| Photograph: Courtesy of the artist
Q&A with Edwin Fry
- Written byPost-Grad Community
- Published date 03 November 2026
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Q&A with Edwin Fry
Written by Kevin Quinn, PhD Candidate at Central Saint Martins and member of the Subcultures Post-Grad Interest Group.
Artist, musician and UAL alumnus Edwin Fry tells us about his new E.P., creative stasis and instinctive creativity, influences, inspirations and instigations, remix as rejuvenation, music as a healing balm and future plans. Over to you, Edwin.
Who is Edwin Fry?
Well, I’ve been trying to work that one for a while now ha ha! 30 years at least, and I suspect it’s going to be a lifelong excursion, but you’re more than welcome to have a go yourself if you like. I can’t help thinking it’s the same for most of us, I guess I’m not the only one.
The music has come out under several titles in the past, but I’ve now settled on using my own real name so maybe that’s a step in the right direction of answering that question.
You are a UAL alumnus. What did you study, where, and when?
I did a foundation course at London College of Communication, and then I studied Fine Art (Drawing) at Camberwell College of Arts, I think 2012/2013.
Honestly, I think I should’ve pursued something closer to music. I was always an avid drawer as a kid, and by the time I was a young adult, I was pretty good at it. Mostly, I wanted to do a course that was broad enough to allow me to expand my music catalogue. I’d got into producing music the year before Uni, and I didn’t want to approach music from a technical perspective; instead, I was more interested in approaching it from a fine art perspective. Hence why I went to art school.
Whilst at Uni, I made sound art pieces which I still appreciate to this day. However, because of my lack of focus, I was utterly shocking at organising myself to exhibit the work; I spread myself too thin. In my 2nd year, my debut album was released. As a result, I faltered at Uni. I really think I should’ve taken a gap year or spent a year working. I rushed into education, and I don’t think it was the best decision, but, I can be a secret optimist, so something good will have come out of the whole UAL experience.
Tell us about your new four-track E.P., ‘Calculated’
‘Calculated’ is a knowing wink towards that deliberate action that creating music involves. I think sometimes I’ve fallen into a trap of thinking ‘art’ and ‘talent’ are these mystical notions that are only bestowed on certain people and certain times and in specific ways. The truth is there’s no specialist witchcraft or sorcery to all of this, creating something out of nothing is work like anything else I guess, the more you do it, the better you get.
Those great artists we all admire don’t just ‘shit out’ great work, do they? I’m thinking they must make 100 tracks and only one of them turns out to be any good and eventually they arrive at some sort of calculation.
Electro and techno are perfect for this. They can have that cold and robotic vibe, which seems perfect for acting as though the artist is just a robot, you know, the 2001 syndrome even, calculating that if the kick drum hits at this frequency, it will have this effect ‘obviously’.
In the title track, there is this nice long buildup, drama and intensity constantly increasing. I worked hard on the arrangement for this one I hope the rug is pulled from underneath the listener a bit, you know, instead of going somewhere new. I let it build, almost by itself, let the drama roll a bit you know, and let the words hang.
It’s kind of obvious but that austere voice, it’s like he’s recalling an electronic music recipe on some far-off space aged TV cookery show.
As the EP continues the other tracks get names reduced to just sounds; Don Don / Mmm Mmm / Wub Wub etc. titles to become barely nothing, it’s the musical equivalent to distilling alcohol or reducing gravy with sonic form. I know that sounds absurd, but I can’t think of a better way of explaining it.
This minimal way of naming the tracks was influenced by DJ Metatron’s track ‘Oh Ah’, where the beauty and melancholy of the track is contrasted by the blatant simple title. “Oh Ah”, it all sounds like loneliness to me, that vulnerable voice soaked in reverb, floating in the middle of pads and a thumping kick drum. The track title doesn’t get in the way of the sound, just a reflection of it, I guess.
| Photograph: Courtesy of the artist
Why the gap between 2020’s ‘Nothing Hurts’ E.P.?
‘Nothing Hurts’ is from a good few years ago. There has been a long gap between that and ‘Calculated’ because I drifted around about what to do next. The other work I have been sitting on for a while, I get too involved maybe, and I have an emotional connection to it. ‘Calculated’ on the other hand, was made late 2025 very instinctively and I wanted to get the ball rolling, it felt new and fresh. It didn’t have any connections to the past and there was no nostalgia attached to it.
