M61

Members Music Magazine Issue 61 September 2016

THROWING SHADE music & games Find your groove

RADIOHEAD

jah wobble

From PiL to pop and back

JULIE FOWLIS

HIFI SEAN

classical

Cultural clout LADY LESHURR

digital edition

contents

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COVER FEATURE

THROWING SHADE West London’s premiere pop agitator Throwing Shade is using her principles and persistence to subvert the sound of the city. We learn how.

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CLASSICAL Meet the contemporary classical figureheads reimagining the genre.

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JUST JOINED

JOHN BATTEN, ALEX HURST, CARL ENGLISH

Meet PRS for Music’s newest members.

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JAH WOBBLE

How to make waves in the immersive world of videogame soundtracks.

Enter the sonic universe of a bass-playing visionary.

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26

60 SECONDS

I WROTE THAT

PICTURE THIS

One-time Soup Dragon turned super-producer on working with your musical heroes.

The first lady of UK grime let us in how to break the internet.

How an antiquated photographic process defined Radiohead’s The King of Limbs.

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SOCIAL @m_magazineprs @m_magazineprs /prsformusic /prsformusic /m_magazineprs

cover photo: throwing shade photo: carl english

GAMING

EDITORIAL

PRODUCTION

Editor Paul Nichols

Production & Design Carl English

Associate Editor Anita Awbi Senior Writer Jim Ottewill

Membership Advisor Myles Keller

CONTRIBUTORS Amy Field, Sophie Elderton, Liam McMahon, Stefania Pavlou, Cerian Squire, Alex Sharman, Alice Thornton, Claire Wells.

PRS for Music, 2 Pancras Square. London N1C 4AG T 020 7580 5544 E magazine@prsformusic.com W www.prsformusic.com The printing of M Magazine is managed on behalf of PRS for Music

by Cyan Group Ltd, Twickenham. www.cyan-group.com Advertising T 020 3225 5200

E orla-tickton@media-ten.com

ISSN 0309-0019© PRS for Music 2016. All rights reserved. The views expressed in M are not necessarily those of PRS for Music, nor of the editorial team. PRS for Music accepts no responsibility for the views expressed by contributors to M, nor for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations, nor for errors in contributed articles or advertisements. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

M is printed on paper manufactured using chlorine-free pulps and the raw materials are from fully managed and sustainable forests.

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just joined

sign up for information about becoming a member visit prsformusic.com/joinus

declan mckenna Quitting school and giving up on your GCSEs to work on your debut album could be seen as an outburst of youthful arrogance rather than a display of any real songwriting nous. But Declan McKenna is a teenager whose music goes further than typical angsts. Instead of unrequited lust or getting smashed in parks on cheap cider, his songs show off an artistry more fully formed than many older songsmiths.

wolfgang & camille buttress Award-winning artist Wolfgang Buttress and his daughter Camille have taken the dialogue between humans and the natural world to the next level with One, a collaboration between a musical ensemble and 40,000 bees.

The work was part of The Hive, an installation from the multi-award winning UK Pavilion Milan Expo 2015. The piece sought to highlight the importance of the honey bee in our food chain and their plight as a species. With the help of BE, a loose collective of musicians including Spiritualized’s Kev Bales and Jason Pierce, plus Wolfgang and Camille, One was an improvisation based on the key of C set off by a live audio stream from a huge hive of bees.

The Hive is now on display at Kew Gardens while BE have given a series of much-acclaimed live performances at festivals including Glastonbury and Blue Dot. Teenage songwriter Camille’s musical improvisations with classically trained cellist Deirdre Bencsik provided the musical basis for the BE soundscape and the accompanying album. New material is expected from her in early 2017. wolfgangbuttress.com/be-one Find out about more of our new members on m-magazine.co.uk

Written in the summer of 2014 about FIFA President Sepp Blatter and the corruption swirling around that year’s football World Cup, Declan’s debut single Brazil married meaning to melodies strong enough to win him a place on the books of Columbia Records alongside PEACE and The Vaccines.

While the ink was still drying on the contract, he entered and subsequently won the 2015 Glastonbury Emerging Talent Competition.

His victory led to a slot on the festival’s main stage, plus a £5,000 development bursary from the PRS for Music Foundation.

Declan’s second single upped the ante even further. Paracetamol is a song inspired by the tragic tale surrounding trans-teenager Leelah Alcorn, who took her own life in December 2014.

While the darker end of reality continues to be his muse (Isombard tackles police brutality, The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home was written after the Paris terror attacks), Declan doesn’t sacrifice his love for earworm pop over message. Instead, he manages to successfully meld the two, meaning his music has been a huge hit over 2016’s festival season with a new generation of switched on music lovers wanting more from their sing-a-long pop.

With James Ford (Arctic Monkeys and Foals) joining Neil Comber on production duties, a debut album is currently in the works. So it seems this kid is more than alright. He’s going places. declanmckenna.net

mutado pintado

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Spreading ‘sonically transmitted diseases’ is the aim of eccentric songwriter Mutado Pintado, a man whose creative tentacles stretch right through the darker corners of London’s musical underground.

by Resident Advisor. On the flip, he sings with Warmduscher, an offshoot of Fat White Family, who are currently working with Kate Tempest producer Dan Carey on a second album.

As songwriters go, Mutado Pintado could be one of the capital’s most colourful and eclectic. He’s frontman for Paranoid London, a revered live techno act well known for playing hard and fast.

They’ve been causing a stir at raves across the world with their driving, unhinged acid and were judged one of the best live acts in electronica

Mutado is also vocalist in Save, a collaboration with Colder’s Marc Nguyen Tan, and is bringing his lyrical filth to a new project with Iggor & Laima Cavalera (Sepultura/Mixhell) and Joe Goddard of Hot Chip. facebook.com/pintadomulato

members & music

SIxty SEcoNdS

HIFI SEAN Hifi Sean is the latest guise of songwriter, DJ and producer Sean Dickson. Previously frontman of Scottish guitar wielders The Soup Dragons and latterly artful poppers The High Fidelity, he’s since reinvented himself, embracing the nocturnal worlds of disco, house and electro.

His latest LP FT is his first under this banner and sees him collaborating with some of the most significant musical icons of the past 40 years including Yoko Ono, Soft Cell’s Dave Ball and Alan Vega from Suicide.

How did FT happen?

I wanted to work with unique people from my record collection who sound like nobody else. No one thinks in genres anymore as everybody’s record collections are so eclectic.

It was really exciting for me getting back to making music after so long.

That was the reason I did it. I’d been fucked around so much by the industry that I lost all energy in making records.

Working with 13 collaborators is some undertaking - what was the biggest challenge?

It was important for me to make it sound like an album and leave my musicality all over it, especially as the musicality of these collaborators is so strong. I don’t think anybody on the album sounds like themselves, whether it’s Yoko Ono or B52’s Fred Schneider.

What’s the secret to collaborating with your heroes?

I was at shy at first but then the producer in me took over. When I started, the album was less song-based and more experimental. But then I realised as it continued that I really am a songwriter after all. The challenge was to forget who I was working with and concentrate on what’s best for the music. All of my collaborators must have trusted me and that blows my mind. They all let me take their legacy and put it on record.

Who was the most surprising collaborator you worked with?

They were all amazing. But Alan stands out for sad reasons after his death.

You don’t expect to work with somebody and they don’t live to see its release.

He took a chance doing something different - they all did – as part of the idea was to push them out of their comfort zones. With Alan it would have been really easy to make a Suicide-esque record. But I wanted to do something very electronic and minimal, then halfway through the track falls apart and an orchestra takes over. He adored the idea. But I’ve found it really hard to get my head round how I helped him make his last record. The first time I listened to it properly in San Francisco I ended up crying my eyes out.

It’s weird for people when the penny drops I was in The Soup Dragons, especially online. There was something I was tagged in that mentioned them and suddenly, I had hundreds of Facebook friend requests. That’s what happens in the digital world.

The weirdest thing is how I get continually asked to reform previous bands, but that just doesn’t excite me. I like moving forward. On the back of one of our old records it said ‘Forwards ever, backwards never’.

It just wouldn’t fulfil me to look to the past.

What are your hopes for FT? All you can hope is people hear it. I always remember Jazz Summers, an old manager of mine who passed away last year, used to say ‘get the music right and everything falls into place’. I’m still a bit old school like that. It’s now really hard to get records on the radio because there’s so much. We’re a nation of scrollers with short attention spans. I’m the same as a DJ. I don’t know any who listen to every seven-minute track they get.

But I have a fear that I get sent so much music, I’ll miss a brilliant record.

I always remember John Peel had sacks full of records in his house. He had piles for listening now, some later, some never. I asked him how he kept this going. He said: ‘I always believe the next record I hear may be the best I’ve ever heard’. I’ll take that to my grave. It’s the best thing that anybody’s ever said to me.

FT is out now on Plastique Recordings.

