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Hannah Peel
87 Plays2 months ago
This week we dig into the archive for a chat with multi-instrumentalist & Mercury nominated composer Hannah Peel. Pete & Hannah discuss the influence of Delia Derbyshire & The Radiophonic Workshop on modern electronic music, writing music for orchestras & how to navigate being a multi-genre & multi-discipline artist.
This episode is sponsored by Slate & Ash.
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Transcript
Introduction and Feedback
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey everyone, this is Pete from Ishmael Ensemble, back for episode 2 of Catching Light. Um, welcome. Thanks so much for all the people who have got in touch to say how much they enjoyed the first episode with Corto Alto couple of weeks ago.
00:00:24
Speaker
Um... Yeah, it's been really nice and I'm excited to share this latest episode.
Podcast Origins and Format
00:00:33
Speaker
So yeah, this all started as a ah ways and means of sharing the interviews I've been doing on my radio show here in Bristol on SWIR FM.
00:00:45
Speaker
And yeah, the chats were always kind of so in-depth and interesting and often edited quite heavily to go on the radio. So I thought it'd be nice to share them in a much longer form.
00:00:56
Speaker
And yeah, it's a nice opportunity to kind of dig deep into the artist's process and inspirations and journeys in sound.
00:01:07
Speaker
And yeah, this week we dig into the archive of those SWFM shows. um For a chat I had with the brilliant multi-instrumentalist, composer, band leader and just all-round kind of creative powerhouse.
00:01:28
Speaker
um She's never never not busy it seems. And that is Hannah Peel.
Guest Introduction: Hannah Peel
00:01:36
Speaker
Yeah, I've kind of known of Hannah's work for a while now and sort of see her crop up all over the place, whether that's on TV soundtracks, composing and playing alongside the Para Orchestra here in Bristol.
00:01:51
Speaker
And yeah, always just pushing your boundaries of kind of the grey area between electronic and classical music. This interview was actually recorded during Covid, so it's a bit of a step back in time.
00:02:08
Speaker
You'll kind of hear some relevant chat about testing and being struck down with a lurgy. It was weird, wasn't it? um Yeah, it's been quite interesting to listen back to to how we all were at that time.
Creative Opportunities During Pandemic
00:02:21
Speaker
I almost feel guilty to say it, but it was certainly quite a creative time for me, and I think a lot of other artists, you know, we were sort of allowed the freedom to not have to work everything around a tour or a gig and yeah everything was kind of thrown out the window um which yeah sort of allowed for time to be a bit more patient with the process which is certainly something doesn't happen too often these days um So yeah, we talk a lot about Hannah's work in TV, in film, writing for orchestras, her own stuff, as well as the influence of, you know, the likes of Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop, being a woman in a predominantly male industry, and yeah, her journey in sound to get where she is.
00:03:10
Speaker
Hope you enjoy it. um And we'll be back in a couple of weeks with a brand new interview with yeah i'm not gonna say actually yeah someone very exciting that i'm a big fan of and hopefully you'll come back for more all right until then um enjoy this is catching light with me pete from ishmael ensemble joined by the brilliant hannah peel
00:04:00
Speaker
Afternoon everyone, this is Pete from Ismail Ensemble and delighted to be joined today by multi-instrumentalist and composer Hannah Peel.
Hannah's Early Musical Influences
00:04:10
Speaker
Hey Hannah, how are you doing?
00:04:11
Speaker
Hello, it's good to be here. he And we've both been struck down with Covid, right? It's not out of the woods yet. no No, but I'm glad that it's nearly over.
00:04:24
Speaker
Hmm, feeling that way for sure. I haven't actually had it yet. Well, I feel I've had it like everyone else, but I've never had a confirmed test. So there's there's a weird slight sense of like joining the club finally that I've not been in. so if Yeah, I'm glad it was in the beginning. I've been kind of doing my job and in and out of England because i live in Northern Ireland at the moment and And thinking I was actually a bit invincible because I'd done so well not to catch it for the last two years. and
00:04:57
Speaker
And then all of a sudden when I least expect it, it gets you. Yeah, yeah, totally. But by the looks of it, you're in a room full of fun toys to play with, so um you can keep yourself busy, right?
