Nick's new CD 'The Colours of the Night' has met
with some great reviews, including 4*s in the Sunday
Times, and has been played on BBC Radio 3's Late
Junction and Stuart Maconie’s Freakzone on
BBC6. See: Latest
CD.
Nick has just finished 37 surprise guest appearances
with comedian and playwright Stewart Lee at the
Leicester Square Theatre. Further forays into the world
of comedy include a show at the National Theatre on 6th
April with Stewart, and a night with Boothby Graffoe at
the Leicester Square Theatre on the 1st April.
A few spring dates are confirmed for Nick's solo show.
Scheduled gigs are listed below. See Live
Dates.
For shows in the Brighton Fringe this May (and
there'll be a few), details will appear here around the
17th March: www.bom-banes.co.uk.
The Colours Of The Night :
Nick’s new album ‘The Colours of the Night’
was released on 5th October 2009. It is on the Roundhill
label, cat no. RHLCD09 and will be distributed by Cadiz
Music. It features a large chamber orchestra recorded
one at a time in his own small studio above Bom-Bane’s
Café in Brighton.
Another great year on the Edinburgh Fringe
– Here are some reviews
Colours of the Night, Inlingua Edinburgh
Star rating: ****
Rob Adams The Glasgow Herald
Nick Pynn seems doomed to be forever performing
up several flights of stairs in a room that holds barely
thirty people who will all go away wondering why Pynn
isn't playing in a much bigger venue.
It's happening again as Pynn, a man for
whom multi-tasking comes as second nature, conjures up
multi-tracked-in-situ marvels where massed dulcimers hum
palindromic folk dances, plays fiddle tunes to foot piano
accompaniment that make their inspiration - toothache
- feel almost desirable, and unleashes his home-made cocolele
(a hybrid of coconut shell and ukulele fingerboard) on
a work of infinite charm.
Every piece has a story behind it, be
it sleeplessness in Detroit, the customer at Pynn and
partner Jane's Brighton café who bequeathed Pynn
an overcoat with treasure in its pockets, or the Eastern
European gypsy band who, allegedly, diddled Pynn out of
his pen at an autograph-signing session.
Whether this is true or not, the resulting
concoction of typewriter keys, carriage return, instantly
recorded mandocello rhythm and real time fiddle is as
eloquent a letter of complaint, albeit too pretty to convey
real indignation, as you'll hear this Fringe.
Colours of the Night:
tw rating 4/5 Rhys Pierce Three Weeks
Nick Pynn performs solo, but displays
the bizarre and wonderful talent of becoming an entire
orchestra. Through a combination of technological trickery
and sheer musical expertise the multi-instrumentalist
serves up thundering contemporary folk: by building up
dense layers of looped samples, bolstered by the rumble
of a foot-pedal base, Pynn can change from one string
instrument to the next mid-song. The effect is almost
mathematically logical but still manages to evoke a sense
of raw spontaneity, especially tangible with the use of
a typewriter for rhythm and a self-made ukulele crafted
from a coconut. According to Pynn, once on a visit to
Italy the summer heat caused his violin to explode, and
somehow in his performances the same thing seems all too
possible.
Nick Pynn: Colours of the Night
Inlingua****
David Chadderton British Theatre Guide
In a tiny converted classroom in a language
school at the top of a steep staircase on Hanover Street,
multi-instrumentalist Nick Pynn fills a large part of
the room with his amazing collection of stringed instruments,
some of which he has made himself.
Pynn plays a wide range of instruments
including violin, viola, ukulele, glockenspiel, typewriter
and one of his own instruments made from a coconut he
has called a cocolele, which he has even electrified.
He builds up most of his pieces, each introduced by a
funny story, by playing sections into a sampler and looping
them then playing other instruments over the top. The
result is an amazing sound from this accomplished and
imaginative musician who sits in the corner of the room
alone creating the sound of a whole band by himself.
Myspace : Live audio and video samples of Nick
can be found on
www.myspace.com/nickpynn