You’re now working as Hifi Sean - what’s behind this?

People want you to have a hashtag that defines you. But I probably have about five because I’ve been in so many bands. My email address was Hifi Sean so it just stuck as a DJ name. When it came to this album, it made sense to use it.

hifisean.com Head over to m-magazine.co.uk for the full interview

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members & music

JOURNEY TO CASSIOPEIA

LOST IN THE WOODS

Experimental singer, songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Hannah Peel has been traversing the vast musical universe since 2010. In that time she’s cross-pollinated her ideas with The Magnetic North, Wild Beasts’ Hayden Thorpe, John Foxx and The Maths, and lent her voice to the latest Beyond the Wizard’s Sleeve album.

about it, but things came together about six months ago just after I’d visited her,’ she tells M. ‘Grandma had been in her own world for such a long time, but when we started singing she completely opened up and remembered the words and melodies. We sang a Yeats poem back to her, one that she knew by heart, The Isle of Innisfree. It was a very emotional moment’.

Stevenage singer-songwriter Kelvin Jones is barely 20 years old but he’s already played to crowds of 20,000 in Europe and landed a place on the coveted BBC Radio 1 A-list with his single Closer.

Using the last half-century of wayward electronics and acoustica as her guide, she’s explored the buzz and whir of lo-fi indie, synthpop and the avant-garde. Now, for her new album, Awake But Always Dreaming, which was funded by the PRS for Music Foundation’s Momentum Fund, Hannah puts the debilitating brain disease dementia under her musical microscope.

Also this year, Hannah has developed the alterego Mary Casio, who draws on the work of early electronic pioneers Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram. Alongside Tubular Brass, who were inspired by a new brass score of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, she’s created an oscillating masterpiece, Journey to Cassiopeia. It combines brass and electronics for more than 30 musicians and will be performed at PRS for Music Foundation’s New Music Biennial in Hull next year.

‘It’s a record inspired by my grandma, who fell into dementia a long time ago and passed away earlier this year. I didn’t set out to make an album

Awake But Always Dreaming is out now.

RESONATING RHYTHMS Resonate is a new PRS for Music Foundation initiative to encourage professional orchestras to programme and perform British classical music from the past 25 years. Grants of £10,000 are available for up to 12 orchestras per year who want to rehearse, tour or promote a piece of music from the Resonate database. The scheme, which is run in partnership with the Association of British Orchestras and BBC Radio 3, aims to inspire more performances, recordings and broadcasts of existing UK repertoire.

Learn more and search the database of works commissioned by UK orchestras since 1990 at resonate.abo.org.uk 6_september 2016_m61

His rapid ascent has taken him from busking on street corners to receiving the Best Newcomer accolade at last year’s British Urban Music Awards, a promise he came good on in 2016 with his debut LP, Stop the Moment.

Kelvin’s gentle assembly of acoustic guitars, classic piano and stirring melodies went down a storm at the PRS for Music-curated Lost in the Woods stage at Festival No.6, where he played alongside fellow newcomers Get Inuit, Habitats and Beach Baby.

We grabbed him after his set to learn more about how he first got to grips with songwriting. ‘I’ve played guitar a while, but if you go on YouTube and type “guitarist” there are 50 million amazing ones out there,’ he said. ‘I thought there must be a way to separate myself and be more unique: if I write my own crappy songs no one else can have them, they’re mine!’

‘Michael Jackson, John Mayer, BB King and Noel Gallagher are my songwriting heroes. Noel doesn’t write to impress anyone, he writes what he feels and he wants to make us feel something too – that’s all it is. I want to write simple, powerful pop melodies that have that effect as well.’

Kelvin is on a European tour this autumn, which stops in at The Camden Assembly, London, on 20 October. Watch the full video with Kelvin, plus others from the Lost in the Woods stage, on m-magazine.co.uk.

Hannah Peel #fundedbyprsf

members & music

JAZZWISE

GLOBETROTTERS Jamie Isaac, Yola Carter, LA Salami (left) and Hannah Scott are among the latest acts to receive support from the PRS for Music Foundation’s International Showcase Fund (ISF).

Jamie and LA Salami were supported to perform at the Reeperbahn showcase, Germany, alongside Flight Brigade, ephemerals, George Cosby and Soom T. Yola went to Nashville’s AmericanaFest alongside William the Conqueror and Robert Vincent, while Hannah travelled to the Mondo NYC festival in mid-September with other successful grantees Organised Scum.

Have you been invited to perform at an international showcase? The ISF offers grants of up to £5,000 to help cover travel, visa and accommodation costs. To find out more, visit prsformusicfoundation.com

Saxophonist Trish Clowes is appearing at the EFG London Jazz Festival, headlining a free PRS for Music-sponsored stage.

Taking place from 11 to 20 November and produced by Serious, the festival is a highlight of the jazz calendar with more than 2,000 artists playing. This year Jacob Collier, Norma Winstone and the Mercury-Prize nominated The Comet is Coming all feature.

Trish said: ‘Our gig at the festival will showcase my new album and is the first proper London appearance of my band as a quartet. It’s going to be a great show. Concert hall gigs are good too but you only have a finite number in the audience.

One of the best things with these free events is how many more people can hear your music.’

She also emphasised the importance of PRS for Music royalties in sustaining her career. ‘They make up a substantial part of my income as I’m sure they do for many artists,’ she told M. The PRS for Music Foundation has also supported Trish’s work including recordings and her music festival, Emulsion. She added: ‘They are a very important organisation in enabling and facilitating new music in the UK.’ Read the full interview with Trish online now.

GOING UNDERGROUND Punk rockers Bad Breeding, Cabbage (above), Bald Wife and Peach Club will be adding a shot of adrenaline to Norwich Sound & Vision festival when they bring their unruly sonics to the PRS for Music showcase.

Anarchic Stevenage four-piece Bad Breeding are headlining, promising a rollercoaster ride of tense, taut guitars and acerbic political commentary. Over the last 12 months, the band have been causing quite a stir both in and out of the studio, aided by a raucous self-titled debut album and an unforgiving live show that’s earned them the moniker ‘Britain’s loudest band’. Don’t miss them as they kick off the festival at The Mash Tun on 13 October.

Trish Clowes, Jamie Isaac, Yola Carter, LA Salami, Hannah Scott, Bad Breeding, Lets Eat Grandma, Flamingods #fundedbyprsf

Norwich Sound & Vision returns for its seventh year from 13 to 15 October and, alongside the PRS for Music showcase, it promises a slew of magic gigs from local electronic duo Let’s Eat Grandma, Flamingods and The Membranes, plus a BBC Introducing-curated stage.

Across its three days, the festival also offers lively debate, discussion, networking, advice and inspiration for anyone who’s involved in the music, radio and multimedia industries.

PRS for Music members get a 10 percent discount on tickets.

Visit m-magazine.co.uk and search Norwich for more info. m61_september 2016_7

members & music

SouNd EFFEct

WE SUPPORT SONGWRITERS AND COMPOSERS IN NEED The help and guidance we provide can include grants, assistance with sheltered accommodation, debt management advice, career counselling and access to much needed physical and mental health care.

To find out more and apply for help, visit prsformusicfund.com or call 020 3741 4067

Julie Fowlis is a multi-award-winning Gaelic singer and musician whose early upbringing on the Outer Hebridean island of North Uist is deeply distilled in her work. Now with a career spanning 10 years and four studio albums, she’s become a torchbearer for her native tradition.

From singing the Oscar-nominated theme song to the Disney film Brave, to collaborating with James Taylor and Nicola Benedetti, she’s crossed over from her Scottish folk base to win a wider audience around the globe. Julie also co-presents the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, an annual offshoot of the station’s lauded Folk Show.

The first music I remember hearing was…

A mix of music influenced by my mother and father. I remember listening to The Band’s Up on Cripple Creek one minute, then traditional Gaelic music the next, which was playing on the Ràdio nan Gàidheal station. Particular personalities which stand out include Calum Kennedy singing Mo mhàthair or the great Iain MacLaughlin playing tunes like The Hen’s March.

The first record I ever bought was…

I think it was Bananarama’s Greatest Hits Collection in 1988. This was closely followed by collecting an entire magazine series, which included CDs of all the greatest classical composers.

I was inspired after taking up the oboe aged 14. Since then, I’ve developed a particular fondness for baroque music and have been continually inspired by composers who write for film, such as John Williams and Ennio Morricone.

PRS for Music Members Benevolent Fund A Registered Charity No. 208671

Facebook.com/prsfund Twitter.com/prsfund

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The last great record I listened to was…

Oooh that’s a tough one. It changes from week to week, day to day. Some of my favourites lately include Scottish Album of the Year winner Kathryn Joseph’s Bones You Have Thrown Me and Blood I’ve Spilled, Laura Mvula’s The Dreaming Room, groundbreaking Irish group Lynched, with their album Cold Old Fire, Kris Drever’s If Wishes Were Horses and

Karen Matheson’s beautiful new solo album Urram.