00:05:09
Speaker
Yes, there's loads of synthesizers here, and and yeah, it's great. he um So I'd love to kind of just briefly start on the early years, and... um yeah What what sort of drew you to i guess making music and and performing it? and what What were the first kind of instruments you were you were playing when you were younger?
00:05:33
Speaker
we well i My family are very musical. um they're Irish and everyone plays about three different instruments or sings or something. So there's always been in the family, lots of things happening, whether I've played or not, it's always been around as live music, not necessarily my parents didn't have any record collection whatsoever. So I never really got my influences from when any siblings or family, but in terms of like that community,
00:06:04
Speaker
type feeling you know where we're made to play instruments at Christmas in front of each other and at birthdays and and and i never escaped that when we moved from Northern Ireland to England and one of the things my mum did was make sure that we myself and my brother had instrumental lessons there was this amazing scheme that was you know you could have a free instrument or pay like maybe like something ridiculous like five pounds a month and and have free brass lessons in school as a group um to try and keep up that tradition actually with the brass banding mostly so i picked up a cornet and absolutely fell in love with it and by the age of kind of 12 13 had done
00:06:48
Speaker
you know quite a lot of my grades on it because I just adored it um and then I ended up having braces as a teenager and had to move on to trombone but you know I guess like it's always stayed with me that kind of learning of instruments playing with school band I ended up at school in Barnsley that was just that isn't there anymore it's been knocked down i playing in the school band there and having some amazing opportunities in fact Even a trip to the Ukraine when I was 15, we went all the way there to ah celebrate the twinning of a town with Barnsley, which was incredible and also very sad to see and things going on as they are right now.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure. um Yeah, I mean, interesting. So...
00:07:38
Speaker
Did your family have a kind of brass band history or or was this sort of merely what was happening at the school and and the opportunities there then? Yeah, just at the the community really and then what was going on and I guess in some ways a way to keep us occupied. Moving from Ireland to Barnsley doesn't seem like a big step right like now because people move so far away but in the ninety s it felt like it was a completely different world and barnsley was in the recession of the mines you know we were the only irish family like i remember some a guy turned up at our house one night and my dad was like how did you find us and he said oh i just went to the local pub and said where's the irish family and found us um so you know it was a different type of
00:08:28
Speaker
landscape I guess so the the brass banding and you know even the the orchestras that they did in that centre which again has been knocked down and is in is gone um was a great opportunity for kids to get together and play music and learn from each other and start our own bands and that's always stayed with me from then Yeah, yeah. Fascinating.
Transition to Electronic Music
00:08:50
Speaker
I mean, when I think of your music, I predominantly think of kind of synthesizers and and electronic kind of experimental music. So how did you um yeah bridge that more traditional gap over over to the yeah world of electronics?
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, I guess and my piano teacher was incredibly experimental as well. you know He wouldn't just get me to play Dvorak or Elgar or anything. he would be introducing me to kind of tubular bells and things like that. i mean, don't know if it was on the piano, but it was still ah an eye-opening experience, ah you know minimalism.
00:09:29
Speaker
and things that I, you could tell that I wasn't really interested in doing my grades, even though I had to do them. and But it wasn't until I went to university that I actually fully got into it because My teacher there was ah an organist and would collect Hammond organs.
00:09:48
Speaker
And you know just from that very first kind of initial few lessons, it just opened a world for me. But it wasn't until I'd actually left uni and started making my own first record that I met and the incredible John Fox, who people may know from Ultravox.
00:10:07
Speaker
And then he um he went on to release his own incredible electronic records and influence like the likes of Gary Newman and and Talk Talk and everybody. and And he was looking for a violinist, keyboardist that could sing. And so, yeah, I really cut my teeth when I joined that band in terms of learning synths.