I’ve spent too long doing the stuff of real life, you know jobs to pay the rent and all that crap we must deal with, and just getting distracted. I may be skint now, but this is a good time, making music and everything that connected to it.
What and who are your inspirations/influences? Musically/cinematically/literally?
I get obsessed with other people’s music, I like drowning in it, and I think everything is a response to everything else, but you must try not to copy it and sound like a cheap imitation.
The best tracks are the ones made when I am not trying to be anyone else and I am in a bit of a flow state.
Is there is no such thing as original art? I don’t know the answer to that, it’s always an amalgamation of different things that you absorb to create into something new. Once its been though the Edwin Fry sieve I hope it’s got its own character and idiosyncrasies.
‘Wub Wub’ was the first of the track I made for the EP. It came about messing around in the studio with my collaborator and friend Vaxen/Verde Mirraggio and he really helped me get the tunes under way.
There’s a bassline in ‘Wub Wub’ was inspired by the swagger of UK Garage and Bass tracks I hear when I’m out. I think I was listening to ‘What You Do with What You Have’ by Blawan a lot around that time.
With ‘Don Don’ I can hear one of my favourite artists of all time - Sasu Ripatti. I don’t mind admitting that, the thick basslines and glitchy percussive sound I’ve been listening to the album ‘Karhunainen’ under his Uusitalo alias which was a big influence here.
’Calculated’ originally sounded more like an electro house track from the noughties. When I was looking for a vocal sample, the original plan was to put a vocoder on it, Kraftwerk style, instead I ended up preferring how it sounded without one, the voice is nice and dry, like a middle management boss explain the job to you, when all you want to do is get the sack.
What literally influenced me on this EP is arpeggios. When producing, I tend to start with my own bag of tricks but because of this, and I had never used an arpeggiator before, I started using one when making this EP and it can be heard on every single track in some way. That creepy synth starting halfway through ‘Calculated’ was made by programming one, and then the bassline was built around that. In ‘Don Don’ you can hear the most obvious instance of an arpeggio around a minute and a half in. The rest of the tracks all feature an exhaustive use of Logic Pro’s arpeggiator. I think a new way of visualising the notes (versus MIDI) helped me create new sounds that I wouldn’t have used before.
On your 2014 album Heal, under the moniker of AxxoN N, The Guardian favourably compared you to both Aphex Twin and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, saying “If this is the sound inside Fry’s head, then it’s a place of dread’.
What’s inside your head now?
There is less dread, but there’s still plenty remaining. I do however consider myself a secret optimist. I suppose when you’ve had trauma the only way is up after that. Personally, I never saw that album as having “dread”, that suggests that the darkness is coming soon, whereas for me the darkness had already passed. It was a concept album and towards the end the album got lighter. The last track is called ‘Life Goes On’, which means you must get on with your life now that the pain has passed. That to me is a hopeful if a bit melancholy message.
Most music I create I like to have a similar ‘bittersweet’ feeling. Making a track that is completely happy or completely sad to me feels inauthentic. Life is never all good or all bad. Even in the worst times, people can do the kindest things for you. In the best times, you can be behaving like a selfish arrogant idiot. There is always light and dark.
How do you approach a remix? What’s your process?
Usually, I sift through the stems of the original track to find something I like. I don’t feel any obligation to make a remix sound anything like the original track. In fact, the more it sounds completely different, the better. Once I’ve found something I like, I will loop it and build a new song around it. Really, a remix for me is treated the same as any other track, the only difference is the original loop is from another artist.
I’ve just finished a remix for Nico Harmony from Manchester; she sent the original over, and I unpacked and reassembled her track ‘Don’t Let the Cold In’ … she has the most original voice I’ve heard in a long time, so rich and expansive. Unlike anyone else. I’m really pleased with the way it came out and hope to do some writing with her in the future.
Any plans for an album, live performances?
I prepared some backing to perform a few tracks that I produced for The Pre New. Otherwise, I’m on the lookout for gigs, DJ sets and collaborations. An album would be further down the line. I would like to start putting out some of my back catalogue; I think that would be cathartic.
Thanks, Edwin!
Further Information
Edwin Fry’s music on
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