{"id":31371,"date":"2026-08-11T05:30:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T09:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=31371"},"modified":"2026-08-12T07:33:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T11:33:20","slug":"billy-fullers-kosmische-fragments-part-1-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/11\/billy-fullers-kosmische-fragments-part-1-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Fuller’s Kosmische ‘Fragments’ (Part 1 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A much shorter edit of this interview was first published in<\/em> The Tonearm.<\/span><\/p>\n

Billy Fuller is a versatile bassist with a dazzling CV. He\u2019s 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\u2019s Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar<\/i> and Carry Fire<\/i> (2017).<\/p>\n

Now in 2026, Fuller has put together a solo album, Fragments<\/i>. Released digitally and on vinyl in early April, Fuller\u2019s 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<\/i> was created, Fuller is scheduling live dates in support of the album.<\/p>\n

Fuller lives 15 minutes by train outside of Bristol, England. The final track on Fragments<\/i> is the brief and atmospheric \u201cLast Train to Yatton,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"Anyone who has listened to Neu! or Harmonia will hear echoes of what they were doing when they listen to <\/b>Fragments<\/b><\/i>. I definitely hear <\/b>kosmische<\/b><\/i> and <\/b>motorik<\/b><\/i> textures in some of the album\u2019s tracks. What was your first exposure to krautrock, and how did it affect you?<\/b><\/p>\n

It would have almost definitely been in the late \u201890s when I worked in a shop called Replay Records in the middle of Bristol. It\u2019s a great old independent record shop that\u2019s sadly no longer with us, like so many of them. I was working with the staff in there \u2013 Hugo and Neil \u2013 and they\u2019d be like, \u201cCheck this out,\u201d and I\u2019d be doing the same to them. It\u2019s like all those things that happen: the knock-on effects of working in record shops, people coming in and you suggesting music to people.<\/p>\n

The very first time I heard Can, it was the song \u201cVitamin C\u201d [from 1972\u2019s Ege Bamyasi<\/i>]. I was like, \u201cThis sounds like it\u2019s from the future!\u201d And it still does, doesn\u2019t it? You\u2019re like, \u201cHell, somebody\u2019s finally done something brand new!\u201d And then when you actually peeled the skin off, it was like, \u201cOh! This was done in Germany in the \u201870s!\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Fuzz Against Junk<\/i> CD] and we ended up playing with [Can vocalist] Damo Suzuki three times. He used to tour around on his own; he\u2019d just turn up and play with local musicians which he called his \u201csound carriers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was brilliant for him. And he was a really nice guy. He\u2019d turn up; he had a set fee which wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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, \u201cThat doesn\u2019t sound like it\u2019s from the \u201870s. It could have come out last week.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah. \u201cHallogallo\u201d was the one for me. I was around my friend Simon\u2019s house, and we\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve also found out since as well: I\u2019ve listened to all the other Neu! LPs, and I think the first one is all you need. If we\u2019re all honest with each other, if you\u2019re going to save one from the house fire, it\u2019ll be that one.<\/p>\n

Did the tracks on <\/b>Fragments<\/b><\/i> grow out of composed material or improvisation?<\/b><\/p>\n

They all happened purely by myself in some room: this room that we\u2019re talking in now, and some of it in previous houses I\u2019ve lived in with my family over the years. [I made it] over a nine, ten year period. But it\u2019s purely me in my room, like I do all the time.<\/p>\n

Even now I\u2019ll be in here, and I just start making music. And whenever I make music \u2013 even when I\u2019m thinking about demoing for Beak>, the band that I\u2019m in \u2013 I\u2019m never thinking about a sound of what\u2019s come before or what I want it to be like. I just see what falls from the sky whilst I\u2019m in the room.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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\u2019s really important to try and keep it fun and light.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m understanding the way you\u2019re describing it, when you sit down in that room with an instrument or instruments, it\u2019s not necessarily with the intent of creating a song\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s purely for the moment. It\u2019s just about me being here: \u201cI\u2019ve got an evening free tonight; I\u2019ll make some music.\u201d And then at the back end of that is something like, \u201cI can use that on a record,\u201d or it becomes a demo for Beak> and we can start creating from there. That\u2019s a bonus. But initially it\u2019s purely for me. It\u2019s like meditation, reading a book or anything like that. There\u2019s a good bit of it \u2013 or at least some portion of it \u2013 that I think, \u201cOh, that was fun, but that\u2019s not going to go anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can I infer from that that you record everything that you do in there?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got a computer here. The hard drive\u2019s full of [material]. I had to wade through a lot. There\u2019s still over 50 other tunes that I was considering to go on Fragments<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Fifty!? <\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah, I\u2019ve got a folder, and they\u2019re 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, \u201cOh, it\u2019s an album. We\u2019re there; we\u2019ve done it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A much shorter edit of this interview was first published in The Tonearm. Billy Fuller is a versatile bassist with a dazzling CV. He\u2019s a founding member of modern-day experimental […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,41,43,49],"tags":[5939,5938],"class_list":["post-31371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ambient","category-interview","category-krautrock","category-new-release","tag-beak","tag-billy-fuller","cat-5-id","cat-41-id","cat-43-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31371"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32171,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31371\/revisions\/32171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}