00:10:28
Speaker
from day one because it was like you're gonna have to recreate sounds of the 80s on this synth go do it so you know learning about filters and oscillators it just happened very very fast and it became ah massive addiction and i finally felt like i found some kind of home in music Because before that, people were pinning me as like a folk artist or like you know because I played the violin and I'd sing and then I ended up sessioning with quite a lot of different folk artists. But I never really felt like part of that scene.
00:11:03
Speaker
I just was always like, no, I'm a bit separate from that. So actually, when yeah when I discovered synths and started collecting them, I was like, yeah, this is this is what I love. I love the community here. It's good.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah. it was Yeah, so yeah, synthesizers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And were were you listening to electronic music at that time as well? Or like what what sort of, were you were you hearing these synths in music you you liked as well?
00:11:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'd always liked electronic music, even, you know, going back as very early, kind of Fortet, Bonobo, Cinematic Orchestra, and you know, the Zero Seven. I'm talking about the things that the first things I would have heard. Air and Daft Punk and...
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, those are the things that I really enjoyed as a teen. so and So, yeah, it's always been part of my kind of like landscape of listening. It was just that I hadn't kind of connected everything together and as ah as an artist, because I wasn't really an artist for a long time. I was the session musician played with lots of different people. So when I first started making my own records, that's when I really started to explore sounds and and the worlds that come with them.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. um And what was your first synth? You said you started collecting them. um was Was the one that really stuck out at the beginning that you remember? Yeah, I mean, my very first one, and I've still got it. And I think it's, you know, still my favorite is the Gino 60.
00:12:37
Speaker
Classic. Just, yeah, she will never be replaced.
00:12:43
Speaker
That's so powerful, aren't they? remember playing one for the first time. My friend Ned, who grew up near me, he got Juno quite early on, you know, and sort of, I'd not really explored anything outside the box as a, yeah, I guess 16, 17 year old or something.
00:13:02
Speaker
yeah There is something about not just the kind of intuitive nature or fiddling with knobs and faders. There's some sort of power powerful thing, isn't there? And it's interesting you make the connection actually with like organs and stuff, you know, because that was...
00:13:20
Speaker
I guess in a way, the you know, the first thing I remember being able to like manipulate sound on those like, don't know about you, but there's a big um exodus, it seemed, of those like 70s or 80s electric organs and every charity shop and every jumble sale used to have like 10 of these organs you could pick up for a fiver each and everyone I knew at one point had one.
00:13:40
Speaker
And before knowing it, I guess you were already sort of playing and manipulating with with sounds on those but then when you hear the real deal like a Juno or something it's like oh wow this is yeah insane and yeah yeah there's something something powerful and we were you also kind of interested in computers and and that side of it or was it very much from an analog perspective?
00:14:06
Speaker
Interested in computers in terms of gaming. And, you know, like Zelda, we had a Commodore 1200. My mum was a teacher, so she used to bring home the BBC computer at weekend and we'd play Chucky Egg. But yeah, not really into programming because...
00:14:25
Speaker
You know, and when I look back, I didn't have anybody as a kind of mentor or even just like, and and I talk even as a female, I didn't have anybody that I would have looked up to because the industry at the time, as we know, is was focused on people just being singers and and you weren't really encouraged. And it wasn't until I started playing the synthesizers that then I started thinking about production and how much I enjoyed it.