The song I wish I’d written is…

Free Man in Paris by Joni Mitchell.

The song that makes me want to dance is…

Johnny Got a Boom Boom by gorgeous Irish singer Imelda May. I love a good tune too, so music that makes me both want to dance and play along would be good Hebridean and Highland music like John Alex MacKay and Seonaidh MacIntyre’s Torlum Sessions or Iain MacDonald and Iain MacFarlane’s The First Harvest.

The song that makes me cry is…

An Eala Bhàn as sung by Hugh Matheson (Uisdean Sheumais Bhàin) from North Uist and Hearts of Olden Glory by Runrig.

I have cried listening to them, and I have broken down singing them too.

The song that I know all the words to is…

Well, there are quite a few of them… it’s my job!

The song I want played at my funeral is…

I don’t want to think about that…

Julie Fowlis plays the Perthshire Amber Festival on 4 and 5 November.

making music

writer’s block Some of the UK’s brightest songwriters and composers share their thoughts on writer’s block and how to overcome it…

NORMAN BLAKE, TEENAGE FANCLUB

AMY LOVE, NOVA TWINS

It’s difficult to try and force music out of you. If you wake up, pick up your guitar and it’s not there, go do something else for a bit. Mow the lawn if you have one! Sometimes I’ll change the tuning of my guitar. This slight variation suggests other melodies that can make inspiration come. @TeenageFanclub

It can be hard, especially when you have been stuck on the same idea for a while. I hate to force music but sometimes you have to push yourself to write daily until the right idea forms. I’d rather spend a week writing and scrapping ideas than settling for something just to get a song finished quickly. @NovaTwinsMusic

LAURA BOWLER, COMPOSER

TOM EVANS, VESSELS

I tend to get very anxious, cry a bit, hug my dog, get a grip, shout at my husband, hug my dog, hug my husband, eat some chocolate, have a cup of tea and get back to it. This can happen three or four times a week…

Sometimes I take the more sensible option in reading, watching or listening to something that provokes me. @LJBcomposer

Try writing on a new instrument that you’ve never played before - you’re almost guaranteed to stumble across something new, assuming you manage to make a noise at all! For guitarists, playing in a new tuning is also a great trick.

SEB ROCHFORD, POLAR BEAR

KENNETH HESKETH, COMPOSER

I try not to pressure myself to create. When I haven’t felt like I could write for a project, I often write something else to free myself. It doesn’t have to be specific. Composing is about connecting myself and self-expression. If I have a block, I do whatever I feel to make the connection again. @polarbearseb

I used to have no systematised way to correct writer’s block and so would be generally very unhappy and frustrated until something suggested itself. But I have realised it is the material and its context that, through some problem or lack of forethought, is ill-fitting. So tracing things back to that defect allows a possible correction. @krhes

Laura Bowler, Ken Hesketh #fundedbyprsf

@Vesselsband

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money & business BREXIT BARGAINING POWER

As the music industry digests the fallout from Brexit, PRS for Music’s Project and External Affairs Advisor Ali Condon lets us in on the work that’s taking place to ensure songwriters get a fair hearing at the negotiating table.

This autumn, as the drama of the EU referendum gives way to contemplation and negotiation, only one thing remains clear: no one knows when Britain will actually leave the EU, and under what circumstances. But, as an industry, it’s the perfect time to take stock of our current standing and work out where we want to be two, five, even 10 years from here.

When we do eventually leave the EU, there are myriad possibilities, both with regard to the terms of our departure and the agreements that will replace our membership of the union.

negotiating chip that is simply tacked on to the end of a trade agreement.

Copyright law is currently set by the EU, but it’s applied in the UK via secondary legislation.

Therefore, it’s highly likely the current copyright regime will remain in force as is, even after the repeal of the EU Communities Act, the piece of legislation which enshrines the primacy of EU law in the UK.

No one can say how long the negotiation process might take, or to what extent the UK will have a say. Equally, it’s clear Britain doesn’t actually know how it wants the new relationship to look and, without that clear direction, negotiators won’t know what to push for or what to concede.

This repeal would, in effect, mean that EU laws would no longer be enforceable in the UK and as a result, there will no doubt be a review of existing legislation. We can’t afford to be complacent; we need to make it clear that the copyright framework must be maintained, and even strengthened where appropriate. Certainty is king in music: so much is dependent upon our ability to invest in the future, whether that be a publishing advance, studio time or a tour.

In the midst of so much uncertainty, we, the music industry, need to come together and use this period of political ambiguity to agree our top priorities so that we can be a source of answers and solutions. From there, we must work together to ensure that those who will be negotiating Britain’s exit understand what the music industry needs to continue to thrive, and that they don’t simply take its global success for granted. We cannot allow copyright to be a

While it’s unlikely the government will make extensive changes to copyright, we can’t ignore the possibility that we stand to lose direct benefits accorded us by EU membership, such as EU funding; freedom of movement, which is an obvious boon to touring acts and will certainly be central to the negotiation process; and the forthcoming copyright legislation which will contain provisions to regulate the relationship

We cannot allow copyright to be a negotiating chip that is simply tacked on to the end of a trade agreement.

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between rightsholders and online service providers as part of the ongoing Digital Single Market (DSM) Strategy.

Also, the European Commission may be about to address safe harbour in that legislative package. That is the provision of law which has facilitated the transfer of value from creators to the online platforms by exempting them from liability for unlawful activity on their services.

We have worked closely with institutions in Brussels over the past two years to push for these much needed amendments and, now those will no longer be our representative institutions, we must encourage the UK government to lead on these issues.

Perhaps, if the EU does not satisfactorily address safe harbour, we can even lead the way in redressing the balance of the market.

What about our place in Europe? We’ve been told that the European Commission still wants to hear from UK business - we are, and will remain, a significant stakeholder in the market.

EU officials are banned from having any talks that could be construed as negotiations prior to the activation of Article 50.

However, the voice of the songwriter remains powerful both in Europe, at home in Westminster and in the devolved parliaments.

PRS for Music is already working more closely than ever with our industry partners both here in the UK and in Europe, from across the music industry and other creative sectors to make sure that, whatever changes do or don’t happen, songwriters, composers and publishers are heard and properly considered.

business

business news

for all the latest business news visit m-magazine.co,.uk

COMPOSERS RALLY TO BOOST DIVERSITY

the big numbers

16 Percentage of female composer and songwriter members of PRS for Music.

19 Percentage of women working in the videogame industry.

(See our feature about composers working in the industry on page 14)

BBC Radio 3 is presenting a pan-industry classical music conference to encourage greater inclusion for the UK’s black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities.

Guest speakers include composers Errolyn Wallen (above), Daniel Kidane, Jeffrey Mumford, Priti Paintal and Shirley J Thompson. BBC Radio 3 Controller, Alan Davey, will also attend, alongside Vick Bain, Chief Executive of BASCA.

The event will take place on 19 October at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. It will discuss ways to boost opportunities for the next generation of composers, giving special focus on how the industry can work together to ensure inclusion and diversity of talent.

Bain told M: ‘Just over a year ago I asked the BBC what they were doing to highlight the tremendous work of composers of ethnic minority heritage. The result is this conference and an associated week of programming on BBC Radio 3.

It’s hosted in partnership with the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA), the BBC Philharmonic and the Royal Northern College of Music, and in association with the BBC Black and Asian Forum.

‘I am delighted the BBC have taken this issue so seriously. Earlier this summer we published research that showed there is still a long way to go to encourage and support female and BAME composers to study composition and make a viable career from writing music.’

GENERATION GENDER GAP The PRS for Music Foundation pledges its commitment to closing the gender gap in music by pitching a debate on the subject for SXSW 2017.

Reed told M: ‘As the lack of women on festival bills, awards lists and conference programmes is finally being noticed and contested, it’s time for

Number of songwriters and composers to receive support from the PRS for Music Foundation’s Women Make Music fund since its launch in 2011.

6 Percentage of commissioned composers who are Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME), compared to 14% among the wider UK population.

(BASCA’s 2016 Equality & Diversity in New Music Commissioning report.)

The proposed panel will gather experts from the UK music industry to explore the obstacles female artists and industry professionals face.

Vanessa Reed, the Foundation’s Executive Director, will lead the session, alongside DJ and broadcaster Mistajam (right), urban artist Lady Leshurr (see page 31) and Andreea Magdalina from the She Said So network.

If the proposal proves popular enough, it will be programmed at the international music convention and showcase in Texas next March.

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93 the industry to catch up and become a creative industry for the 21st century.

‘This panel explores what can and is being done by male and female artists and industry players from the UK/US so that we can inspire the next generation to put themselves forward and tackle the gender gap challenges head-on.’

Percentage of UK music industry employees from a white background.

(Creative and Cultural Skills report, The Music Blueprint, 2011). A recent MusicTank paper (Diversity Management in the UK Music Industry, 2016) estimates the situation has deteriorated since then.

