New GIO album with Fred Frith releases on Scatter Archive next week
Oct 14, 2026
Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra with Fred Frith “BUZZ” [scatterArchive 2026]
Releases Monday 19 October 2026 at https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/
Twenty-one years is a long time in music. It is also, perhaps, no time at all.
When the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra first met Fred Frith at the CCA in 2005, the band was still in its infancy, and they were luxurious times. Not only did we have two full days to work with Fred on his Graphic Scores, Stone, Brick, Glass, Wood, Wire, talking, playing and hanging out with him, but around that time we were also enjoying collaborations with a veritable who’s who of improvising glitterati, including Evan Parker, Keith Rowe, George Lewis and Maggie Nicols. Fabulous times.
I distinctly remember Fred’s sophisticated combination of freedom, humour and absolute attention to detail. One instruction, while working with his beautiful photographic graphic scores, was to play your favourite riff from a pop song. I immediately jumped on the guitar riff from The Beatles’ “Day Tripper”, only to fluff the top note. Fred stopped the band, looked at me, and made a gesture suggesting that perhaps I’d been drinking at lunch. Then he giggled: “If you’re going to quote The Beatles, you better get it right.”
Fred helped introduce us to ideas that would profoundly shape our thinking about graphic material over the next two decades. But there was another, equally important, aspect to those two days. We spent a great deal of time discussing whether coherent, freely improvised music was possible within a large ensemble when no guidelines or instructions are given. It was a fierce and fascinating debate, and this conundrum, which Fred shone a light on, has been one of our defining concerns ever since. That journey is directly connected to the music you hear on this recording, as we have remained committed to large-ensemble free improvisation.
Twenty-one years later, Fred rejoined GIO. The orchestra is a very different proposition now. Some of the players have changed, but key aspects of our identity, forged in those early years, remain central to how we perform. This time we didn’t have the luxury of two days’ rehearsal. The band arrived shortly before the concert, squeezed into place, and we entered immediately into the world of free improvisation.
The concert itself was extraordinary: orchestra and audience bursting out of the upstairs room at ‘Hairies’, with people spilling out of the door and down the stairs. As you will hear, Fred played a solo set, then joined the full orchestra, and also performed in smaller groups with GIO musicians. Moving between these different configurations gave the evening a wonderful sense of scale and intimacy. From the concentrated focus of Fred alone with his guitar, doing what made him a pioneer in the ’70s, making the instrument sound less like something played than something discovered: strings, wood and metal becoming a landscape of shifting light and texture; to the unruly energy of the full orchestra and the close musical conversations of the smaller groups.
It was a joyous reunion, Fred and GIO reconnecting through spontaneous music-making.
This recording is not an attempt to recreate 2005. It is a conversation across twenty-one years: between old friends, shared histories, new musicians, remembered ideas and present possibilities.
The music still depends on listening, trust, humour and risk. And, thankfully, we’re still having a fabulous time.
Raymond MacDonald - September 2026
GIO have a previous release on scatterArchive: Celebrating Monk - Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra with Pat Thomas
Fred Frith is a pioneer of the extended electric guitar. He learned to compose in Henry Cow, developed his song-writing skills in Art Bears, explored his multi-instrumentalism in Skeleton Crew, rocked the house with Massacre and is still doing all of those things, having been in one band or another continuously since 1964! Meanwhile his work has been performed by string quartets, orchestras, big bands and a whole range of groups and artists in the ever-expanding field of semi-popular music. Fred also composes extensively for film and dance; his passion for improvising has increasingly led him to work with artists who don’t necessarily define themselves as improvisers. Recently Fred has been focusing on a deep immersion in duos, working with, among others, percussionist Núria Andorrà, trumpeter Susana Santos Silva, violinist Dimos Vryzas, and saxophonist Lotte Anker fredfrith.com
George Burt acoustic guitar / Jer Reid electric guitar / Jim Bryce voice / Una MacGlone double bass / Armin Sturm double bass / Jessica Argo cello, theremin / Raymond MacDonald alto saxophone / Mike Parr-Burman electric guitar / Elena Inei violin / Rick Bamford drums / Robert Henderson trumpet / Renzo Spiteri percussion / Allan Wylie trumpet / Ceylan Hay violin, voice / Graeme Wilson flute and tenor saxophone / Maria Sappho piano with Fred Frith guitar
Recorded 09 May 2025 by Jim McEwan at the Old Hairdressers, Glasgow / mixed and mastered by Olaf Rupp
With thanks to Jim McEwan, Duncan Young, and Rob Churm
Cover image combines the graphic score Cello Suite by Josephine Ganter and Raymond MacDonald with event photographs by Jim McEwan
