The brainchild of leading Glasgow composer and trumpeter, Matt Gough, and Emmy-winning London producer and trumpeter, Andy Bush, The Forgotten Fairground is, and has been...busy! 

Throughout its journey - from live, multi-idiom music and ballet ensemble, through 3 acclaimed transatlantic studio albums and 3 short films (premiered at London’s BFI Southbank), to its newfound incarnation as independent recording and production label, welcoming like-minded artists to the studio fold - The Forgotten Fairground has garnered plaudits from across the international arts community. 

 

From Hollywood film and music producers Sid Ganis and Jay Graydon, to jazz luminaries Randy Brecker and Eddie Daniels, to esteemed members of the Chicago Symphony and iconic band-to-end-all-bands, Steely Dan - high praise has been in plentiful supply.

"It’s been both thrilling and humbling," says Gough. "We’ve just been doing that thing we do, refusing to be typecast or boxed in. Why wouldn’t jazz musicians feel at one with eclectic, chamber music-style orchestration? Or be inspired by improvised dance? Or collaborate with a painter/filmmaker who, in turn, ‘riffs' on the words of a poet? It feels entirely natural - playful and joyful.”

"That’s our creed," says Bush. “Striving for that special space where one can groove, freely, across perceived divides - crafting an aesthetic that speaks to the various artistic idioms we love so much. The studio, with all that pure, potential energy - that’s the creative crucible. It’s very much our spiritual home. Our delight.”

 

Scottish-born singer, Mhairi, and Catalan/Portuguese chamber pairing, Duo Eunoia, are set to herald the arrival of Forgotten Fairground 'the label’ with their respective, upcoming debut releases. It's hard to describe the level of musicianship, production skill and affecting emotional uplift in play in these recordings. The listener, as the organisation's own tagline suggests, feeling as if bathed in a benignly beautiful and nourishing light. Dappled, specular, iridescent - it is, indeed, a special radiance. Stellar art and craft - but that which is also engaging and soulful to a fault - will surely be the order of the day in that bright future which The Forgotten Fairground is so expectantly chasing.

 

 

From Roads Less Travelled, courtesy of the CRM society

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