Reactions to "Bonjour" the debut album by Francis Macdonald & Harry Pye

“Punky vignettes, fusing spoken word with classic pop, easy listening and more” - Robin Murray (CLASH magazine) “Old fashioned, poignant, likeable and offbeat. Macdonald is a dab hand with sweet melodic easy-listening indie numbers, while Pye contributes spoken word anecdotes that are perfectly written, clumsily delivered and gripping” – Thomas H. Green (The Arts Desk) Sympathy For Jean-Luc Godard is “shimmering and radiating feel good vibes” Mark Barton (God Is In The TV website) “Delightful stuff.” Roland Monger (Listen with Monger website) "Odd but good" **** (Mojo Magazine) “I Feel Like a Record That’s Scratched is pure catchy power pop... a work of art.” Calum Craig (Is This Music? Website) “Wonderfully quirky” – Flux magazine “The results of their collaboration will make you want to smile” – Carlos Benito (El Correo website). Bonjour the art pop album that everyone is talking about is available on i-tunes, Spotify, Amazon, Rough Trade in London, Monorail Music in Glasgow and all good record shops in UK/Europe. For signed copies visit: https://bonjour.tmstor.es/

The photo below of Francis and Harry at Tate Britain standing under "Forms in Space…by Light (in Time)" by Cerith Wyn Evans was taken by Gordon Beswick.

Bonjour Vauxhall

Yesterday art fans flocked to Vauxhall in south London to see The Art Car Boot Fair. The ACBF began in 2004. The founders of the event are Karen Ashton and Helen Hayward. Find out more by visiting here: https://www.artcarbootfair.com/ Every artist The Rebel magazine spoke to was excited about "Bonjour" the debut album by Francis Macdonald and Harry Pye - and who can blame them?

Above: Sir Peter Blake CBE R.A.

Above: The fantastic Jessie Voorsanger

Above: The outrageous, the controversial, the provocative Marcus Harvey

Above: Glasgow's Godfather of Pose: Bruce Mclean

Above: Bob & Roberta Smith OBE R.A.

Above: Britain's Top light Entertainer and rising art star: Vic Reeves

Above:The fantastic and wonderful Geraldine Swayne

Above:The lovely Dan Coombs

Above: The irresistible Raul Pina Perez

Above: The artist Darren Coffield who is also the author of "Factual Nonsense: The Art & Death of Joshua Compton"

Above: amazing Australian artist and Artlyst contributor Martin Brown

Bonjour the art pop album that everyone is talking about is avavilable on i-tunes, Spotify, Amazon, Rough Trade in London, Monorail Music in Glasgow and all good record shops in UK/Europe.

"It's A Friendly, Friendly World With Team Beswick and Pye"

Gordon Beswick and Harry Pye have been collaborating with Jonas Ranson (of Blacklisted Editions) on a set of prints. "It's A Friendly, Friendly World with Team Beswick & Pye" opens on Tuesday the 18th of July at Gallery Below. The private view will be short and sweet - it will start at 5.30pm and end at 6.30pm! However the prints will stay up on the walls for at least a month. The cafe is open for breakfast (Monday to Friday) from 7.30am until 10am and open for lunch (Monday to Friday) from 11.30am until 2.30pm). Cafe below is situated in the 1,000 year old crypt of St Mary Le Bow Church which houses the famous Bow Bells that are mentioned in the story of Dick Whittington.

To find out more about Jonas & Blacklisted editions visit: http://www.blacklisteditions.org.uk/ To find out more about Galley Below visit: http://gallerybelow.co.uk/ To find out more about Cafe Below visit: http://www.cafebelow.co.uk/ The address of the gallery is: St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, EC2V 6AU It's a very short walk from Bank tube station. Below is a print Jonas made of Beswick & Pye's painting "The Life Drawing Class" (After Matisse).

The Near Jazz Experience plus Micko Westmoreland & The Mellotronics (June 27th 2017)

It may have been a rainy night in Whitechapel but everyone who showed up at INDO to see both The Near Jazz Experience and Micko Westmoreland & The Mellotronics had a splendid time.

Above: The Near Jazz Experience

Above: Micko Westmoreland

Above: Terry hands out egg shakers

Above: Shake along with me

Above: Mark "Bedders" Bedford on Bass

Above: NJE's Simon Charterton on drums.

Above: Mr Mellotronic: Nick Mackay

Above: The mighty Micko & The Mellotronics featuring Brian Pistolesi on bass. Listen to Micko and chums perfom their track "Freaksville" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne15QIHhUW8 Find out more about Terry here: http://www.terryedwards.co.uk/ Find out more about Micko by visiting here: http://landlinerecords.com/artist/micko-westmoreland/ Indo 133 Whitechapel Road, London E1 1DT

The debut album by Francis Macdonald and Harry Pye gets its first review

"Bonjour" will be released on July the 7th. On the 15th of June an Independent Scottish magazine called Is This Music made Bonjour their album of the week then a few days later The Skinny premiered a new Macdonald & Pye video... http://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/new-music/francis-macdonald-harry-pye-we-love-mike-love-video-premiere Yesterday Bonjour got it's first actual review thanks to Thomas H. Green of The Arts Desk http://www.theartsdesk.com/new-music/theartsdesk-vinyl-29-beatles-kraftwerk-sikth-esg-alice-coltrane-and-more