00:14:52
Speaker
Like I'd made things before. that but I didn't really ever think about me being a producer or writer or anything I just you know done little you know I had a project called Kinetic Fallacy, which sounds so bizarre, but you know we made everything in Ableton and um and it was the first kind of copies of Ableton, really. It was really, really early days, myself and another and female composer who was also a vibraphone and marimba player. So we used to use the laptops and put it with the tune percussion and things like that. but
00:15:29
Speaker
Yeah, I guess it wasn't really until the last, I even probably even the five years that I've started to go, yeah, I produce my own stuff and I record and I do all that. I think there's an element of confidence and fear and especially thinking you need to rely on somebody rather than learn it.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I've kind of got over that a lot now. I don't really think about that anymore, but it was a big hindrance. Yeah, interesting. I almost have the exact opposite where I've always sort of hid behind the producer role and, you know, I've always played saxophone and played in, you know, those school bands and stuff and, um but I've always been a producer first and foremost and, you know, it's only really recently that friends around we've been like, yeah,
00:16:18
Speaker
yeah you're you're also a musician you know you definitely stand on stage for an hour and a half playing saxophone like think that counts like but that is something I must say in your music that I really notice you know it's very free and open and doesn't feel as though it's sort of restricted to too many kind of you know although there's the electric electronic feel of you know program drums or whatever it doesn't It feels more leaning in with what you said about sort of minimalism or early, you know, modern classical, I guess. um
00:16:50
Speaker
Whereas, you know, I'm constantly stuck to the grid and really have to force myself to move away from it. And and I wonder, is it is that a conscious decision of yours or is that just kind of naturally how you write?
Innovative Composition Techniques
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, it is a natural thing how I write. I don't...
00:17:07
Speaker
necessarily, I mean, for example, the the unfolding with the para orchestra, there was a ah huge part of that that was me just ignoring any kind of time signature or and our tempo quite a lot.
00:17:21
Speaker
So and actually when the process was finished and then having to kind of score it, and um I did that with Charlotte Harding, who's an incredible arranger and orchestrator and has worked with the para orchestra many a time before,
00:17:34
Speaker
So knows what they need and to be delivered to them. ah A lot of that was her having to work out what I had written because it just fell over things. But that wasn't a conscious, I mean, it was a conscious decision. It was that it was is that feeling of being free and and not thinking about things too much.
00:17:55
Speaker
I guess in my head I was just improvising quite a lot of things and then you put them down and you think, oh, that's a great idea, I'll come back to that. And then you end up developing that idea in, say, logic and and it becomes the piece by the end, which, you know, a lot of ideas you think, oh, that'll just it'll end soon and I'll just go and do it properly. But it never worked out like that.
00:18:19
Speaker
and So yeah, so it's nice to know that it is quite freeing sometimes I feel like I'm not very free. Don't we all? a This is the new album in collaboration with the Power Orchestra and um the unfolding.
Collaboration with Para Orchestra
00:18:34
Speaker
And yeah, for our listeners that um won't necessarily know the work of the Power Orchestra, could you just give, ah yeah, I guess a little overview of who they are and what they do? They are an orchestra based in Bristol.
00:18:46
Speaker
and They combine disabled with non-disabled musicians. But, I mean, they are a platform for disabled musicians, but they challenge the way that orchestras should be.
00:18:59
Speaker
You know, inclusive, diverse, highly diverse, but the main goal is that it is high-quality, incredible music, and I feel very...
00:19:10
Speaker
treasured to be part of and honoured to be part of the work that they create because they play anything from like we were saying minimalism Steve Reich to craft work reinventions to um Terry Riley's In Sea and this is their first album that we've done together and and they've been going since 2011 and kind of came onto the main stage of of the music industry I suppose 2012 with the Olympics Yeah, Amazing. And how did your relationship with them start?
00:19:40
Speaker
Charles Hazelwood, who is the founder and then conductor and just an amazing force of nature, had come to me and said, we've seen you play music boxers. And obviously i done a lot of other things, but he was like, you know, you just seem like the sort of ah artist that's quite inventive and could probably and work with us and as a group, as an ensemble to create something. So they commissioned me to write something for a live show.
00:20:12
Speaker
back in 2018 and we eventually got together in 29 early 2019 and did an r and d period like research and development in bristol and just a couple of days together there was adrian nutley the guitarist was there and a couple of the players and i kind of decided around that time i was starting to do i was doing mary cassio the journey to cassio pier album of the brass band and synthesizers and there was definitely exploration into space.
