‘Fragments’ is the debut album from Beak> co-founder Billy Fuller.Although this is a solo album, it’s not a solo album in the traditional sense of representing an artist’s thoughts and feelings during a particular time frame. This is a record that spans time as it collects fragments of Billy creating alone in his home studio over the last few years. Through listening, one gets the impression of art that sometimes has a vision in mind, and is sometimes just the product of someone enjoying the process of creating in the moment. During the break in Beak> activity in early 2025, Billy revisited his collected compositions and found that there was a common thread, a cohesive atmosphere. Every single track on this album was created by Billy alone, and his personality threads itself through the 16 tracks. He likens the process of compiling the tracks to making a cassette compilation for a friend when he was a kid. Fragments is moody, immersive, and utterly unbound. Across thealbum, kosmiche-inflected, hauntological electronica plays freely with melody, finding emotional resonance for our unpredictable times. Neu-esque repetitions and motorik grooves pulse beneath skewed electro textures, and occasional spoken-word passages drift in and out like transmissions from an unknown broadcast. Occasional flashes of psychedelic prog guitar cut through hazy atmospheres, edging the sound further toward Fuller’s own kind of hypnagogic pop, that is strange yet deeply human. Fragments isn’t an album about singles, or trends. It’s music for the love of making music, by a musician who hasn’t stopped making and releasing new music for over 25 years. It is a self-effacing triumph of musical freedom. Billy Fuller is best known as the founding member, song writer and bass player in the band Beak>. For the last 16 years he and his bandmates have released 4 albums, many standalone singles, EP’s and soundtracks with Fuller’s bass always the initiating force in their compositions, lending Beak> its signature sound as always being built from the bass guitar. Fuller has also been a participant on many other different projects along the way. He began his 17-year tenure as Robert Plant’s bassist in 2003, was the bass player on Massive Attack’s Heligoland album, played on 4 of Baxter Dury’s albums and has also worked with Alicia Keys, Billy Nomates, Rachid Taha, Anika, Lucrecia Dalt, Tottenham Hotspur FC (!) and many others.
