Bio – Keith M Thomson

Scottish born, and for a long time now London based, singer/songwriter Keith M Thomson’s fine blend of darkly humorous lyrics and infectious, cross-cultural melodies have enticed and entertained broad, international audiences across the UK and Europe; both with his own engaging, often intense, solo shows and as front-man of his band, The Penny Black Remedy.

Keith released his debut solo album, “It’s Not A Matter Of Space”, on December 9th 2016. The album was written, performed, recorded and mixed by Keith and features additional vocals by long-time musical collaborator and co-singer of TPBR, Marijana Hajdarhodzic. Select tracks from the album were accompanied by promotional videos.

Keith released his second solo album, “A Death In Kreuzberg“, on Fri 27th April 2018. He plans to perform material from both his solo albums live at choice events throughout the course of 2018. The first song to be released from “A Death In Kreuzberg” is called “No More Short Cuts Home“, the release of which was accompanied by a video (filmed and edited again by Marijana Hajdarhodzic).

Released by the label mono del mundo and distributed globally by Cadiz Music, both albums are available to buy from www.kmthomson.com, Amazon and iTunes. Both solo albums are also available to stream on Spotify, Soundcloud and www.kmthomson.com.

Keith released his third album, entitled ‘Give The Void Its Colours’, in July 2022. The album was released on limited edition CD and was preceded by a single called ‘Sinkhole‘.

‘Sinkhole’ was released digitally and as a limited edition 7” clear vinyl on the label Super8Singles Club.

Keith will be releasing a 4th solo album on Friday 17th November 2023. Entitled ‘Sublingual’, the album will be released on the UK label Super8Sync Recordings.

Keith had this to say about ‘Sublingual’:

“It is a little different from previous musical ventures of mine, as it is an instrumental collection of (what I’m calling) ‘mini-soundtracks’…..

Although it wasn’t written as such, this release feels like a natural sequel (or maybe even a companion piece) to my previous solo album, last year’s ‘Give The Void Its Colours’. Listened to back to back, there is a definite cohesion (to my ears).

While definitely heavier on the beats and analogue synths than the preceding album, the songs share a similar noir-ish atmosphere with a healthy splattering of twang-some, reverb soaked guitars (as is my wont 😊), but with a touch more electronica and experimentation at its core”.

On the writing, recording and release of his solo albums, and on why he is presenting new material as a solo artist, Keith had this to say:

Over the last few years, I’ve written a lot of new songs, many of which I felt didn’t quite fit within the 'musical and lyrically stylistic remit' (which granted, is fairly broad) of The Penny Black Remedy. But I really liked a lot of the songs and felt it would be a shame for them to kind of metaphorically sit idly and gather dust exclusively in my own (non-metaphorical) head. So basically, I just decided to perform, record and release the material myself, on a new label, and under my own name. I think the solo material differs (in my mind, fairly radically) in a few different ways to TPBR; The songs themselves are structurally quite different (being less cross-genre and ostensibly less 'upbeat', tempo-wise) and I guess thematically, the overall mood is a shade 'darker'. This in turn has made this album sound quite spacious and has conceivably given it a more 'cinematic/soundtrack' feel; Lyrically, the songs are less obviously, (and perhaps less flippantly), autobiographical and are a lot more narrative based. A friend who had an early listen to the album said he thought it sounded like the "musical equivalent of a movie jointly directed by John Waters, John Ford and David Lynch". I liked that. It kind of summed the whole thing up. For me, anyway.”

KMT

The Penny Black Remedy are a London-based, culturally diverse act renowned for their energetic live shows, unique musical fusion of many different genres and for songwriter Keith M Thomson’s distinct blend of darkly humorous lyrics and joyfully hooky melodies.

At TPBR’s core is Scottish born singer/songwriter/guitarist Thomson and singer/percussionist Marijana Hajdarhodzic from Croatia.

The band’s line up is a colourful and cross-cultural collective of noted, in-demand London musicians including TPBR regulars Jeremy Mendonca from California, USA on bass guitar/acoustic guitar/vocals and Basia Bartz from Poland on violin.

The Penny Black Remedy released their third album, ‘Maintaining Dignity In Awkward Situations‘ on 24th November 2017 and immediately garnered much critical praise from the music press.

RnR Magazine gave the album an early glowing 5 Star review, saying:

Lead singer and songwriter for The Penny Black Remedy, Keith M Thomson, is a genius. It is the strength of these genre-straddling songs that makes Maintaining Dignity In Awkward Situations a diamond shining bright amongst the wealth of Gypsy-tinged folk and country bands competing for our attention”.

RnR Magazine

Noel Casey said on his radio show After Midnight 103.2 Dublin City FM:

“the new TPBR CD is brilliant… very clever, very funny… quite dark in places… but brilliant”.

Noel Casey - Dublin City FM

‘Maintaining Dignity In Awkward Situations’ was included on various Albums Of The Year 2017 lists, including Adam Wilson’s Quiet Revolution Radio Show, Rockshot Magazine and Dancing About Architecture. The album was co-produced by Boz Boorer (Morrissey/The Polecats/Adam Ant).

TPBR released their debut album, ‘No One’s Fault But Your Own’, in May 2009 and their second, ‘Inhale… Exhale… OK, Now You Can Panic!’ in July 2013; both received rave reviews from the major music press including Q, Uncut, R2 Magazine, The Daily Mirror and Americana-UK on their release.

The Penny Black Remedy continue to keep a busy schedule and will be showcasing material from their new album on tours of the UK and Europe throughout Spring 2018 and beyond. They will be releasing the second single and video from their recent third album later in the year and plan to release an album of new material in 2019.

On the subject of TPBR’s music, Thomson says:

The fact that most of the songs are about death, lost love, living in a constant state of crippling paranoid fear and/or coping with the daily grind of everyday life is irrelevant. Encouraging people to sing loudly and out of tune about the absurdity of general existence seems to instill a sense of comfort and emotional unity...I think".

KMT