00:20:43
Speaker
And then I was like, well, I want to maybe explore the underworld with this album. and And yeah, I kind of decided that with the power orchestra, because they've got so many instrumentalists, it it can be quite overwhelming as a composer to decide what you are going to do with so many different types of instruments. So I read it right down to the ones that I felt gave me a sense of,
00:21:09
Speaker
grounding and that kind of underworld feeling right and the of the earth I guess and so I hadd said to them like look can we have some percussion and drums and Adrian was there on guitar and we had all the bass woodwind that we could possibly find so like contrabass bassoon bass clarinet alto flute, bass oboe and then the synthesizers and so that became the the kind of real structure for the basis of writing which actually didn't happen until 2020 when I had time to sit in the lockdown and and actually start working and putting pieces together and so it's been ah quite a long process but a really rewarding one.
00:21:58
Speaker
Nice. I've always wondered how that process works with, you know, working with a a large ensemble or collections of musicians that already exist. um Did you feel a pressure to write or include certain instrumentation? um You said you sort of had your your choice there, but um yeah, was there sort of, I guess, musicians or instrumentalists that um you hadn't thought of writing for before that you were suddenly able to...
00:22:27
Speaker
Oh yeah, what yeah definitely. I mean I never had any pressure from the power orchestra themselves to include anybody. They very much were a very understanding to the kind of what you want to present at the end and and feeding that into the idea of of the compositions and where the where the essence is coming from.
00:22:49
Speaker
and But yeah, I mean, at the time in the demo, it's not necessarily that it's ended up on the um the record, but I'd written, i was writing for Loot. I'd never written really for a whole bass woodwind section. yeah,
00:23:04
Speaker
and I'd written lots for strings and percussion and things. So yeah, it was there was quite a lot of things that I hadn't done before. like Even and to the point, and this is where Charlotte's Harding came in really wonderfully, is that you know I hadn't written for musicians that are blind and that are using braille or are using digital assistive instruments.
00:23:25
Speaker
So definitely there was an element on my side of like fear of, like how am I going to be able to do a good enough job? and ah present something to them that they're going to enjoy playing.
00:23:36
Speaker
and And as I said, it was supposed to be a live show, so i wasn't necessarily supposed to be included. i was going to write them a piece of music and here it was. But as it turned out, we were like, you're going to have to be involved, Hannah, and also let's make it as a record because the chances of ah us performing it could be a few years away.
00:23:56
Speaker
So, yeah, so that's how it's ended up how it is today as as the unfolding.
00:24:03
Speaker
Amazing. um Well, let's talk about performance because you've finally got some live dates coming up in May, right? um Yeah. how is that coming together you you kind of excited nervous how how how is it putting this large project to yeah the the stage as it were yeah it's fun um i mean obviously like you're in the arms of charles hazelwood who's incredible live and just brings this crazy amount of energy to a stage that makes everybody feel welcome and held and and brilliantly comforted by. i am
00:24:41
Speaker
So yeah, I'm very excited. you know, ah in my ideal world, we'd be doing a maybe 20, 30 dates. But you know, the reality is we we're only able to do about four. And I think each of those four shows is going to be really, really bloody special. Yeah, I think for me what's really exciting is seeing artists that you know you admire pushing boundaries and you know I guess you could have just put together another you know solo electronic record or or whatever.
00:25:12
Speaker
um how How do you feel kind of moving forward and and as an artist do you find find this kind of stuff creatively um exciting or or daunting or yeah pushing pushing your boundaries?
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:29
Speaker
In some ways, if there isn't a fear attached to it, and lose interest. if If it doesn't challenge me and it doesn't question what I am thinking or what the ah what I'm picking up from society and friends, it it makes me feel like I'm not...
