Fisher-Z New CD Release

THIS IS MY UNIVERSE
is the first chapter in the resurgence of FISCHER-Z.
It features signature John Watts songs dealing with social, political and romantic themes. Watts’ collaboration with co-producer Nick Brine has been instrumental in the development of this new 2016 Fischer-Z sound. The album will be available March 18th 2016 digitally, on CD, vinyl, and special edition with rarities and unreleased material.

John Watts’ 36-year career has included 20 albums and around 3000 concerts and festivals worldwide. He has been successful both in Fischer-Z and as a solo artist throughout Europe, with album sales in excess of two million. Peter Gabriel, Steve Cropper and Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ Brass section have all contributed to his recordings. Watts has performed to crowds of 167,000 alongside James Brown in East Berlin, toured with both The Police and Dire Straits, was on the bill of the final Bob Marley European festival tour dates and has toured the USA and Canada. In more recent years Watts has developed a reputation as a multi-media artist, poet and playwright, and has often been described by fellow artists as ‘a force of nature’. He has amassed an impressive and eclectic range of creative work and his performances are characterized by Watts’ verve, warmth and humanity.

Watts developed his musical career in punk clubs while studying clinical psychology and working in mental institutions. The first Fischer-Z album, Word Salad was released in 1979 on United Artist Records, alongside releases by their contemporaries, The Buzzcocks and The Stranglers. Word Salad was a cult record in the UK (John Peel supported the single Remember Russia) but Fischer-Z achieved an even bigger critical and commercial success across continental Europe. There were several appearances on The Old Grey Whistle Test and a first Top of the Pops appearance with the Europe-wide successful single The Worker – the story of Watts’ father’s daily commute to London. The second album, Going Deaf For a Living, firmly established his ability to convey worldly political issues in narrative songs against a background of quirky pop and reggae-influenced music (comparisons were made with both Talking Heads and Ian Dury). The So Long single (1980) was featured heavily on the fledgling MTV channel.

Fischer-Z’s European success was cemented with Red Skies Over Paradise (1981), described by Der Spiegel as “a candid and passionate appraisal of Cold War Europe”. This album included songs that resonated with audiences right across continental Europe. Berlin, Marliese, Battalions of Strangers, Cruise Missiles and the title track have all been described as classics of that era and sales topped a million. Watts’ reputation was firmly established as a leading exponent of overtly political pop songs. Watts disbanded the original Fischer-Z line up in the summer of 1981 because he felt the band had drifted too far from their original art punk ideals.

Watts’ first two solo albums One More Twist (1982) and The Iceberg Model (1983) included the anthemic single One Voice and experimental The Iceberg Model track. He briefly formed a band called The Cry and released a pop/dance album Quick Quick Slow (1984) produced by the highly respected American Jimmy Douglass. In the 1980’s, Watts was very deeply affected by the political events unfolding as Thatcher tried to beat down the trade unions in Britain. His Dark Crowds of Englishmen song is about the miners’ strike and the disappearance of a way of life.

Watts reformed Fischer-Z with a new line up in 1987 and had single successes The Perfect Day (1988) based on lonely-hearts ads and Say No (1989), a call to arms for the poor and the powerless – taken from the albums Reveal (1988) and Fish’s Head (1989) respectively. He made the Destination Paradise album (1991) at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studios including Further From Love and the title track, which highlighted civilian suffering in time of war. The next two Fischer-Z albums Kamikaze Shirt (1993) and Stream (1995) continued to combine a political point of view with songs grounded in Watts’ real-life observations and experiences.

Watts returned to his solo career with the album, Thirteen Stories High (1997), one of his most admired indie guitar-style albums. Many songs from this album such as I’m a Reptile and Angel of Gardenia are firm favourites with the fans. For his next album Bigbeatpoetry (1999), he branched out combining poetry, prose and song lyrics with a DJ and beats. An era of multi-media projects began with Ether Music & Film (2002), where he traveled internationally, recording musicians in the streets and in their own homes using only his laptop.

The new Fischer-Z album, This is My Universe is due for release in the near future and includes the track Martha Thargill, in which Watts revisits the miners’ strike and the disappearance of a way of life, 30 years on. On the title track This is My Universe he combines poetry, beats and guitar noise to dynamic effect. He casts a dark and rueful eye over love and marriage in the pop single Just-a-Man, and a manifesto for the proactive and genuine Romantic, just Like Justice. Another new Fischer-Z song, Tale of Bales, once again combines a political theme with contemporary art-rock music.

Watts is currently performing both with a Fischer-Z band and also on his own as Fischer-Z solo.