Do you have any creative rituals or routines?
I don’t really have anything that I do routinely, but I like to be able to see outside whilst working. I don’t really enjoy being locked up in a dark room where the only light is the blue light from a computer screen. I don’t like the whole dungeon dweller thing; I really love being able to see the world happening around me when I work. I also tend to make a song, bounce it and then drive around and listen to it in my car. There is nothing like driving around London at night whilst listening to something.
What is a project you’re particularly proud of and why?
I’m really proud of the work I did on the David Haye film as it was my first time scoring anything longer than a 10-minute short film. It was a massive leap for me, but I think I made some of the best music I’ve ever made. I always wanted to make music that had to coincide with a narrative and would be shaped by the ebbs and flows of something other than the music itself. Having finished this I wanted to continue doing this.
Who or what is currently inspiring you?
I’m a massive fan of anime. The universes that the writers and creators build are incredible and almost feel otherworldly even though they are sometimes or even mostly based on some version of earth. I’ve been watching anime and reading manga for many years now and I still get that childish wonderment each and every time I watch something new or revisit my old favourites.
Which part of the creative process do you enjoy most?
I love the start of every project because that’s when your eyes and ears are at their widest and most open. You feel like there are infinite possibilities to tackle the visual piece in front of you. I tend to hear the song in my head before playing the first note and then I’ll take those thoughts and build something out of them. Once you’ve established a sound you tend to have certain themes and motifs (depending on the project) and build a world out of those.
What is on your bucket list? What do you hope to achieve/do in future?
Emmy...
Grammy...
Oscar...
Tony...
Last film you watched?
Perfect Blue
Last song you listened to?
Nova by Deadboy
Favourite film score/soundtrack?
This is a tough one... The intro to ‘Girl with all the gifts’ was insane. The minute I heard it in the cinema it gave me Goosebumps, but on a whole I think my favourite score is 25th Hour by Terrence Blanchard. I was obsessed with it when the film came out, I listened to the CD over and over for a long time. I still go back to it from time to time and it sounds as good as the first time I listened to it.
Advice for your younger self?
Don’t be so hard on yourself. I tend to be really hard on myself about the music I make as it doesn’t really fall into a genre as such. I never really studied a sound I liked or emulated a certain producer, I just made things that sounded good in my ears when I first started to make music.
What do you do when you’re not working? Any guilty pleasures?
I love to play video games. Some would say I’m obsessed but I would call it enthusiastic. I’m currently playing Read Dead Redemption 2 and the music in that is incredible – Western cinematic but very subtle. D’Angelo actually wrote a song for that game. I don’t know if gaming is a guilty pleasure to me, but society deems it as one – so there you go.
You’ve been appearing regularly on The Reggie Yates Podcast for a year. What drew you to the medium and how does it compare to music production?
I’ve always loved podcasts. I think it has something to do with my love of stories. I’ve always had a curiosity about people and why they are the way they are and why they do the things they do, and podcasts are truly a great way to satisfy that curiosity. Making music is completely different proposition as it’s a little more calculated whereas podcasting is completely off the cuff unless it’s a documentary series.
When creating the music for Portrait of a Fighter, what was the process like and what was most challenging about it?
There was a lot of music to make in a very short amount of time, but it was a great experience. Time management is definitely something I learned from this but most importantly collaboration. Thomas Farnon is one hell of a musician and working with him and learning from him was more valuable than anything I've taught myself in the last 5 years. We have different, but complementary styles of music. I think his understanding of combining audio to video is incredible and I’ve definitely nicked a few tricks from him since working on that film.
You collaborate with lots of different artists. How do you approach and adapt to projects of different styles and genres?
As I grew up listening to pretty much everything from grunge to UK garage to hip hop and house, I never really confined my music to any one genre – I left myself pretty open creatively. If you listen to the tracks I’ve made for hip hop artists or RnB singers none of them sound exclusively like one of those things because I tend to move freely between various genres – even within a single track.
Is there a creative area you want to explore more in depth in the future?
I’ve always wanted to write a short story in 6 parts and then score each part. I’ve got so many ideas in my head but I’m yet to put pen to paper. The idea of building my own universe with a signature sound has always been something I’ve wanted to and will do in the future.
What is something you learned from a past project that you’ve taken with you?
I’ve learned to trust my gut. With the Warrior Women with Lupita Nyong’o (Channel 4 Documentary Film) I was given a lot of creative freedom and I learned to trust myself and not second guess what I was doing. I pride myself massively on not sounding like anyone else and I feel like this project gave me the ability to experiment a lot. I wrote a cinematic GQOM track (South African dance music), I don’t think there are many of those about.
