Rich Thair has a main job in Red Snapper, a role as a member of Sabres Of Paradise live band, a spin off duo with Sabres bassist Nick Abnett (Spraycan) and a Red Snapper offshoot called Number with his long term musical partner Ali Friend. You'd think all of this would keep him busy enough but he also has a solo project, Dicky Continental, based out of his studio Buntys in Swansea. Dicky blurs trip hop, dub, soul and breakbeats, an urban and after hours sound. The first album Un... came out on Acid Jazz in 2023. Last year he had a track on Sounds From The Flightpath Etstae Volume 2 and this year has released a single and been involved in some remixes, all leading up to a new album, Queer The Pitch.
Queer The Pitch came out recently on Margate label Ramrock. Dicky reunites with singer/ songwriter Jo Sims (from Un...) on opening song The Grain, an echoey, breakbeat affair with crunchy drums and an acoustic guitar, and vocals that drift in and out. It works very well as a lead in and sets up what comes next. Across the rest of the ten tracks that make up the album Rich provides the musical backdrop for a range of young vocalists, singers, rappers and poets- Tia Zakura, Ioan Omar, Laila Woodward and Asher Carroll, drawn from a local youth project and talent pool Rich leads called Future Blood.
Tia Zakura's laid back, easy delivery doesn't hide the personal nature and unsettling feel of the words- Rust is coming from an uneasy place, examining the world and Tia's place in it, being young and black in 2026 Britain. 'Thoughts drive me insane so I've just been thinking thinking', she says on Rust. Tia returns on the summer single Hostile Environment, a fantastic dub/ blues spoken word/ poetry track.
Big Red Button marries live jazz and trip hop with Ioan Omar's voice. His voice is also on the fractured hip hop of It Was Just You and the synth bass and electric piano, soulful sounds of Flying. Asher Carroll sings on Take A Deep Breath And Let Go, a cinematic song that suggests a world of underground clubs and basement cafes. On Yeah We Do there are seagulls and a long horn note, drums and the voice of Laila Woodward, who brings a folk/ ambient hypnosis and haunting to Queer The Pitch. 'Save your soul for another day', she advises.
Pirate Love arrives halfway through Queer The Pitch, a tribute to pirate radio with fuzz bass, strings, FX and a rare groove radio sample, and the alubm finishes with Sweet Equity, a late night jazz/ blues track, more cinematic sounds with bass by Andrew Wal Coughlan, to whom the album is dedicated.
Rich has pulled off something really special on Queer The Pitch, a showcase for some young and emerging talents- singers, songwriters, rappers and poets- whose voices and words find a home in and among the experimental and evocative tracks Rich has created as Dicky Continental- 21st century, South Wales, dub/ spoken word blues.
You can find Queer The Pitch at Ramrock's Bandcamp page and at Dicky Continental's website.
