Bid, the "main man" of The Monochrome Set, started Scarlet's Well as a studio project in 1998, and has since released four albums with Siesta Records (Spain): "Strange Letters" (1999), "The Isle Of The Blue Flowers" (2000), "Alice In The Underworld" (2002), and "The Dream Spider Of The Laughing Horse" (2004).
Archaic and arcane, literate and witty, cinematic and surreal, the Scarlet's Well songs are gorgeous, timeless, intoxicating melodies arranged for accordions, mandolins, brushed drums, summer guitars, smoky pianos, banjos, fiddles, ukuleles, and bouzoukis. Bid's voice takes turns with a diverse cast of young ladies recruited from local school musicals. His SW writing collaborators have included living modern rock star Alex Kapranos from Franz Ferdinand, and dead Victorian poet Christina Rossetti, constantly in church services with the hymn "In The Bleak Midwinter". All of which is very Scarlet's Well.
In the 90s, Bid worked as a producer for MS-admiring groups like The Would-Be-Goods and The Karelia, the underrated former combo of Alex Kapranos. He was also behind the acclaimed compilation "Songs For The Jet Set" (1996), celebrated by NME as "escapist pop music of the highest calibre; a tapestry of delights...8/10", and by Melody Maker as an album of "poise, balance, charm - with oodles of class added."