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money & business TOUTS OUT

ANTI-PIRACY CRACKDOWN

PRS for Music has put its weight behind the FanFair Alliance, a new initiative to unite businesses, artists and fans against online ticket touts.

PRS for Music ’s new anti-piracy tool has made a significant impact in the fight against copyright infringement, with more than 57,000 successful takedown notices issued to offending websites.

FanFair aims to combat the growing black market in ticket resales, now estimated to be worth more than £1bn per year, by raising awareness of the issues fans, artists and managers face, and lobbying for change.

The organisation has recently published statistics for its new Member Anti-Piracy System (MAPS), which launched in March this year.

The alliance first came together to launch a parliamentary petition urging government to assess the market, which received 42,000 signatories. The ensuing government-commissioned independent study, the Waterson Report, followed in May. In it, author Professor Michael Waterson recommended challenging secondary ticketing platforms to ensure sellers fully observe the rules set out in the Consumer Rights Act 2015. He also suggested these platforms play a role in identifying traders and ensuring their details are provided to consumers.

Paul Clements, PRS for Music’s Commercial Director, who signed the declaration, told M: ‘We welcome Professor Waterson’s call for greater transparency in the secondary ticketing market, and support his view that these platforms should ensure their sellers operate within current consumer rights regulations.

‘We recently added our name to the FanFair Alliance declaration, and look forward to supporting our partners across the industry who are pushing for market reforms.’

The alliance was launched in July by managers of Arctic Monkeys, One Direction, Mumford & Sons and PJ Harvey. It’s supported by a broad cross section of the music industry including Featured Artist Coalition, Association of Independent Music, Musicians’ Union and the Music Producers Guild.

In September, FanFair published an artist managers’ guide to battling the touts. To access it, and for more information about the initiative, visit fanfairalliance.org 12_september 2016_m61

According to a post on its Digital Blog, MAPS has located over 1.9 million URLs for sites linking to or hosting PRS for Music members’ repertoire, sending over 110,000 links to Google for delisting and a further 57,000 takedown notices issued to infringing sites so far.

In the post, PRS for Music’s Internet Investigation Officer Sharan Ghuman said: ‘We have received positive feedback from many users stating that MAPS works really well, and that they have had some good results. We believe the more our members use it, the more infringements will be detected, as the tool is constantly evolving.’

The collecting society launched the initiative in collaboration with the Publishers Association as part of a bid to boost its anti-piracy efforts.

MAPS works by tracking and enabling users to request takedown of PRS for Music repertoire made available to the public on unlicensed and infringing sites. It also allows users to send takedown notices.

For more, visit the Digital Blog at digital.prs.co.uk

Your next paydays Performing (PRS): 14 Oct 2016, 15 Dec 2016, 14 April 2017, 14 July 2017 Mechanicals (MCPS): Non-Recorded Media 15 Sept 2016, 14 Oct 2016, 15 Nov 2016, 15 Dec 2016 Recorded Media 30 Sept 2016, 31 Oct 2016, 30 Nov 2016, 30 Dec 2016

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comment & debate

KEEP UK DANCE FLOORS MOVING As a DJ, producer and venue owner, Dan Beaumont is a key player flying the flag for London’s nightlife.

He earned his stripes as a DJ with Disco Bloodbath before opening game-changing queer club and bar, Dalston Superstore, pizza joint Voodoo Ray’s and the recently closed club Dance Tunnel. With increasing numbers of clubs seemingly under threat, we quiz Dan on the challenges and opportunities facing the capital’s nocturnal community…

Raving isn’t the answer to all our problems but it is an expression of a healthy, diverse, socially mobile culture which there isn’t enough of.

What are the biggest issues for London’s clubs?

In London the price per square foot of dancefloor is a major problem. The price of real estate and the impact it has on available spaces is affecting opportunities for clubs to exist.

The Licensing Act and the ways in which its policies in different boroughs are administered is having a negative impact. The huge proliferation of illegal parties is also in play as well, and has to be addressed.

Licensing officials appear to be acting harshly towards clubs - why is this?

At the front line of licensing policies, you have people under a lot of pressure who have no incentive to be progressive in their approach.

The Licensing Act of 2004 has the mechanism for later hours to be granted. But there’s no comprehensive, London-wide

plan for licensing. It’s up to individual boroughs to deal with it as they see fit. Sometimes, the most productive way for them to clear their desks is to try and prevent it in their borough.

Would the appointment of a night time czar have an impact?

The idea is really refreshing.

It’s a great step forward. But who would be that person? And who is he or she accountable to?

There’s some very comprehensive legislation governing licensing, but it’s not really apparent how that individual, whatever title they are given, would be able to have an impact on decisions.

What can the wider electronic community do to protect clubs and venues?

I’m optimistic because of the creativity of people coming up through the global electronic music scene. It’s a relief to see so many innovative, brave

people starting their own projects, organisations and collectives. These are people that will question some of the models in clubs. The future will come through challenging the clubbing model that has become very commercially led.

How has club culture changed since you started going out and DJing?

I was a raver during the nineties - so if you think of 1988 as year zero for acid house, it still felt very fresh. Back then, it felt like it led to the breaking down of a lot of social barriers that existed in this country - barriers surrounding age, race, gender, sexual orientation and class.

Now clubbing has become much more compartmentalised.

It’s our responsibility to ensure these spaces stay diverse. If you look at the social conditions in London now - have they improved since the riots five years ago?

They haven’t. Raving isn’t the

answer to all our problems but it is an expression of a healthy, diverse, socially mobile culture which there isn’t enough of.

What do you think of the ‘safe space’ concept?

Phrases like safe spaces are much maligned now and it’s very easy to take an antipolitical correctness stance.

What we’re actually saying is that people should be able to go to clubs and not face abuse because of who they are.

Clubs should be spaces where people who are marginalised in other areas or spaces can be welcomed and contribute without fear or harassment. It improves the culture and the experience for everyone. Club culture came from New York and Chicago, giving a voice to people marginalised by the mainstream. That was the point of disco and of house music. We should try as best as we can to honour that. m61_september 2016_13

Main image: No Man’s Sky Below: 65daysofstatic

As the music and gaming industries boom over ever louder collisions, Anita Awbi looks into what’s on offer for composers willing to embrace their inner geek…

GAMING FOCUS

You’re deep in space, absorbed in your very own star trek.

A cosmos with billions of constellations shoots past as you hunt for resources to power your journey. Your ship’s shield needs repairing and the hyper-drive is down – but the views are incredible. Turquoise atmospheres, pink planets, eclipsing suns…

The best bit? Your whole experience is enveloped by the expansive thrum and throb of languid post-rockers 65daysofstatic.

No Man’s Sky, the new videogame for Sony Entertainment’s PlayStation 4 console, may just be the biggest issue of the year in game land. But it’s been a big story in music too, spawning a lauded album, 28-date international tour and unprecedented column inches for the Sheffield-dwelling foursome behind the soundtrack.

‘We’re just this weird noise band coming from a punky, thrashy outsider place,’ says 65daysofstatic’s Joe Shrewsbury. ‘But the last few weeks since the album and game came out have been crazy. There’s very obviously a profile to this project which transcends anything we’ve ever done before.’

Now 15 years and five studio albums in, the band’s back catalogue plumbs the darker depths of drone, noise and postrock, delighting fans of outré soundscapes and heavy bass. So it figures they’ve never crossed over like this before. ‘Suddenly, there’s an awful lot of people listening to us that haven’t before,’ he continues, sounding a bit flabbergasted.

‘It’s really nice to be part of something that thrusts our music into a greater number of people’s lives, in a way that the music industry and, I guess, popular culture, was never going to.’

Old bedfellows There’s little doubt the last two or three years has cemented the romance between gamers and musicians. Heavyweights including Nile Rodgers, Bootsy Collins, Morrissey, Giorgio Moroder, plus half the Warp Records roster - and just about anyone experimenting in music right now – have produced soundtracks, remixes or even made their own games and apps.

Their efforts may be fostering a growing symmetry between the two worlds, but in truth, the audio/visual love-in has been gently percolating for three decades or more.

Iconic early eighties’ Atari title Journey’s Escape placed US rockers Journey and their global hit Don’t Stop Believin’ right in the centre of the action. Four years later in 1986, Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda featured samples of spaced-out progrockers Deep Purple. Back then, in the early days of gaming, programmers were enriching play by riffing on another, more established strand of popular culture.

By the nineties, audio tech within games had ramped up enough for a new sync avenue to open in earnest. Wipeout XL, released in 1996 to PCs and the first Sony PlayStation, was a watershed moment. The futuristic racing game licensed tracks by electronic acts including Chemical Brothers, Future Sound of London, Fluke, The Prodigy and Daft Punk, consecrating an artistic matrimony that remains intact today: look no further than Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto franchise for the current flagbearer of cool.

