The Radio Wave Stimul Festival is always trying to bring the very best of the international alternative music scene to Prague, combined with the best of the Czech scene. This year the top act of the first day is the British musician, multi-instrumentalist and producer John Parish. He is the discoverer of PJ Harvey, with whom he has worked on six albums, including two co-written albums: Dance Hall at Louse Point (1996) and A Woman A Man Walked By (2009). He played in the PJ Harvey touring band (guitar/drums/keyboards) and co-produced and played on White Chalk (2007) and the Mercury Prize winning Let England Shake (2011).
Parish is on stage not very much, but at this tour is John Parish and his band presenting songs from the album “Sceenplay”, which was released this year on the Chicago label Thrill Jockey. As the name of the album already says, he is a very talented composer for film score. He began working as a film composer in 1998, writing the score for Belgian director Patrice Toye’s debut film, Rosie.Parish’s score won the Jury Special Appreciation prize at the 1999 Bonn Film & TV Music Biennale. He has since scored other films and a Dutch seven part TV drama Waltz (2006).
His first record release was a single “Mind Made” by the British new wave band, Thieves Like Us (1980).In 1982, he formed the band Automatic Dlamini. Automatic Dlamini recorded three albums: The D is For Drum (1987),Here Catch Shouted his Father (1990 – unreleased but available as a bootleg), and From A Diva to a Diver (1992).By the time From A Diva to a Diver was released, Harvey had left to form the PJ Harvey trio with ex-Dlamini members Rob Ellis and Ian Olliver, and Parish was playing guitar with Marc Moreland’s band The Ensenada Joyride. In 1986 Parish had begun a parallel career as a record producer working with UK bands including The Chesterfields, The Brilliant Corners, The Caretaker Race and The Becketts. In 1995 he co-produced PJ Harvey’s “To Bring You My Love” andco-wrote and produced The Eels album Souljacker (2001). He has produced and/or played on a number of Howe Gelb / Giant Sand albums and frequently appears onstage with them. On Monday, 4th of November is not only John Parish on stage of the LMB, but also the Prague band OTK, which is the main band of the Czech producer Ondrej Jezek.
