Allies (Fred Frith album)

Allies
Studio album by Fred Frith
Released	1996 (1996)
Recorded	October 1989 and August 1995
Genre	Experimental rock avant-garde jazz
Length	40:36
Label	RecRec (Switzerland)
Producer	Bebe Miller
Fred Frith chronology
Middle of the Moment (1995) Allies (1996) Eye to Ear (1997)
Music for Dance series chronology
The Technology of Tears (1988) Allies (1996) The Previous Evening (1997)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
All About Jazz	[2]

Allies (Music for Dance Volume 2) is a studio album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It is the second of a series of Music for Dance albums Frith made.

Background[]

In 1989 Frith was commissioned by choreographer Bebe Miller to write a suite of music for the Brooklyn Academy of Music's "Next Wave" series. Frith composed and recorded the suite, Allies, in October 1989 with musicians Tom Cora and George Cartwright, with whom Frith had been collaborating for a number of years. The percussion on the recording was provided by a drum machine that Frith had programmed. Allies premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November 1989.

In August 1995 Frith began preparing Allies for release on an album, but was unhappy with the computerised drumming. He asked drummer Joey Baron of Naked City (in which Frith also played bass guitar) to re-record the drum tracks (six years after the original recording was made). The resulting mix was released by RecRec Music in 1996.

Track listing[]

All music is composed by Fred Frith.

Personnel[]

• Fred Frith – bass guitar, guitar, violin, keyboards, drum machine, tape manipulations
• Tom Cora – cello
• George Cartwright – alto saxophone
• Joey Baron – drums

Production[]

• Martin Bisi – recording engineer
• – mixer
• Bebe Miller – producer

Re-issues[]

In 2004 Fred Records issued a remastered version of the album, which Frith dedicated to : "For Daniel, with love and gratitude". Waldner was the founder of RecRec Music (Frith's record label in the 1990s) who had died in a mountain climbing accident in 1995, precipitating the collapse of the label in 1997.^[3]

References[]