00:25:47
Speaker
I'm not presenting and having that communication properly with everybody on the outside world. Like, you know, words are very hard to to talk. It's easy to talk about music from the perspective of when you've done it, but when you're in it, it's very hard to put into words what you're actually feeling. And this was very much the case with the unfolding in that, you know, there was,
00:26:11
Speaker
There's very little lirics lyrics on the record because of the fact that I was really, i'm and I still am, I'm struggling to find a way to present music with lyrics. Like I feel like they're either forced or they don't say enough.
00:26:25
Speaker
And I feel like the the music itself kind of speaks better. And it allows people to kind of communicate back with me easier rather than me kind of presenting words. Because, you know, I came from...
00:26:38
Speaker
records where I'm singing all over it, you know, Todd and all didn't and Fur Wave actually the previous album was a real kind of reminder of like you don't need to have words on ah on a record to be able to feel something and communicate something. So, and see yeah, there is this essence of like challenge and working with different people that makes it feel very exciting. And it's all connected. Like, ah i guess like some people might look at the work that I do and think that I've just picked something random and then gone over here. and
00:27:12
Speaker
But actually the themes around them are always very much based on kind of nature and the human qualities that we have and and how we place ourselves in the world, whether it be in a space record or whether it be in a record about rocks and the underworld or fur wave, which is to do with patterns, they're all kind of coming at the same time um and using the same elements, which I feel keeps it all quite connected, which is good.
Impact and Creation of 'Furwave'
00:27:40
Speaker
Let's talk about Furwave because, you know, I'd known of your music for a while, but um for me, with a lot of albums, that first lockdown and, you know, that kind of period was a real opportunity to to listen again. You know, I've been so obsessed with making and performing music that...
00:28:00
Speaker
I don't know almost had forgotten you know was still referencing my favorite albums which when I look at them are from 10 years ago and maybe I haven't found anything since then but over the last couple of years think a lot of us suddenly had the opportunity to listen to our peers and other music that's coming out and um yeah Furwave was one of those for me and it sort of took me by surprise really because I i had no ah yeah preconceived kind of ideas of what I'd be listening to or you know what it was going to do to me. And um yeah, it was a real refreshing record I found for me anyway in that period to kind of, you know, it's a real sound world and you can really get deep into it. And so thank you for that. It was great. yeah um Well, and a few of my friends as well have said the same thing. You know, it was kind of...
00:28:50
Speaker
yeah you're so like often tunnel vision aren't you you know as a music maker you kind of almost bat away the what's happening at the moment because you don't want any sort of immediate influence of what's being released at the same time as you or whatever and um yeah the idea of everything sort of being taken off or away from us meant all right it's fine i can listen to other music now and Yeah.
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah. um And I was really interested because I'm also an avid library music fan and, you know, got kind of a lot of the KPM records. And I saw quite recently, actually, I didn't know this at the beginning, but um that yeah, you you had sort of ah foundations of that record in in the KPM catalogue and had the opportunity to ah explore and expand on some of those ideas. Could you talk about that a little bit?
00:29:44
Speaker
Yeah, so the whole record began from a library record. and and but and you know Firstly, thank you for saying all those things because it it was and it was a record that wasn't really, Fair Wave was a record that wasn't supposed to be released. It was just a library record.
00:30:02
Speaker
and you know It's been changed since since the library record in order to feel more like an album, but but it was written with that essence of like, this is not for an audience.
00:30:13
Speaker
and And in some ways, maybe that's the thing that's made it communicate quite a lot to other people and and why it got nominated for the Mercury. It's just got and a world of its own that is so self-contained. But yeah, KPM came to me and said, we'd love you to take and the electrosonic record from 1972, which features members of the Radiophonic Workshop and most notably Delia Derbyshire and under a pseudonym at the time.
00:30:42
Speaker
and and do what you want with it. And I was just like, wow, this is a great opportunity, but I don't want to touch this at all. And I don't really want to make a library record that nobody's going to hear.
