen Sondheim's
Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March 22, 1930November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical" with sho ...
''
Passion'' based upon the translation of
Lawrence Venuti
Lawrence Venuti (born 1953) is an American translation theorist, translation historian, and a translator from Italian language, Italian, French language, French, and Catalan language, Catalan.
Career
Born in Philadelphia, Venuti graduated from Te ...
of the novel ''Fosca'' by
Iginio Ugo Tarchetti
Iginio (or Igino) Ugo Tarchetti (; 29 June 1839 – 25 March 1869) was an Italian author, poet, and journalist.
Life
Born in San Salvatore Monferrato, his military career was cut short by ill health, and in 1865 he settled in Milan. Here h ...
, 1869. They received press coverage from
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
.
History
The original version of Fosca was founded in the summer of 1997 as a
hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...
side project by
Dickon Edwards
Dickon Edwards (born Richard Dickon Edwards; 3 September 1971), also known as Dickon Angel, is a London-based indie pop musician and diarist. He was a founding member of the bands Orlando and Fosca, and briefly played guitar in the band Spearmin ...
, then concurrently the guitarist and lyricist for the
Romo
Romantic Modernism, more commonly known as Romo, was a musical and nightclubbing movement, of glam/style pop lineage, in the UK circa 1995–1997, centred on the twin homes of Camden-based clubnight Club Skinny and its West End clone Arcadia ...
band
Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...
, together with Orlando's live drummer David Gray and a bass player named Peter Theobalds. Edwards recruited laddish lead vocalist Sav in what he would later describe as "an experiment of the Laddish Lion lying down with the Limp-wristed Lamb.".
This line-up performed five concerts between September 1997 and February 1998 - the first two predating Dickon's final appearance with Orlando, which he left to concentrate on Fosca. The final concert featured
Charley Stone
Charley Stone is an English multi-instrumentalist musician based in London, UK. She has been a notable part of the London indie music scene since the early 1990s.
History
Charley Stone first came to notice in short-lived riot grrrl band Frant ...
as guest guitarist.
They also recorded four tracks for a putative EP, one of which, ''The Leopard Of Lime Street'' would, later in 1998, feature on a volume of the sampler album series "Snakebite City" on Bluefire Records.
In February 1998, Dickon removed Sav from the band as he felt the singer, "through not being an immediately apparent misfit, with consummate irony didn’t fit in Fosca."
Initially, David Barnett, the future
Suede
Suede (pronounced ) is a type of leather with a fuzzy, napped finish, commonly used for jackets, shoes, fabrics, purses, furniture, and other items. The term comes from the French , which literally means "gloves from Sweden". The term was fir ...
biographer auditioned to replace Sav,
however by April 1998 Theobalds and Gray had drifted away to a new band
Akercocke
Akercocke are an English extreme metal band from London, formed in 1997 by Jason Mendonça and David Gray. The band also features Paul Scanlan and Nathanael Underwood.
History
Akercocke's first album, '' Rape of the Bastard Nazarene'', was sel ...
, while Stone was otherwise committed to the band
Gay Dad
Gay Dad were an English rock band that formed in London in 1994 and broke up in 2002. The line-up of the band has included Cliff Jones (guitarist/vocalist), Nick "Baz" Crowe (drummer), James Riseboro (keyboardist), Nigel Hoyle (bassist) and ...
.
After several months of inactivity, a new version of Fosca debuted on Friday 25 September 1998 at
Queeruption Queeruption (a compound of ''queer'' and ''eruption'') is an annual international queercore festival and gathering started in 1998 where alternative/radical/disenfranchised queers can exchange information, network, organize, inspire and get inspire ...
in London.
From this point forward, Dickon himself became the
frontman
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ...
for the band. For the first show, the band included seven members,
while the next, on New Year's Eve 1998, featured only three.
In early 1999, Fosca made their first attempt at recording debut album ''
On Earth To Make The Numbers Up'' at Riverside Studios in
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
This was eventually aborted after the budget ran out
and one track, ''Storytelling Johnny'' was accidentally wiped by the DAT recording machine.