Opportunity knocks Fast forward to 2016, and the games industry is a cultural and commercial behemoth – taking over music in terms of coinage and perhaps even clout. The British gaming trade body UK Interactive Entertainment (UKIE) recently forecast global revenues will lift from a healthy $91.8bn in 2015 to $118.6bn in 2019. By comparison, the global recorded music industry was sized at $15bn in 2014 by international record music body IFPI. With these enormous numbers sloshing around, it’s no wonder composers, songwriters and their publishers have been eyeing the games business with increasing interest.

‘It offers a lot of value for us,’ says Warp Publishing’s Head of Licensing Will Theakston. ‘There are so many opportunities to license our music and for our writers to work with scores.

It’s a huge industry and it’s great that people playing games are engaging with our music. We want to be a part of it - so it’s very important for us to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in.’

Ivor Novello Award-nominated composer Richard Jacques – a self-certified gaming geek – agrees that the accelerating industry has brought a wealth of opportunity. Having penned scores for blockbuster franchises including James Bond 007: Blood Stone and Mass Effect, he became the first composer to get the Abbey Road treatment with a professional orchestra for his score to Headhunter back in 2001.

He says: ‘These days there are lots of games being made for all sorts of consumers on all types of device - smartphones, high end consoles and PCs. The number of people playing games has exploded so much in the last five to 10 years, fuelling the content creation business. This, in turn, means there’s more opportunities for both syncs and original composition.’

Richard believes that music supervisors in the gaming world are thinking ever more creatively about what they commission, leading to a plethora of ‘jazz, electronic, abstract and other ground-breaking scores’ - which is where openings for bands like 65daysofstatic may lie.

‘I do think the gaming world is slightly more democratic for musicians’, agrees Joe from the band. ‘People are looking for music that actively does different things - whereas the music business is perhaps often looking for music that does the same thing that’s been done before. There’s a lot of pressure, especially in a contracting music industry, to make money out of diminishing returns, which can sometimes impact on a willingness to experiment.’

For D, the lynchpin of experimental electronic outfit Patten, composing for games should be a fluid development for any musician looking to create and earn in 2016.

Having established his own label, Kaleidoscope back in 2007, and released three starkly different albums since then, he’s dipped his toe into all aspects of the creative process, from installations to artwork.

M61_SEPTEMBER 2016_15

When people hear the LYRA the reaction is unanimous

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GAMING

Above (left to right): Jessica Curry; Patten; Richard Jacques

Now with a new sonic collaborator, a brand new LP for Warp Records, and a remix of Giorgio Moroder’s Delta Antliae for the TRON RUN/r videogame under his belt, he’s feeling more open than ever to experimentation.

‘The whole Patten idea is that there are no boundaries. Ideas should be flowing and feeding in between each other. So our videogame work felt maybe more connected to our regular processes than it might seem from the outside.’

The gaming world is slightly more democratic for musicians…

Tips, tricks and traps There’s little doubt that gaming could offer a lucrative sonic playground for music creators willing to get their heads around a less-linear musical mode. But how do you get into it? Richard, a formally trained classical composer, who’s also created film and TV scores, says the marketplace is becoming increasingly crowded, especially for novice composers. As such, it’s worth looking to the independent world.

‘Look at what’s happening in the indie scene,’ he suggests. ‘It’s those types of smaller games with small teams that are easier to get into. It’s difficult for someone to go straight in at the top without past form - that doesn’t really happen.’

He also advises novice games composers to embrace their inner nerd, immerse themselves in the medium and get a feel for freeto-download software demos that assist non-linear composers in the creative process.

For composer Jessica Curry, whose BAFTA Award-winning pastoral score to Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture in 2015 cemented her reputation as a games music trailblazer, the industry must be navigated with great care.

MARK VANEMA, GETTY

Having ‘fallen into’ it almost by accident in 2012, she says she still feels like an outsider, and often struggles with the ‘working conditions, short contracts and long hours’ that plague the workplace. More disturbingly, her growing stature has attracted trolls on social media.

‘It’s a brutal place to be, not just for women, although that’s pretty tough,’ she confides. ‘I get death and rape threats constantly for being a woman just daring to work in the industry, which I find shocking and very dismaying.’

As a partner in the innovative games studio The Chinese Room, with her developer husband Dan Pinchbeck, she’s actively Jessica Curry #fundedbyprsf

trying to change things, making sure they hire from the breadth of talent out there and allowing new creatives perhaps maligned by the established gaming order to cut their teeth.

‘At The Chinese Room, we work nine-to-five, we send people home even when they don’t want to leave. We work five days a week. We make sure people can have lives and see their families. That’s almost unheard of in the games industry, but it’s something we’re really passionate about.’

Show me the money Another minefield for composers and publishers entering the industry for the first time is the array of contracts and buy-out deals eused by games developers. In the absence of a one-sizefits-all arrangement, it takes savvy navigation to snag a decent deal. On top of that, royalties are yet to flow at any significant rate back to creators.

Daniel Fowler, Strategy Manager at PRS for Music, who cocurated a recent PRS Explores event on the issue, believes things could change. He says that just a few years ago, the shelf-life of a title, from purchase to potential resale, was between two and three months. But these days, titles can run almost ad infinitum as gameplay moves online. ‘Look no further than World of Warcraft and League of Legends, which have been running for almost 12 and seven years respectively’, he enthuses.

‘In this time there have been updates and patches, but they are still fundamentally the same games. So, my question is: does an upfront buy-out licensing model still work when the music is supporting a game that is generating revenue almost indefinitely?’

With the explosion in live streaming, supported through platforms such as Twitch (which Amazon bought for $917m in 2014), the potential performance royalties for music composers is extremely enticing.

‘With all things considered, should we, as an industry, be looking to change the licensing contracts in games away from a buy-out model to a royalty based one? Would the benefits, royalties linked to primary and secondary usage, outweigh the advantage of getting an upfront fee?’ he ponders.

As the worlds of gaming and music continue to converge, mutate and experiment, Joe from 65daysofstatic is sure of one thing: ‘There’s definitely work to be had in gaming, and if you are a musician interested in making music, opportunities to make that music are what you’re looking for.’

Visit m-magazine.co.uk for full interviews and tips

M61_SEPTEMBER 2016_17

FeAr of SileNcE

Anita Awbi tunes into the paranormal pop of Throwing Shade, an outspoken songwriter, producer and curator who’s ripping up the rulebooks.

‘What am I doing when I make a recording or produce my radio show? What box am I supposed to fit into? I’m young, female, Asian and British - but what does that mean in music?’ wonders Throwing Shade, aka 20-something Londoner Nabihah Iqbal.

She’s sitting on a sunny balcony overlooking the concrete reaches of the Westway, one of the capital’s most iconic thoroughfares. Its gritty existence has loomed large over songs by guitar heavyweights The Clash, Blur and Dirty Pretty Things. Now a new strain of musician stirs in its wake.

Nabihah, born and bred within five miles of this spot, is a songwriter, performer, broadcaster, DJ, ethnomusicologist and now recording artist, who’s released a flurry of peripheral pop gems via some of the world’s hippest independent labels.

She plays sitar, kora, piano, flute and guitar, boasts an MPhil from Cambridge specialising in African history, has hands-on experience working as a women’s rights lawyer in Cape Town and holds a black belt in Karate.

CARL ENGLISH

The archetypal ultramodern pop writer, Nabihah is armed and ready to reject the existing cultural ley lines. ‘When I think about how many other British brown girls there are making music and who have a platform to say something – well, there’s just not that many who spring to mind,’ she says, citing multicultural hip-hop activist M.I.A as a massive inspiration.

‘A unique factor of being here now, partway through the 21st century, is that everything is blown wide open. People can exist who approach

music from a completely different perspective. Not being white or male inherently makes a difference to the music you make and your motives.

For me, it’s about learning how to be heard and sharing these experiences.’

Cosmic R&B Nabihah’s music inhabits a warm muzzy space somewhere in between the dancefloor and the after-party. Her iridescent way with a melody hits a savvy sweet spot, while the weight of dusty garage beats anchor her cosmic R&B with groove and authenticity.

So far, her sparse, yet impeccable, output has hinted at a precocious new talent that’s been raised on a healthy diet of classic pop, house and bass.

It’s an addictive blend that’s making the world sit up and listen.

We were first officially introduced to Nabihah’s synth-led sonics back in October 2013 via the Ominira label, run by electronic whizz Kassem Mosse. He’d found her music on SoundCloud and fell for its playful pop vibe. Since then, she’s released two gloriously technicolour EPs through No Pain in Pop (Patten, Grimes, Forest Swords) and dancefloor imprint Happy Skull. Her latest venture, the House of Silk EP, even found its way to independent heavyweight Ninja Tune, which released the set earlier this year.

