Denis Jones

Denis Jones is a self-taught guitarist from Lancashire, England. His music is a strange concoction of working man blues vocals entwined in what one reviewer termed "future folk". For me it's the music that draws the listener into the songs. The sometimes quirky lyrics are wrapped in strange loops and bleeps through deft use of a loop pedal, effects and on-stage mixer. His music builds, slowly, into a many layered "orchestral" composition, yet his main instruments are his voice and a slightly beat-up looking guitar... Early on in his career, his repertoire was likened favourably to John Martin in his One World time but more recently his live performance has developed to involve more of the live looping and experimenting which is his trademark, so now as much steeped in heavy electronica as it is in guitar-based songs. There is something in the way he performs that shows that he is in his element in front of a close personal audience, starting out with a shy awkwardness and building his confidence as he progresses , almost losing himself in the moment- and there are a great number of moments worth seeing. Experimental electronic music aside he appears to be a down to earth soul, often looking slightly bemused, or embarrassed to see people applauding his great ability. Over the last few years Denis has been all over the UK and supported acts such as Kieran Hebden, Murcof, Coco Rosie, Amp Fiddler, Okkervil River and Jack Rose to name but a few. He has collaborated with artists as far afield as Lithuania, where he has twice toured, with one track appearing on a FabricLive compilation (#35). More recently, he has been involved with Nitin Sawhney's Aftershock collaboration project, spending a week in Marseilles, and has been working on an ambitious audio-visual enhanced performance with Wasp Video, involving a combination of experimental live-mixed video techniques, often projected in imaginative style across any available surface in the venue as well as conventional screens. His debut album, Humdrum Virtue, was initially released with limited edition handmade cover art, and these early copies are now highly-coveted collectors’ items. If you don't yet own a copy of this then shame on you. In December 2009 Denis completed the recording of his second album with Tom Knott (The Earlies) at the controls. The label rumour mill indicates that the album will be called "Red + Yellow =" and will be preceded by a 12" EP featuring remixes by 808 State's Graham Massey and Homelife's Paddy Steer. Apparently there will once again be limited edition versions of the album in similarly styled packaging to the first album's initial cover design. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.