Billy Fuller’s Kosmische ‘Fragments’ (Part 1 of 3)

A much shorter edit of this interview was first published in The Tonearm.

Billy Fuller is a versatile bassist with a dazzling CV. He’s a founding member of modern-day experimental band Beak>, with whom he has released five albums. Fuller has also lent his creative skills to work by Portishead, Massive Attack and other British artists. And for several years he recorded and toured with Robert Plant in the Sensational Space Shifters, appearing on a pair of highly-regarded releases, 2014’s Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar and Carry Fire (2017).

Now in 2026, Fuller has put together a solo album, Fragments. Released digitally and on vinyl in early April, Fuller’s album is a solo record in the truest sense of the term: he wrote and recorded the largely instrumental songs by himself, playing a variety of instruments to build arrangements that began as melodies on his bass guitar. Yet in contrast to the insular manner in which Fragments was created, Fuller is scheduling live dates in support of the album.

Fuller lives 15 minutes by train outside of Bristol, England. The final track on Fragments is the brief and atmospheric “Last Train to Yatton,” a reference to the train he boards to get home on a Saturday night. I spoke with Billy Fuller via Zoom, with him comfortably ensconced in his home studio, surrounded by instruments and recording gear and occasionally visited by one or another family member popping their head in to say hello.

Anyone who has listened to Neu! or Harmonia will hear echoes of what they were doing when they listen to Fragments. I definitely hear kosmische and motorik textures in some of the album’s tracks. What was your first exposure to krautrock, and how did it affect you?

It would have almost definitely been in the late ‘90s when I worked in a shop called Replay Records in the middle of Bristol. It’s a great old independent record shop that’s sadly no longer with us, like so many of them. I was working with the staff in there – Hugo and Neil – and they’d be like, “Check this out,” and I’d be doing the same to them. It’s like all those things that happen: the knock-on effects of working in record shops, people coming in and you suggesting music to people.

The very first time I heard Can, it was the song “Vitamin C” [from 1972’s Ege Bamyasi]. I was like, “This sounds like it’s from the future!” And it still does, doesn’t it? You’re like, “Hell, somebody’s finally done something brand new!” And then when you actually peeled the skin off, it was like, “Oh! This was done in Germany in the ‘70s!”

And then off the back of that, I was in a band called Fuzz Against Junk, which were the first band on Invada Records in the UK. We did the first release on Invada [2003’s Fuzz Against Junk CD] and we ended up playing with [Can vocalist] Damo Suzuki three times. He used to tour around on his own; he’d just turn up and play with local musicians which he called his “sound carriers.”

It was brilliant for him. And he was a really nice guy. He’d turn up; he had a set fee which wasn’t too crazy. It was realistic, and as long as he had a nice dinner and a few beers, he was happy. And then he was like a hobo: on to the next one. He was amazing. I really loved him a lot.

It’s interesting what you say about hearing Can and thinking it sounded like it was from the future. I remember when I first heard the first Neu! album. I remember thinking, “That doesn’t sound like it’s from the ‘70s. It could have come out last week.”

Yeah. “Hallogallo” was the one for me. I was around my friend Simon’s house, and we’d just taken a big hit on a bong and then he stuck that on. I completely spun out and puked on the carpet. It totally threw my senses sideways.

But I’ve also found out since as well: I’ve listened to all the other Neu! LPs, and I think the first one is all you need. If we’re all honest with each other, if you’re going to save one from the house fire, it’ll be that one.

Did the tracks on Fragments grow out of composed material or improvisation?

They all happened purely by myself in some room: this room that we’re talking in now, and some of it in previous houses I’ve lived in with my family over the years. [I made it] over a nine, ten year period. But it’s purely me in my room, like I do all the time.

Even now I’ll be in here, and I just start making music. And whenever I make music – even when I’m thinking about demoing for Beak>, the band that I’m in – I’m never thinking about a sound of what’s come before or what I want it to be like. I just see what falls from the sky whilst I’m in the room.

The first thing to go in will usually be a bass guitar. Or it could be a synth thing where I put a key down and it’s playing a sequence or whatever. But the nucleus of it is for fun, not writing for anybody in particular, but purely just enjoying making music. After working at it for over 35 years, I think it’s really important to try and keep it fun and light.

If I’m understanding the way you’re describing it, when you sit down in that room with an instrument or instruments, it’s not necessarily with the intent of creating a song…

Sometimes it’s purely for the moment. It’s just about me being here: “I’ve got an evening free tonight; I’ll make some music.” And then at the back end of that is something like, “I can use that on a record,” or it becomes a demo for Beak> and we can start creating from there. That’s a bonus. But initially it’s purely for me. It’s like meditation, reading a book or anything like that. There’s a good bit of it – or at least some portion of it – that I think, “Oh, that was fun, but that’s not going to go anywhere.”

Can I infer from that that you record everything that you do in there?

I’ve got a computer here. The hard drive’s full of [material]. I had to wade through a lot. There’s still over 50 other tunes that I was considering to go on Fragments.

Fifty!?

Yeah, I’ve got a folder, and they’re still there with stereo mixes. But I came across those 16; they were the ones where it felt like there was a narrative: a beginning, a middle and an end for me… in my mind, anyway, it made sense. Even though some of the tunes were made six months ago and some of them are 10 years old. This sort of 16-song, 36-minute thing made sense to me. I was like, “Oh, it’s an album. We’re there; we’ve done it.”

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