right now

Singer-songwriter Henry Dennis’ music reverberates through the English countryside, as he processes the past 20 years. A time living and working in Kelty, Scotland with psych-rock visionary Ramsay Mackay. 

Ramsay is best known as a founding member of South Africa’s Freedom's Children, an iconic 1960’s band — and one of Nelson Mandela’s favorite musical groups — often compared to Pink Floyd.  After a long and seminal rock & roll career in South Africa, Ramsay returned to his native Scotland, already something of a mythical personality; a Charles Bukowski-like eccentric who was fierce, freewheeling, and frenetic. 

1994

Henry met Ramsay near the end of an all-night party in Edinburgh, Scotland one rainy night in 1994.  Neither were particularly fond of aimless jamming, yet they jammed together into the small hours of the morning with a make-shift band of other musicians. They both recognised something magical in the collision of their individual styles. Up until then, Henry had been a lifelong musician who had never found a worthy foil to create with, and he admired Ramsay’s life experiences in the heady 1960s. Despite a nearly three-decade age difference, an indelible impression was made upon both of them. As dawn broke, they chatted about music, Ramsay's psychedelic South African rock band ‘Freedom's Children’, the 60's, the road, 'frothies', 'freakouts', love, politics and the cosmos beyond.  A seed was planted…

Five YEARS LATER

Henry made the bold decision to quit a London career in documentary film-making and headed north to form a band with Ramsay.  The duo rented a series of small cottages over the years, on the edge of a Scottish hill near the former mining villages of Ballingry and Kelty in Fife, close to Edinburgh, and immediately entered into a very prolific period of songwriting. 

They called themselves 'The Fumes' because fuming seemed to be something they were good at, but soon changed to 'The Fumes Of Mars'.  This new moniker reflected their love of science fiction, space, multiple dimensions, and the beyond.  It also felt right because they both felt that so many people on this planet believe in the unbelievable that they might as well all be living on Mars. The new name was also funnier - and mostly they found the world pretty funny, albeit in a dark way. 

a BAND IS BORN

These were heady yet productive times.  The haunting lyrics were often influenced by the outwardly grey but inwardly colourful local scene. The duo wrote about the sense of loss and deprivation so prevalent in this ex-mining area - lost love, lost income, and the loss of life. The closure of the mines had left many in a state of bitterness, anger, and disillusionment.  It was in some ways a broken society with alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment and crime rife throughout. Authority had become a joke, almost inconsequential. Yet there was still a great pride in the area, and an infectious sense of camaraderie and humour.

During this time the world changed dramatically, with the events before and after 9/11. This was visible locally, to Ramsay and Henry, as many young men from Fife went to fight in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All these factors had a profound effect on The Fumes of Mars songwriting, which grew more global and even more political.

The music

Both men had a nostalgia for the music of the 1960's. In Ramsay's case it was because he actually lived and performed through those psychedelic years in both London and South Africa. For Henry the 60’s represented a time when music truly spoke to the people, with an optimistic revolutionary spirit looking to something better. The Fumes Of Mars material captures a mystical 1960s spirit while retaining a visceral modern streak. “It was nostalgic yet futuristic,” Henry acknowledges. “The music embraced darkness in an effort to find the light beyond. There was always something uplifting in each song - a sense of hope to lift the listener out of melancholia.” 

Overall, the songs vary in anthemic anti-establishment musings, humorous cultural snapshots, and impressionistic times of life. Painted within these landscapes are hope and heartbreak. Musically, they fall into a few different stylistic categories. There are punchy almost Clash-like outbursts, there are dreamy groove-based compositions, and imaginatively-arranged tracks that conjure the expansiveness of Pink Floyd during its trippy Meddle-epoch.  Sonically, the production exudes a lo-fi snarl throughout that’s quaintly charming and compelling.

Ramsay

For years the duo wrote songs together in feverish all-day and often all-night sessions. But after writing and recording nearly 100 compositions in their home studio, Ramsay’s health began to deteriorate. Henry eventually married his Scottish girlfriend and in 2012 moved south to start a family on the farm where he was from. Ramsay stayed just outside Kelty and The Fumes of Mars continued to collaborate and plan a mega-release from afar. 

Ramsay was diagnosed with cancer in late 2018 and just two months later passed away. He was buried in his family graveyard overlooking the sea at Portmahomack in the Highlands of Scotland.

wHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

The tangible evidence of all those years of wild work is a deep back catalog of music the pair created together.  Henry has tidied up the vaults and has released three albums from that creatively fertile time. These are available through all digital service providers. Titled: Pain Killer, Soul Error, and The War on Sand. These collections are grouped conceptually.  The War on Sand record, for example, is a lacerating dose of biting political commentary rife with song titles like “Did You Drop The Bomb,” “Hotdog Empire,” and “Great Fucking Britain.”

These releases capture a powerful continuum: they are the most important post-Freedom's Children music from Ramsay, and they are Henry’s first official recordings. This work salutes both the best of what Ramsay was, and also a first look at what is to come from Henry. 

At Ramsay’s funeral, Henry met up with Justin King, an American filmmaker who made a documentary about Ramsay in the 1990’s. Justin had worked in Hollywood, and through his LA connections certain entrees into the LA music industry were available. Both Henry and Justin committed to a project of collaboration in which they would re-record the very best of the Fumes of Mars with top record producer Norman Arnold in Laurel Canyon, just north of Hollywood, where so many great albums have been recorded.

This project was fulfilled during lockdown, with some of the best sessions musicians in LA (including Rami Jaffee from the Foo Fighters) completing their parts long distance. Two albums from these sessions are out now - ‘Remember’ and its companion piece ‘Embers’.

Henry

Henry is now focusing on his solo career and is honing and developing his live sound. The 2020 LA recording sessions feature unreleased songs that Henry penned with Ramsay, as well as some re-workings of FOM material, and also new songs.

As a solo artist Henry performs under his own name ‘Henry Dennis’. He will be continuing Ramsay's legacy through the writing, recording, and performing of FOM material and looks forward to honouring his old friend and collaborator, whilst breaking into his own new dimension.

After all those years living and working with Ramsay, Henry has been known to say that he feels a bit like a time traveller from the 60's, having all these songs created within the spirit of that era - the spirit that Ramsay personified. And now Henry has somehow travelled forward in time and finds himself here alone in the present, with all this wealth of musical history at his back. Strange as it all has been, it is now Henry’s time to rock, to roll, and to share this treasure chest of material with the larger world! The story of the Fumes of Mars is in many ways just beginning.