My first introduction to your work was Apollo. I thought it was one of the most beautiful records I'd ever heard.
It was remarkable, that. It was the first time that Brian and I had worked together; as well as Daniel, who on his own is a remarkable talent. I didn't realize what that record would come to mean to a lot of people. The word "seminal" is often overused, but it did kick something off, didn't it?
It's a different style of "ambient" music. That record is so much about moods, but there's also country music and almost classical, thematic music.
Exactly. It was a great thing. The making of it was an utter joy. We were making each other collapse laughing all the time. Put those two together, and you've got a real blessed situation.
Did you go to Hamilton, Canada, to work at Daniel's [Grant Avenue Studio]?
Yes. I've got very fond memories of it. I've still got a lucky Canadian dollar coin that a man gave me who was shoveling snow. We got to talking; he obviously recognized my accent and said, "Here, have one of these!" I've still got it. I did a lottery scratch card with it. I hadn't done one of those for ages. I scratched with this lucky coin, and I got enough money to get another scratch card. So, it works!
Low power magic.
Yes! [laughs]
With the collaboration on Apollo, what was the process for coming up with the basics of a piece and then adding to it?
It was a great situation, because there were no… I was going to say "rules," but that's not right. There wasn't a leadership structure, so no one felt inhibited about saying, "I've got this. Let's try this out." People would run with that. If there was any chance that it would be good, then it would be pursued. Also, and this is still true with Brian, Danny, and myself: There aren't any egos to deal with. It wasn't as if someone said, "No, I don't like it," that the other person's going to cry. It was very, very easy to work.
Did you have video of the film to view and write to?
Yes. It might have been on Betamax [videotape]. The great thing was it was the first cut of that film. I recently saw another version of it, which is covered in people talking. It ruined it. The first one was almost silent. There were a few people speaking at points. This second version piled on a load of dialog. The one that we worked to had these glorious, long images that – in our opinion – needed music to them. One of my favorites is when the landing craft is approaching the Moon, and the Moon gets closer and it gets bigger, but very slowly. Then, the landing module goes under the Moon into darkness. It's such a beautiful thing, the gradation between this stark, white Moon and then to these different colors of blue until it ends up in darkness. It takes ages, and it is utterly beautiful. The mood is there. All we had to do was enhance it.
That would have been a quite fun project to work on. Nothing had to be carefully synced, as in some film score work.
Exactly right.
After Apollo, you did the solo albums Voices and Between Tides. How did you see every opportunity to make a record? Did you try to visualize each in a different way?
Pretty much. I didn't think of them as progressions. I didn't think, "I ought to do this now, because I've just done that." There are some artists that deliberately press boundaries, or explore all the time. I work the other way. I polish. I've got these little stones or gems that I'm constantly dealing with. I'm putting them in different orders and making them re-interesting. That's how I look at it. A lot of it is piano-based, rather than thinking, "I know, I'll start programming synths." Come on! It doesn't intrigue me. So, yes, the other thing is that someone will come along and say, "We've got these forces for you to use." Like, for example, "There's this good quartet." Or I bump into a singer that I like. A lot of it is serendipity.
That seems to be the key for the new record. You're on a more classical-known label, Deutsche Grammophon.
Yes.
Now you've made a very organic-sounding, piano-based record with strings.
I knew I'd be making this for a while, so I was collecting pieces that I thought would be applicable. I realized this was going to be a good record right at the end, when I was doing the running order. I don't like speaking like this, because it sounds very big-headed. I don't mean it like that. Sometimes I just don't know. I've ended up with something and I can go, "Oh, that's okay." Thank god it was better than that. It was the running order that put the cherry on top. Listen through, and it perfectly blends until the end, which blends back to the beginning. It's got this lovely circular structure, where it goes back to the beginning; which, of course, is a very holistic way of looking at it, isn't it?
Right, that makes sense. An album, as a piece of work, always needs an arc of some sort.
Exactly.
It's not heavily mastered; not a very limited or compressed presentation. There are a lot of dynamics in the album.
That's the joy of working with great players. As far as I know, there was hardly any desk work done, in terms of faders. We were using beautiful vintage Neumann mics and preamps. We had truly great players. I also had a sensational instrument: I was using a mid-'50s or '60s Steinway B, which has a warmer sound than the later Steinway Ds. Those are made huge, to compete against orchestras. The Steinway B is more the "chamber" model. It's got a lovely warmth to it. Put those together and we don't need to do much at the end.
Were you playing live with the strings for this project?
For some, yes.
This was done at Teldex Studio, right?
Yes. In Berlin. Incredible facilities. Probably the best studio I have ever worked at. The engineer, Tobias Lehmann, is a Tonmeister. He's amazing. Amazing ears and technical knowledge. He's like a physicist as well as a musician.
How did the sessions proceed? Were some of the songs done as piano performances and then adding strings?
Yes. Why did we do that? Because I was scared to make a mistake, to be honest. I was the weak element in that, because I'm used to improvising, doodling, and thinking, "Oh, that's good," and following where the music is going from there. That wasn't appropriate for this, because there were written structures for the strings to follow. In English terms, I got the willies. Quite often I'd do my bit, and then they'd put theirs on top. We had two or three days to record. I knew they [the string players] wouldn't make errors, because they're fantastic.
With tracks like these, at this moderate tempo, was there a click track in your headphones for the piano performances?