Unconsciously, she’s been mining a rich musical seam that takes in everything from eighties icons Prince, Talking Heads and Kate Bush to Hype Williams and the grimy electronics of late-night London. With all this percolating just below the surface, her abstract aural outlines have sounded like no one else. Now, midway through writing her debut album, Nabihah is attempting to draw the dots between her past and future sound.

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Main image: Throwing Shade

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PROFILE

I find it ridiculous that a girl is expected to be naked and pull all these suggestive poses when a guy doesn’t!

Right: Throwing Shade.

Below right: Throwing Shade performing live.

‘Before, when I was recording that stuff, I wasn’t really thinking about it,’ she explains. ‘I was making music just because I felt like it. Now it’s weird because people are waiting to hear my new stuff. There’s a pressure that didn’t exist before, so this album process is about learning how to deal with that as well as thinking about what my aims are.’

Pop tropes Nabihah is certainly a canny operator. Since her first release on Ominira, she’s been commissioned by the Tate to write music for the Turner Prize, and has performed her work at the Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Institute of Contemporary Art. She’s also penned a score for a Belgian filmmaker, made a documentary series for i-D magazine and won PRS for Music Foundation Momentum funding, which has helped her hire space in Damon Albarn’s lauded West London studios. As a songwriter just finding her feet, the extra support has been a boon, she says. And, although wedded to London, Nabihah even explored the possibility of relocating to cheaper cities Leipzig or Lisbon to continue her work.

With every fortuitous break, she’s used her artistic wiles to inhabit a parallel universe where women are on top. 2014's video for the candythemed love song Sweet Tooth is the perfect showcase for her inverse creative reasoning. In it, we’re transported to an alternate present, populated by scantily clad men doused in sugar syrup and sweets.

Her 2015 video for Honeytrap follows a similarly bizarre streak, with a fully-clothed Nabihah contrasted against shots of semi-naked men basking in beds of fruit and honey. Make no mistake, this is pure objectification, but from a heterosexual female perspective.

‘I think about image a lot, being a woman in this industry right now,’ she explains. ‘It’s important for me, especially coming from my background. I want to become a strong female figure without having to succumb to all those other pressures that affect a lot of other women in the music industry. I find it ridiculous that a girl is expected to be naked and pull all these suggestive poses when a guy doesn’t!’

Nabihah is laughing now, but it’s clearly no joke. She’s very vocal about global phenomena Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian, citing their sexualised images and powerful positions as a ‘dangerous’ contradiction which undermines feminism in 2016 rather than justifies it.

‘Okay, you’re free to make your own decisions, so if you want to put loads of pictures of your bum on Instagram because that’s

Throwing Shade #fundedbyprsf

your choice, and you’re a strong woman, fine. But really, you’re operating within a certain trope, which is really patriarchal, so your choices are defined by that structure,’ she continues.

By contrast, Nabihah’s own music is laden with subversive cultural references and oblique contortions. Being so attuned to every creative, social and political decision are clearly the strongest weapons in her quest for a new, future-facing sound.

But, still, she’s not entirely shirked music industry criticism herself.

Having come under flak for not singing enough on her tracks, ‘especially from my mum!’ Nabihah is looking for a way around the issue. Although not a confident or ‘natural’ singer, her hazy vocals have graced a handful of cracking hooks. But check the top of Nabihah’s to-do list and you’ll find a deep desire to pen for a male vocalist.

‘When I think about chart music, it’s hard to remember one song where it’s a female producer featuring a male vocalist. So that’s another gender stereotype I’m trying to flip,’ she says.

Back to work So with all this going on behind the scenes, how does Nabihah feel about progress on her debut album?

‘It’s hard!’ she admits. ‘I feel like I’m writing a dissertation again. I just want to work so hard and come up with the best I can for this record.

‘Being here now, in the studio, in London, in this time - I don’t think I could ask for a better place to do what needs to be done.’

Throwing Shade’s House of Silk EP is out now on Ninja Tune.

M61_SEPTEMBER 2016_21

CLASSICAL REIMAGINED Alexandra Coghlan dives into the contemporary classical world to discover how composers, commissioners and programmers must unite to thrive in 21st century Britain.

Look through the cultural listings for any Friday night, and it’s hard to ignore the fact that contemporary classical music is having a moment.

A quick scan through the options might reveal a Kammer Klang event at Dalston’s Cafe Oto, a concert by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London Contemporary Orchestra or Psappha, a Nonclassical club night at XOYO or a newly commissioned chamber opera at the Royal Opera’s Linbury Studio Theatre. And that’s before you consider annual festivals at Huddersfield, Aldeburgh, Glasgow, Cheltenham and Spitalfields – all enjoying growing audiences, and placing a significant emphasis on new music.

But turn on the radio or open a newspaper and it’s a very different story. Barely a week goes by in which a politician, journalist or other public figure does not attack classical music in general (and new music in particular) as ‘elitist’ or ‘niche’ – a pastime for pseuds, the rich or the socially aspirant, not for the likes of you or me. So why the disparity?

It’s a question composer Julian Anderson feels strongly about, taking it as the theme for the Aldeburgh Festival’s annual Hesse Lecture, which he delivered in June this year. Speaking out on a topic that has too long been silenced or ignored, he made a heartfelt case for contemporary classical music, highlighting the problems composers face from both outside and within the classical music industry, while also offering potential solutions and strategies for the future.

‘There’s a lot of prejudice surrounding classical music – not just contemporary music – in Britain,’ he explains, ‘and when it comes to music that’s more demanding than standard repertoire, where the sounds involved are often unfamiliar, those prejudices are even greater. It doesn’t seem to occur to people that quite a lot of the attraction of this music, like any imaginative art form, is that it’s not something you encounter every day, that the adventure of it is expanding your awareness of what sound can be and do in your life.’

Aural adventures The ‘adventure’ of new music is something the classical industry must successfully convey if it is to put an end to the popular stereotypes surrounding this repertoire, as Gillian Moore, the Southbank Centre’s Director of Music, is very aware.

‘While I absolutely have faith in the repertoire itself – if music is powerful and moving and has something to say then it will cut through any preconceptions – in order to get people to concerts in the first place you need to present the music carefully,’ she says.

‘We tend to try and give the music a context, to build it into larger festivals, relate it to bigger ideas. I’m not really in favour of just slotting new pieces of music into a Brahms sandwich. Programming needs to be bold in order to reach those who view things being new, unfamiliar and possibly complex as a positive advantage.’

Roger Wright, Director of the Aldeburgh Festival, agrees.

‘Audiences sniff out a lack of confidence or quality in programming.

Even if they are not able to describe it in exactly those terms they know something doesn’t quite ring true. It’s important for us to trust our audience and also for them to trust us to lead them to interesting new places. Audiences won’t be maintained for the future by only playing them the same things again and again.’

Rewind and resonate Integrating new works into the repertoire can be difficult. Premieres are ubiquitous at the big festivals and venues, but how often do you hear a contemporary work for a second or third time? Denied the opportunity to build an ongoing relationship with new works, audiences inevitably struggle to invest in them. ‘It’s something I worry about,’ says composer Charlotte Bray. ‘Getting second performances these days is almost harder than securing a commission in the first place.’

It’s a problem the PRS for Music Foundation is tackling directly with its Resonate scheme, as Executive Director Vanessa Reed explains.

‘We’ve created a database of works that have been commissioned in the past 25 years by British orchestras. We’re offering funding to orchestras who choose pieces from the database that they would like to programme as part of their season, encouraging them to revisit these wonderful works that already exist as an alternative to simply commissioning a new work. It’s about ensuring these works get heard and also developing an increasing sense of familiarity on the part of the audience.’

But when it comes to championing this new repertoire, no one is more powerful or more potentially persuasive than the composers themselves. Julian argues, however, that composers are sometimes ashamed of their work and profession to an extent that would be unthinkable among filmmakers or visual artists.

‘There are so many composers who say, “I don’t listen to contemporary music or “I don’t go to contemporary concerts”’, he says. ‘I hear it again and again from the same people that I see at precisely those events.

Perhaps they are afraid of appearing cliquey or as part of a cultural ghetto, but whatever the reason, it certainly suggests a very complicated relationship with their profession, even a lack of love for it.’

Kammer Klang, London Contemporary Orchestra, Nonclassical, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Spitalfields Festival #fundedbyprsf

profile CLASSICAL

Main image: Charlote Bray

I want to work on films that speak to me, that drag something out of me.

We can’t just sit in our ivory towers and write music any more.

Composers today have to be about more than that.

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Inner circles To overcome this endemic professional self-contempt, Julian suggests a bold solution: bringing composers right into the centre of musical life, integrating them into concert programming, planning, artistic administration and even management.

‘I’m not saying that composers should run the world, but I am suggesting that if you are planning a concert series, regardless of period or style, ring up a composer – ask them if they can suggest any interesting repertoire. Composers are these extraordinary human repositories of musical knowledge; you have to know a tremendous amount of music to produce it yourself. And of course when it comes to new music the first people to know what’s new and exciting are composers themselves, because many of us teach and are listening widely in that area.’