00:30:56
Speaker
um but gradually as it kind of i let it soak in after a while and i started playing around with sounds and um i decided instead of kind of like sampling the record and then using bits of it you know like lines that you would recognize from the original record i just took tiny sounds from it and made my own instruments in contact out of out of the original, like say the beds that she might have made, the washes off or like some of the synth lines that kind of come in and come in there that are like kind of like warbles and things. I would have took tiny fragments of that and then made my own ah sound from it and used that palette of sound like as a boundary to kind of manipulate and shape. And even if one track only has like one tiny element of it in there in the background, then
00:31:49
Speaker
then you know that was enough. It didn't matter. and Because I felt like I just couldn't take that record and do something to it. It just felt like it's of its own era and its own time. So it felt wrong.
00:32:02
Speaker
So yeah, so that's how it kind of came about. Wow, what an opportunity. And then when I delivered it to KPM and Sony, They were like, you know, if you ever want to do this as a record, let us know.
00:32:15
Speaker
you should, you know, think about it. And I was like, ah yeah, we'll think about it. But I guess that same familiar thing when you've got the time to listen and and reassess stuff.
00:32:25
Speaker
at the same time of me writing the unfolding, I was like, ah have this these tracks, like what should I do with them? So I went back to it and re-looked at everything, reproduced some of the tracks, got it completely mixed again, ah worked with another ah Bristol engineer, producer called Tim Allen.
00:32:45
Speaker
and yeah and He remixed everything and then there was two of the tracks on there that I was just like, look, the beats, I do my head in like, I can't see the wood for the trees anymore because I've hit a point with them. Can you take this and and see what you can do? So we co-produced those two together and and and he came back with some,
00:33:08
Speaker
beautiful results so that so yes it made an album by the end so yeah by the end of kind of middle of 2020 i was like oh i've got a record i can put out and we managed to do it so it was really lovely amazing i didn't know you had so many bristol connections have you ever lived here or anything or is that no i don't know why i'm definitely drawn to places by the sea like i live by the sea now i lived in liverpool for nine years by like overlooking the Mersey like there's definitely elements so Bristol would definitely be on that place of like if I had to move I would probably consider Bristol yeah strong estuaries only yeah yeah
00:33:51
Speaker
Obviously the Radiophonic Workshop is you know a big part of the history of females in British electronic music and um when when did you first hear about them and has Delia Derbyshire been someone you've kind of always known or or looked up to or is it is that more recently through this project?
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah I mean I'd heard of her definitely before I'd done this project but i think like everybody there was a ah resurgence when at all herster all her music was found and then started being archived and and you know people actually started writing about these things i mean that's the beauty of the internet is that you start finding out about people that have been hidden from you for me it was quite it was it really enlightening to find someone like her and then start to research more into it and find the daphnes and and the others that were coming to the forefront because
00:34:48
Speaker
there was never anything, there was never any talk of that before. You never had anyone to inspire you and think, oh, you know, other women have done this before. Whereas, so I guess probably, i don't know, maybe eight, nine years ago, I probably would have started to to hear about her. But yeah, the Radio Phonic Workshop as ah as a group and how they were and doing their gigs and touring, I definitely heard about, you know, in the last kind of 10 years anyway.
00:35:18
Speaker
as you say, the legacy of synthesizers and how they're portrayed is definitely a lot of long-haired blokes in these psychedelic bands in the 70s or whatever, you know. It's not that side.
00:35:32
Speaker
And I love how... scientific it is as well you know because that's kind of um the reality it's not all just about you know but wiggling around these knobs randomly and working out you know by by faults or you know happy accidents that there's a real science behind it and um yeah have you kind of dived into that side as well you you kind of in the modular world and you've gone down that rabbit hole at all yeah I mean I've got a couple of moduluss in and
00:36:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, ah guess ah haven't gone into it fully because I'm writing so fast and have to recall so much. and You know, because not only releasing records, I'm writing for TV and film and, and you know, up until the cover of the last few years, even like adverts and things where you You can't rely on having to use modular synthesizers for everything. so and So I guess i I veer away from it in terms of like collecting them and using them on a regular basis, but it's not something I'm afraid of.
