About 'Night Sun'
Probably the most popular thing I've ever written
My album Vigils turns 10 this year. I’m releasing it on vinyl for the first time, and performing it in full with a string quartet (also for the first time).
Sorting out the remastering for the vinyl pressing was a lovely chance to look back at the album that made it possible for me to be a full-time composer, and to remember how it came together.
Let’s start with Night Sun.
February, 2014
On a cold evening in February, Nottingham chased away the winter darkness with a city full of light-based art installations, turning dim streets into a playground and gallery. Late in 2013, they selected my pitch for an interactive toy music-box that told a story.
Here’s the final paper-strip with the finished melody. I made a recording of the music box, looped the melody, and wrote some string parts. I had an idea to start of brooding and dark, before opening up into lightness.
I commissioned my friend Emma to write some words for the piece. Not for vocals or spoken word, but to appear on a projected screen as the music played.
Emma is an amazing writer. Her words have an empathic mystery to them that draws you into her narratives which are deeply personal and internal while at the same time universal. She really delivered something special and inspirational.
Dan Wheeler is a friend from my early days in the Derby music scene. He became a pro analogue photographer and teacher of the art. One night we walked around Nottingham trying to capture the ideas from the storyboard I made from Emma’s words and my music. Our references were Rumble Fish, Gregory Crewdson and Edward Hopper. Black and white, all analogue.
With music, words and visuals in place, I started to bring the physical installation together. The basic idea: a pedestrian comes across a toy-music box on the street. They turn the handle and a screen lights up and tells them a story.
An arduino would be connected to the music-box, sense when the handle was turned, and press play on a laptop connected to a projector (projecting onto a sheet or screen) and amplifier (to play the music loud enough to hear on the street).
It went really well. It drew big crowds in. People hugged, smiled, cried.
It was amazing to collaborate with Emma and Dan and I’m so proud that our work together really moved people.
The installation went on to feature at Leeds Light Night and Derby’s FORMAT Festival. Here’s the 16:9 version of the projection:
I was asked to speak about it at the V&A and Royal College of Art. I wrote about it in The Guardian.
Then I released the music on my 2016 album Vigils.
And then something very strange but amazing happened. It was licensed for a HBO/Sky Atlantic series starring Jude Law - The Young Pope. Big budget. Italian director.
I thought I’d believe it when I see it. That they’d probably end up in the edit and choose something else for the music. When these things happen you have no idea of the scene or the context.
Then it came out and it looked like this, and something that had been on my bucket list since I-don’t-know-when was crossed off:
Incredible. I still love that scene. Night Sun was used in another episode as well for another incredible scene. But it’s a great series…you should watch it and I don’t want to spoil it.