Julian’s argument has the weight of musical history behind it. The sheer number of influential organisations, festivals and venues that have been founded and championed by composers is staggering.

From Wagner’s Bayreuth to Pierre Boulez’s IRCAM and the Cité de la Musique, Benjamin Britten’s Aldeburgh Festival, Maxwell Davies’ St Magnus Festival and even PRS for Music itself, so many of our most important classical institutions are the product of a composer’s vision and labour. How much more effective, Julian asks, would new musical technologies – the streaming services and download platforms – be if designed by musicians to best serve musicians, rather than by those motivated purely by commercial gains?

Brave new composers’ world So what might the new music scene look like in an artist-driven world? One organisation leading the way is British record label NMC. Founded by composer Colin Matthews in 1989, the label’s charitable status allows it to place artistic concerns at the fore, championing the music of living British composers without the usual commercial pressures of their competitors. Uniquely it has a non-deletion policy, meaning that any work in the catalogue will remain available in perpetuity.

JOHN BATTEN

More recently it has launched a new series designed specifically to support emerging composers, as Executive Director Anne Rushton explains: ‘Our Debut Discs series is targeted at composers who don’t have a big mechanism behind them, who have never had a full disc dedicated to their works. We offer them a portrait disc, and work closely with them on it from programming and choosing artists through to marketing and social media,’ she explains.

Perhaps modern classical composers are afraid of appearing cliquey or as part of a cultural ghetto…

‘We’re only five years into the project but already there have been so many instances where composers’ careers have been furthered as a direct result, whether that’s through a new commission or a work being performed abroad for the first time.’

‘Rather than just sitting back and hoping audiences come to us, I think nowadays we have to take more initiative and bring music to people. Why don’t we approach offices and organisations and see if we can put on a lunchtime concert in their space?’

Composer-driven organisations might also reimagine the classical concert itself, changing perceptions of classical music by framing it in new and unexpected ways. Venues, concert formats and even the timing and duration of concerts are all up for discussion, building on the movement of the past few years which has seen new music increasingly break out of the concert hall and move into galleries, industrial spaces and even car parks. For Charlotte, the London Sinfonietta’s scheme, Sinfonietta Shorts, is an interesting model of innovative thinking.

But for Charlotte, as for Julian, all developments in new music ultimately return to the figure of the composer. Without them as advocate and champion, no amount of new formats, slick marketing campaigns or multimedia collaborations are going to change public perception.

‘They commission short new works then premiere them at 8am with coffee and croissants. I was a bit cynical about it at first, but was converted by the atmosphere and energy of the event which was a wonderful way of reaching busy people before they started their day.

Julian Anderson #fundedbyprsf

Above: Julian Anderson

‘I think public engagement is hugely important if we want to be relevant to a community that extends beyond regular concertgoers,’ she says. ‘We can’t just sit in our ivory towers and write music any more. Composers today have to be about more than that. If the interest is there then let’s find it and feed it in as many different ways as we can. Ultimately we want to ensure that people really are inspired by contemporary classical music and want to be involved in it as much as they do pop music or modern art.’

M61_SEPTEMBER 2016_25

ALEX HURST

I don’t see any point in being conservative. Now is a time when you can really take chances creatively and be whatever you want to be.

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PiLS, THRILLS AND BELLYACHES From PiL to Invaders of the Heart via dabbles with drugs, drink and a stint working for London Underground, no one else has done it quite like bass-playing impresario Jah Wobble. Jim Ottewill meets one of the last true originals…

‘Our debut single Public Image Limited went top 10. So my first ever record was the best seller I ever played on. In a way my career has been steadily going downhill ever since…’

Alongside being a poet and painter, Jah Wobble is pithy and selfdeprecating, the ultimate post-punk polymath. No matter how finely you slice, dice, cube or quarter his art over decades of aural mayhem, you’ll be confronted with a shifting palette of different, even conflicting, flavours.

His musical universe has been far more anarchic than his punk roots could ever have anticipated. World music, dub, reggae, pop, jazz they’ve all fed through his fingers into his iconic bass playing style.

Latest album, this summer’s Everything is No Thing, co-produced by legendary producer Youth, is one of his most accomplished, shaving endless styles off the top of a deep, creative iceberg.

Forty years since his friend Johnny Rotten dragged punk kicking and screaming in front of the UK’s mainstream, it’s Wobble who’s still setting the agenda. He’s certainly a long way from selling butter.

‘I used to say with punk that some people are still chewing the last remnants of shrivelled flesh off its cadaver. But I don’t see any point in being conservative. Now is a time when you can really take chances creatively and be whatever you want to be.’

Youth So-called by teenage pal Sid Vicious, who gave this moniker to him when he drunkenly slurred his real name, John Wardle, Jah Wobble was brought up in Stepney in London’s East End. He was weaned on a rich diet of music from blue beat to Trojan compilations and classical works, all fed through the echo chamber of his family. His father was a self-taught pianist while one of Wobble’s sons is also an accomplished amateur musician in his own right.

Despite this musical love, it wasn’t until punk ripped through popular culture that he even vaguely considered being a musician.

‘I was friends with Jonny Rotten. He’d become singer of the Sex Pistols. So he disappeared for a while, joined them, came back and told me, “I’m the singer in the band”. He may as well have told me he was training to be a 747 pilot. That would have been a less amazing thing to say.’

Early days of bass Punk stripped everything back to a musical year zero, launching an invigorated DIY culture. These new attitudes suddenly created new opportunities meaning anyone could now pick up an instrument, Wobble included.

‘I got hold of a bass and ended up in a squat in South London. I had an amp and lead too but sold them very quickly to get money for alcohol and drugs,’ he explains.

Despite having a ‘crap bass’ with a high action making it tricky to play, he had a natural predilection for the instrument. Inspired by seeing Bob Marley play live with Aston ‘Family Man’ Barrett on bass, and blues dances in Hackney, as well as the eclectic record collections he’d been exposed to as a kid, his natural talent was able to ferment organically.

‘I was very lucky. I was a novice player but definitely had a sound.

I was able to just do my lines as I wanted and the band followed me. So I was able to develop, in a very relaxed, unconstrained way.

I couldn’t even count in when I started.’

PiL Wobble’s first group Public Image Limited (PiL) and their initial releases helped capture a sound many artists are still trying to emulate. Featuring his deep and distinctive bass sparring with Keith Levine’s metallic guitar and Rotten’s alien vocals, the first two albums - First Issue and Metal Box - sounded like they’d been M61_SEPTEMBER 2016_27

Above: PiL - Keith Levene, Jah Wobble, and John Lydon, London 1981

beamed in from another planet. It was Wobble’s musical naivety that helped the group surrender themselves to this primal form of musical expression.

‘I made geometrical shapes on the bass in an almost modal style. I was actually playing modes without realising it. This in-between major and minor, what I call vertical music.’

His innovative playing formed the musical backbone of PiL, complementing the hedonistic lifestyle of its various members. ‘That whole post-punk thing, it was very bohemian and pretty wild,’ he says.

‘By the time Metal Box happened, it was like, “right, fuck it, we don’t give a fuck now”.’

Why does he think those records still hold so much sway over musicians years after their release? ‘There was a tremendous energy when we started, and an openness that surrounded us with those two records,’ he says.

‘It was a very natural expression, with these, dubby, careering modal basslines, lyrics dealing with politics, the troubles in Northern Ireland.

It was a real zeitgeist, primal thing going on.’

But for Wobble, these energies turned sour once the band tasted success, attracting too much attention and money without any management in place. The group was turned inside and out, mangled by the pressures of this new-found spotlight and its various members’ addictions.

‘As the money came in, it corrupted the band very quickly. There were drug issues in and around the group, everything you get when people are using heroin. It gets very dark, underhand, money goes missing and that fucked it all.’

New beginnings Jah Wobble managed to extricate himself from the wreckage of PiL in the early eighties and set out on an extraordinary musical journey.

Notable moments included working with Can members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit on the former's solo projects and creating a dubby, disco sound with producer Francois Kervorkian.

GETTY IMAGES LTD

His endeavours led him to work with ambient masters The Orb and Primal Scream, and enjoy chart success with Visions of You, a single made with his group Invaders of the Heart and Sinead O’Connor.

During the eighties he managed to kick alcohol and drugs and even worked for London Underground in what he describes as ‘the best job I ever had’.

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More recently, his efforts have been poured into his re-energised band The Invaders of the Heart, his Cherry Red imprint 30 Hertz and his experiments with Warp’s Lonelady via Chinese dub, spoken word and paintings. It’s an extraordinarily creative furrow he’s ploughed and Wobble is certainly grateful to be free, both from his vices and previous groups.

‘People remain in bands but they get tired - they all remind me of unhappy marriages, where you have to compromise large parts of yourself to stay. I have been so lucky. I’ve never had to do that.’

