Lo-fi storytelling meets high-tech wizardry. Fran Ashcroft sweetens his Lennonesque character studies with pastoral AI-generated orchestral interludes and the result is breathtaking. Welcome to Box Harry Day!
Release Date: 30th May 2025
Label: Self Release
Format: CD / Digital
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
#There’s always at least one thing that can be expected whenever producer/ composer/ multi-instrumentalist/ performer Fran Ashcroft enters his studio. And – that one thing is that, whatever you expect will be thoroughly unexpected. For his last album, 2024’s The Songs That Never Were, Fran used Artificial Intelligence to revitalize a selection of his songs that had been gathering dust – sometimes for as long as 50 years. And, for Box Harry Day, his new album, Fran takes his use of AI to a whole new level. As we shall see…
Fran Ashcroft has worked all around the world, in some of the most hallowed recording studios and with a list of clients that includes such iconic names as Damon Albarn, Spin Jupiter Spin (antecedents to The Dandy Warhols) and Nikkie Van Lierop (Lords of Acid). Box Harry Day is Fran’s 3rd album in a solo career that began in 2023 with his wry debut, A Tour of British Duck Ponds.
LIKE A RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS SYMPHONY…
Box Harry Day is an intriguing album, unlike anything you’ll have come across before. Those expecting a further dose of Fran’s droll, psychedelia-tinged, Lennon-esque British character studies won’t be disappointed; they’re present and correct. But, what’s different as far as Box Harry day is concerned is the way that those songs are packaged and padded. Because, this time around, Fran has used AI to generate some of the sweetest, most pastoral, orchestral interludes around and he’s slotted them in between his songs. The result is a running order that repeatedly lifts the listener from the everyday world of human dysfunction and places them in a revitalizing, sealed environment that resembles a scented, summery meadow, before Fran plunges everyone back into his own distorted world.
It’s all a bit like a Ralph Vaughan Williams symphony.
EXTREMES OF TECHNOLOGY
The idea of using AI in this novel way is something that Fran has been pondering for many years – at least since 1971 – as he explains: “[Back home] there were just 3 or 4 classical albums in the family record rack. When I was about 16, I heard one that had a passage to suit a song I’d written. Back then, the only way I could add it was to record from one tape recorder to another, live – very primitive. Anyhow, I did my best to cue up the record in the right places and mix it into the song manually – rather like DJs sample and assemble sounds now, but without any modern technology. In some ways, the orchestral parts I delivered for Box Harry Day were like that – I’d take the bits I wanted, then edit them into the mix or make a standalone piece out of it.”
Box Harry Day is pretty much all Fran’s own work and the list of instruments and recording aids that he’s used during the recording process reads like a mix between the accumulated hoard of a career musician and the materials for a Blue Peter modelling session. To wit: Trixon drums with Premier snare, Tea towel, empty cordless kettle cardboard box, Hornby-Skewes pentagonal plectrums, Sharp cassette recorder that won’t record, modified Selmer Compact 30 amplifier, Hofner violin bass guitar with old bit of wool string damping system, AI orchestra. What could possibly go wrong??
ORCHESTRAL INTERLUDES
It’s a short orchestral piece that gets Box Harry Day underway. Prelude is a 1:18 burst of extreme sweetness that left me wondering if it prepared me in any way for what was to come. I was to find out in short order. There’s another five such pieces spread throughout the album, each titled ‘Pebble,’ with a suffix number added to distinguish between each piece.
Fran explains the choice of the ‘Pebble’ title in his own inimitable way: “Using AI to create music is a bit like throwing a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples it makes. You get to choose the size and shape of the pebble, how far you throw it and, to some extent, where it lands. AI makes sound like a pebble makes ripples. Your engagement with it is remote in one respect, but you have made the decisions that enabled the process. It’s not quite like writing a book made from sentences supplied at random , but there ARE similarities. This poses a question – who is the writer? The pebble or the ripples?
OBSERVATIONAL SONGS
Turning to Fran’s observational songs, it’s the droll Good Day that gets that aspect of the album up and running. Fran’s lyrics – “It’s a good day – better than a bad one. Good enough to make me want to sing this song” – point out the futility of wishing away one’s time, to an accompaniment of plodding electric piano and a gentle cymbal rhythm. And I love the short xylophone solo!
I’m reminded of The Rutles’ Let’s Be Natural by the wistful Pebble Drop and the song’s psychedelic/orchestral playout is the perfect ending. Chamber pop with a message is a particular Fran Ashcroft specialty and Flag Waving British Bastard is an excellent example of that genre. OK, so it might take a few listens to understand exactly what the message is, but you’ll have fun figuring it out. And – Fran’s intro/outro: “When I grow old, I don’t wanna be a flag-waving British bastard” is guaranteed to get all right- thinking listeners on his side from the outset.
QUIRKY, ENJOYABLE & LEFT-FIELD
Quirky and enjoyable, Lonely Traveller is another wistful ballad, sung to a gently-disjointed Wurlitzer-sounding accompaniment, before Fran takes on the album’s title track and probable centrepiece. “Whatever you decide to do, it really is just up to you. Will it make a difference? Yes, it makes a difference,” is just one observation that Fran makes during his sequence of stream-of-consciousness, psychedelic ramblings. And, in the best tradition of such songs, Fran has included a grand, string-laden playout and a rousing round of audience applause.
The left-field doo-wop of Gravitational Pull is deliberately laden with clichés – “…the sun won’t shine, words won’t rhyme, if you’re not around. Anymore.” It’s hilarious and says everything that needs to be said, with a few bars of backward guitar thrown in for good measure.
WILL TOMORROW BE BETTER THAN TODAY?
And – to close…
What better than another soft Lennon-like ballad, flavoured with tasteful electric guitar and piccolo trumpet? End of the Trail is, in many ways, the perfect ‘farewell’ song, ideal for a funeral in which the deceased wishes to shock his funeral guests. And the song -and the album – end properly, with a stirring orchestral finale.
Box Harry Day is a tremendous album which, perhaps, should be made compulsory listening for anyone who believes that music has run out of things to say or places to explore. And that title? Box Harry Day is an old Lancashire expression for the day before payday. It’s a phrase that made Fran ponder: “Does this demonstrate a belief that payday will indeed arrive, that tomorrow will be better than today, and to tolerate the present, no matter how harsh, in the hope of a better future? Or is it simply a useful excuse to postpone something you’d prefer not to do?”
Here’s where we came in…
Watch the official video to Good Day, a track from the album, below:
Fran Ashcroft online: Facebook / YouTube / Bandcamp
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