00:36:40
Speaker
and And I love learning. I think there's definitely that side. like When I was a kid, I always thought I'd probably be a scientist or a detective. i was like I had you know the detective magazines that you collected every month or whatever and and I think there's that but side of exploration which is always really intriguing and really exciting to finding things and discovering things and something nice about thinking, oh, nobody else might have this sound.
Challenges of Live Performances
00:37:11
Speaker
In terms of sort of, you know, coming out of the studio with that, how how do you approach live shows? Obviously, you know, with traditional instruments, it's quite easy to recreate something you made in the studio. But, um you know, as you say, with lots of different synths and stuff, it it can be hard to even begin to remember what you did on that song. ah um Yeah, bring it back. So how how does your live sort of process start and bringing it to stage?
00:37:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's and i mean I've ah tried to avoid doing stuff live for the last few years. I've i've quite enjoyed not having to gig. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of elements. the The last album that I toured with before,
00:37:55
Speaker
and obviously starting the Para Orchestra record was with the poet Will Burns. and And that was really wonderful, because that was the first time I'd used synths and a couple of modular stuff as well and piano and a little bit of tape machine kind of reworking and things and was able to have them the room to play live with them so that I wasn't necessarily working to a a loop or a click or a play of any form of playback um and I really really enjoyed that it took a lot more time and practice and
00:38:35
Speaker
And sometimes I find that quite frustrating because sometimes when you're working on stuff and you've got deadlines thrown at you, like especially if it's for media kind of music, it's hard to separate your brain into allowing yourself to have time to enjoy and and improvise and um But with the Para Orchestra, because there is so many of us, we we have to use things that are going to keep us all together because we obviously, you know, there's there's players there that are relying on a click in order to hear the bars because they can't see Charles or...
00:39:07
Speaker
and or there's people that are triggering samples and they need to know exactly where it comes in. So we're back on the kind of almost playback things. But, you know, myself and actually another Bristolian-based synthesizer player, Hazel Mills, are actually going to be doing these shows together so that we have a little synth kind of station together where we've got maybe five or six synths and we're using Ableton and the laptop to...
00:39:35
Speaker
create some of the sounds that just not possible to create live on stage yeah yeah amazing and you can catch those shows at the end of the month um yeah hannah it's been really nice to chat and uh thanks so much the new album the unfolding with the power orchestra is out now and uh yeah thanks so much for coming on hannah it's been a pleasure pleasure thank you for having me
00:40:06
Speaker
you
00:40:23
Speaker
Alright. Hope you enjoyed that. um Hannah Peel there. So funny. Just listening to that and thinking of those COVID times.
00:40:36
Speaker
All very odd. But um here we are in the real world again. And I've finally found time to make this podcast. So yeah, probably should have done it during COVID really.
00:40:48
Speaker
Certainly had more time on my hands.
Closing and Sponsor Message
00:40:51
Speaker
Anyway, um thanks so much for listening. Before I go, i should just mention this podcast is sponsored by Slate and Ash, a brilliant and electronic music software company based here in Bristol.
00:41:07
Speaker
um They've got some amazing instruments, not least Cycles, which we used a lot on the last album. And their latest, which is called Primary Strings, which are used exclusively to make the music you're hearing below the chat.
00:41:23
Speaker
um So if you like that, you'll probably like what they're doing. um They've got a massive sale on at the moment, 30% off all their bits of software.
00:41:35
Speaker
i just have to head over to www.slateandash.com and yeah, get stuck in. Alright, that's it for this week.
00:41:47
Speaker
um Thanks so much. Keep sharing the love, keep telling your mates, and yeah, I'll be back for more very soon. Alright, until then, um take care.
00:42:02
Speaker
And the yeah, see you soon. Cheers.
00:42:13
Speaker
you