Harry and Francis: "old-fashioned, poignant, likeable and offbeat"

(Photo by Aleks Wojcik ) You can pre-order Bonjour here: http://www.francismacdonald.com/work-with-harry-pye/ Or from these people who also say nice things about the album... https://www.normanrecords.com/records/163471

New Portrait of Francis Macdonald and Harry Pye

Artist Lady Lucy is currently studying for a PhD at Winchester School of Art. Her practice involves doing portraits of people in exchange for services, gifts and favours. For more info visit the Being Lady Lucy site: http://www.beingll.com/ Last night Francis Macdonald and Harry Pye visited her Stamford Hill studio to get their portrait done.

In exchange for the painting Lucy recieved a pre release vinyl copy of Bonjour, a bottle of Crianza Rioja, some Hot desert from Rasa. The artist said she thought it was a "great deal."

Bonjour is released on the 7th of July.

One of the tracks on the album is "Mike Love Fan Club" the video for this song got it's premiere yesterday courtesy of The Skinny magazine. To unleash the (Mike) Love tribute song click on this link here: http://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/new-music/francis-macdonald-harry-pye-we-love-mike-love-video-premiere

Last chance to see: The Man with Night Sweats at Kingsgate Project Space

Kingsgate Workshops on Kingsgate road is a short walk from West Hampstead tube (NW6 2JG). The current show there ends on the 25th of this month. It's worth going to see... .

The Man with Night Sweats is inspired by the energy generated within the burgeoning gay/queer cultures that emerged out of the changing political and social landscapes of the 1960s and 70s. It includes works made in the last 10 years that emphasise how this energy persists and transforms amid the constant change of recent histories. It features artists Steve Farrer, Neil Haas, Dietmar Lutz, Mike Silva and Jack Pierson. Through looking at how a particular aesthetic sensibility became reconstructed/reordered as a response to the trauma of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980s, the exhibition brings together works that embody the perspective of a life lived on the peripheries, and yet, which are also expansive and generous in their intentions. We propose that new and influential gay/queer creativities emerged from this era with less emphasis on polemic, exploiting instead a more subtle, codified approach to making images."

About the artists... Jack Pierson was born in 1960 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston in 1984. He lives and works in New York. Pierson has had recent solo exhibitions at Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac – Pantin, Paris, CAC, Malaga and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among other museums worldwide. Pierson is represented by Cheim & Read, New York. Neil Haas was born in 1971 in South Shields and graduated in 2014 with an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art. He lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include; Spunky Clipper, Almanac, London (2017), Maybe your lens is scratched, The Averard Hotel, Slate Projects, London (2016), Not Really Really, Frédéric de Goldschmidt collection, Quai du Commerce, Brussels (2016) and Folly, Emalin, Stirling, Scotland (2016). Mike Silva, born in Sweden in 1970, lives and works in London. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1994 and was included in the 1995 New Contemporaries. Silva has held solo shows at David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen; The Charlie Dutton Gallery, London; Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin (2001/2000); Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London (2004/2002/1998/1995); Galeri Bouhlou, Norway (2002) and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (1996). He has been included in a number of group shows including Lombard Freid, New York, Barbara Gillman Gallery, Miami and Victoria Miro Gallery, London. His work is in a number of collections including: British Council, British Airways, Government Art Collection, Simmons & Simmons and the Saatchi Collection. Dietmar Lutz graduated in 1997 from Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf, Germany. Recent solo shows include; Alessandro Raho & Dietmar Lutz, CENTER, Berlin, Germany (2011), Documenta (in collaboration with Kota Ezawa, ARQUEBUSE, Geneva (2008), Tabu, Taché-Lévy Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (2006), and Querelle, Emily Tsingou Gallery, London (2005). Group shows include; Mental Diary, Kunstverein Hannover, (2015), Painting Show, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2012), Sexy Boyfriend, JB Jurve, Los Angeles, USA (2012), Der Letze macht das Licht aus, Freies Museum, Berlin (2011), and Dirty Pictures, The Approach, London (2003). His work is in a number of collections, including: Los Angeles County Museum, Seattle Art Museum, Francois Pinault Foundation for Contemporary Art, Deutsche Bank and the Woo Collection. Dietmar is the founding member of artists’ group hobbypopMUSEUM. Steve Farrer was born in 1951 and studied at North East London Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, London. He was London Filmmakers’ Co-op workshop organiser and cinema organiser in the late 1970s. Farrer’s work was included in the film programme A Century of Artist’ Film in Britain at Tate (2004) and is in The LUX Collection. Farrer recently had a solo show at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill (2016) and showed work at Tate Live: Expanded Cinema, Tate Modern, London (2009).

Kingsgate Project Space is open every Thursday - Saturday from 12-6pm In the photo above you can see Micko Westmoreland with one of the gallery's youngest visitors:3 month old Gene Joseph Westmoreland.