However, one track from these sessions, ''File Under Forsaken'', would later be released as the lead track for Fosca's debut single ''
Nervous, London
Fosca was a British band, combining indie pop songwriting with synthpop instrumentation. Initially, the band was formed by bassist Peter Theobalds and Orlando guitarist/lyricist Dickon Edwards plus Orlando drummer David Gray, before settlin ...
'' along with two additional tracks featuring Rachel Stevenson on folk-style lead vocals.
The remaining eight songs for the album were rerecorded in 2000 with a new synth-based sound not dissimilar to that of Orlando, and released, still under the title ''
On Earth To Make The Numbers Up'', and preceded by the single ''
The Agony Without the Ecstasy
Fosca was a British band, combining indie pop songwriting with synthpop instrumentation. Initially, the band was formed by bassist Peter Theobalds and Orlando guitarist/lyricist Dickon Edwards plus Orlando drummer David Gray, before settl ...
'' on
Shinkansen Recordings
Sarah Records was a British independent record label active in Bristol between 1987 and 1995, best known for its recordings of indie pop, which it released mostly on 7" singles. On reaching the catalogue number SARAH 100, the label celebrated it ...
(an offshoot of
Sarah Records
Sarah Records was a British independent record label active in Bristol between 1987 and 1995, best known for its recordings of indie pop, which it released mostly on 7" singles. On reaching the catalogue number SARAH 100, the label celebrated it ...
who in early 1995 had released the ''Reproduction Is Pollution'' EP by Orlando under the alternative name Shelley). By this time, the band had stabilized into Dickon Edwards on vocals and guitar, Rachel Stevenson on keyboards and vocals, Alex Sharkey also on keyboards and vocals and Sheila B on cello. In 2001 the band released ''
Supine On The Astroturf
Fosca was a British band, combining indie pop songwriting with synthpop instrumentation. Initially, the band was formed by bassist Peter Theobalds and Orlando guitarist/lyricist Dickon Edwards plus Orlando drummer David Gray, before settlin ...
'' as the first single from their second album. By the time follow-up single ''
Secret Crush On Third Trombone'' and the parent album ''
Diary Of An Antibody'' were recorded and released in 2002, Sharkey had been replaced by Kate Dornan, formerly the editor of Orlando website ''Orlando Magic''.
After a gap of some six years due to the collapse of Shinkansen, Fosca signed with the Swedish independent record label But Is It Art?, on which they released a live album in 2007, followed by their third studio album ''The Painted Side of the Rocket'' in Sweden on 5 March 2008. UK release on 28 April. The label also released a book of Dickon's lyrics for Fosca and Orlando, ''The Portable Dickon Edwards. Lyrics and Other Alibis 1993-2008''. By then, the current line-up was Dickon Edwards on vocals and guitar, Rachel Stevenson on keyboards and vocals, Kate Dornan on keyboards and vocals, Tom Edwards on guitar and former member Charley Stone returning to perform live on guitar. A further single, "The Man I'm Not Today" / "My Diogenes Heart" was released later in 2008. Dickon disbanded Fosca in March 2009, with the final concert being at Klubb Republik in Norrköping, Sweden on 14 March.
Discography
Studio albums
*''
On Earth to Make the Numbers Up'' (Shrinkhansen, 2000)
*''
Diary of an Antibody'' (Shrinkhansen, 2002)
*''The Painted Side of the Rocket'' (But Is It Art?, 2008)
Live albums
*''Fosca in Concert'' (But Is It Art?, 2007)
EPs
*''Nervous, London'' (Something Velvet, 1999)
*''The Agony Without the Ecstasy'' (Shrinkhansen, 2000)
*''Supine on the Astroturf'' (Shrinkhansen, 2001)
*''Secret Crush on the Third Trombone'' (Shrinkhansen, 2002)
*''The Man I'm Not Today'' (But Is It Art?, 2008)
Compilations
*''Snakebite City'' (Bluefire, 1998)
**1.The Leopard of Lime Street
References
External links
Fosca's Official WebsiteDickon Edwards's Website (with his online diary ''The Diary at the Centre of the Earth'')Rachel Stevenson’s blog ''A Million Reasons for Wanting to Carry on Living'' on LiveJournalBut Is it Art?
{{Authority control
British pop music groups
British indie rock groups
Queercore groups
Musical groups established in 1997
Musical groups disestablished in 2009