Everything is No Thing His new record Everything is No Thing has been lauded as one of his best in recent years. Featuring a killer line-up including Marc Layton-Bennett on drums, George King on keys and Martin Chung on guitar, plus contributions from revered drummer Tony Allen, Hawkwind’s Nick Turner and producer genius Youth on the dials, it’s an engaging collection of songs drawing on a typical kaleidoscope of styles. It’s also an album that seems to have left him creatively satisfied yet simultaneously hungry for more.

‘It was a great lesson and shows, if you are open-minded, what you can do. It felt like a conscious segway from previous Invaders of the Heart material, numbers like Visions of You,’ he says.

With Youth on board, a fresh line-up, plus a new acceptance with his collaborators, Wobble was able to move more freely than ever. He explains: ‘I don’t like it when albums become a kind of a torture something is wrong, you know that is not good and you don’t want that. So we made sure that it was all fun all the way through.’

It comes amid a particularly creative time with Cherry Red last year releasing Redux, an exhaustive collection of music, covering 90 tracks of originals and reworks. While we talked, he’d just finished another new record, this time more psychedelic.

‘It features some really unusual playing and some things I have never quite done before,’ he says. ‘I am absolutely cock-a-hoop with it. I am fucking 58 surrounded by a group of great musicians. I’m still absolutely turned on by music.’

Staying inspired After so many years in the game, Wobble’s somehow ensured that his output has always orbited in exploratory spheres ahead of his peers mired in nostalgia. Although he did reconvene with PiL guitarist Keith Levene in 2009, Metal Box in Dub offered weird reinterpretations of iconic songs rather than tired re-treads.

PROFILE

For him, songwriting at its best is a taut balance of emotions. ‘It needs to be like a well-tuned bass string - there’s a tension but also a relaxed quality too,’ he says.

As with collaborator Youth, Wobble’s painting is closely aligned to his musical output, helping him flex other creative muscles to enable his artistry to course easily through him. He made the painting on the front of his new record with its shapes reflecting the album’s contents.

‘That is at the heart of it. By being open, you can free up a certain energy that comes and allow yourself to go with that, knowing it is like some force of nature. You might not know where it takes you.’

It shows that really in this, the fortieth year since punk began, anything is possible. ‘Punk now, funnily enough, is like a group old of soldiers – “where were you in the war? Where were you in punk?”’

Although he approved of some of this year’s celebrations, Wobble believes now is a time when artists can afford to go out on a limb.

With his sons grown up, his label, management and PR handed over to others, it means he can focus once again on music.

‘I am really a creative person, I want to be creative and I know I could be gone in a year or two. So I relax, breathe in and try and really enjoy the process of being an artist. It should be one of exploration, expression and amazement, where you amaze yourself and you allow the circumstances to amaze you.’

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song writing

i wrote that Originally crash landing into UK grime back in 2011 with a freestyle over US rapper Chris Brown's hit

Look at Me Now, Birmingham MC and producer Lady Leshurr has become an online sensation with her distinctive, personality filled freestyles.

Over the last 18 months she’s netted a viral hit with her Queen’s Speech Ep 4 and 5 clocking up almost 50m YouTube views and counting. We find out how Leshurr created a phenomenon…

I knew I wanted to be a rapper because of artists like Eminem, Missy Elliott and Ludacris, then Lil’ Wayne. They inspired me to make music. Then, in 2011, my Look At Me Now cover took off.

Back then I don’t think I was as consistent as I could have been, didn’t capitalise on that moment.

I knew I had to take a step away from music to prepare something fresh and new.

It was a really hard decision. All I knew was music. But sometimes you need to make change to see change. I knew I’d have to step outside my comfort zone for it to pay off.

The Queen’s Speech episodes came from my year off, inspired by music videos from years ago, from Missy Elliot, Ludacris and Busta Rhymes - their videos were so entertaining and watchable. They captured something I really felt was missing from the scene. The industry now is very serious and people want to be seen as such. So I wanted to revisit these attitudes and bring something back, something that had obviously already been done but to give the scene a new lease of life. It felt like I could change the game and create new opportunities for both myself and UK grime.

During that year I sat down and wrote a list of everything I wanted to do, so with Queen’s Speech, I knew the name, how many episodes.

I was inspired by watching a lot of battle raps - it’s just dissing, with these lyrics that make people laugh. They’re entertaining because they’re dissing each other in the funniest way.

MARK ALLAN

All I needed was people who believed in it to be involved. So I found a producer and director.

We didn’t have a high budget, just a cheap camera and it’s only one take of me walking down the

If you’ve got something new to bring to the table, you’re going to get the attention you deserve.

road being filmed. I thought that doing it this way was easier, not only because you can save money but many people will relate to the realness even more. You’re not putting on a façade. I thought that it would connect with people quicker – what you see is what you get with me.

With Queen’s Speech Ep 1 I had no idea how people were going to take it. It was me coming back out again with something fresh, different music and sound. It was a big deal for me and I was nervous to the point where I left it for two months after I’d finished it before releasing it. I didn’t know how people would take it.

We didn’t promote it too much.

I put the link on my Twitter and Facebook profiles. The majority of the promotion was from the people themselves as they’d never seen anything like it. Everyone was getting excited - who’s this girl, who’s this girl? They were sharing it with their friends, with their parents, whatever – it just caught fire. I think the main buzz was from Facebook. I had no idea how powerful Facebook was until I saw millions of people viewing it within hours.

I’ve been very overwhelmed by the success. It’s crazy how far an idea can take you. A year before Queen’s Speech, the majority of people didn’t know who I was. It’s created so many opportunities and it’s mad to look at it like that.

But in UK hip-hop and grime, if you’ve got something new to bring to the table, you’re going to get the attention you deserve. With [UK grime MCs] Stormzy and Skepta, they’ve both enjoyed success as their music shows off their true selves. And being yourself is what makes you different to everyone else in the industry - that’s how you succeed.

Queen’s Speech Ep. 4 . Wriitten by Melesha O’Garro, Thomas Broderick and Anthony Bamgboye. Published by BMG Rights Management and Downtown Music.

Queen’s Speech Ep.5. Written by Melesah O’Garro and Ellis Taylor.

Published by BMG Rights Management and Kobalt.

Visit lyeah.co.uk to watch the videos Lady Leshurr #fundedbyprsf

m61_september 2016 _31

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Radiohead, Oxfordshire woods, 14 February 2011 Music photographer Sebastian Edge, founder of the North London Darkroom, shares his story behind this iconic 2011 Radiohead press shot. To take the picture, he used an antiquated photographic technique that perfectly fitted the band’s aesthetic for their top 10 album The King of Limbs .

This picture was taken using the 19th century Wet Collodion photographic process, which I learned back in 2007.

The image was shot using my hand built Hurricane camera. It’s named after the great storm of 1987 because it’s made from fallen chestnut wood my dad collected shortly after.

When I’d mastered the technique my filmmaker friend and I hit the road together. We went to End of the Road Festival, All Tomorrow’s Parties and a few others. My camera is huge and it always attracts interest, so I met a lot of people around then, including a bloke who was working with Radiohead. I didn’t think anything of it until I got a phone call out of the blue in January 2011.

The band were looking for a photography process that fitted both their outlook and their new album, The King of Limbs. A few weeks later I found myself at their studio in Oxford. It’s a barn conversion with all of their recording gear, Johnny and Colin’s guitar collection - everything is in there.

As I walked in the door, their manager said: ‘Uh, I’ve just pressed the button, the album is out! All we need now are the press photos…’

We disappeared round the corner to a little patch of woodland near where Thom lives.

The location was perfect for Radiohead and for me. I’ve always been fascinated by ancient English woodland and spent a lot of time photographing it. Radiohead’s album was about a thousand year old oak tree so I guess it’s partly why they wanted to work with me.

The Wet Collodion process is a lot of work to set up. I had to start the fermentation process with the chemicals three days before. But on the day, I focussed the camera, made the film on a side of glass, took the one shot, made the exposure and developed it straight away - so the band got to see something almost instantly.

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The glass slide was in a big tray of liquid and as it started to appear in front of their eyes it was clear they just loved it. I don’t think they’d ever experienced anything like it before.

It looks like it was shot in the Wild West.

They came dressed like that, I didn’t ask them. When we were experimenting with the pose, we walked around the woods for a long time looking for the right spot and the right light. As I made the exposure, they had to stand really still for two minutes. I always tell people what might happen if they move, then just let them get on with it. With this

shot, Thom, Johnny, Colin, Ed and Phil all did something. You might notice Colin moved his hand six or seven times. I don’t know why, but that’s the way he reacted to the shoot.

I’ve taken a lot of portraits, and some of them have got really beautiful stories, but I don’t think I’ve ever produced anything quite as special as this one.

Sebastian Edge’s Hurricane camera, plus exclusive shots of Radiohead, The Arthur Brothers, Mars Volta and others, will be on display at Metropolis Studios, London, from 13 October.

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