Music Life

Are you happy working alone? Does location affect your music? What happens after the album is done? This is what Icelandic composer, producer and king of the ambient Ólafur Arnalds will be asking the group in this episode of Music Life. He’s just released his new record Some Kind of Peace, has scored for film and TV, and has carried the Icelandic sound further around the world than it’s been before. Dustin O'Halloran forms one half of A Winged Victory For The Sullen and is an American pianist and composer. They released their latest project last year with The Undivided Five, whilst Dustin has been busy writing music for films including Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette and TV show Transparent. He now lives in Iceland. Hania Rani is a composer and pianist based between Warsaw and Berlin. She released her debut solo record Esja last year, in which she said, “No hiding behind collaborations anymore. For the very first time, [it’s] just me, as I am.” And finally Danish singer, composer and pianist Agnes Obel has been a superstar in the chamber music world for some time. She cemented her popularity with 2013’s Aventine album, and her most recent project was this year’s Myopia.

St. Vincent is an artist, songwriter and producer from Texas, now based in LA. After playing with the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, she formed her own band in 2006. She’s since released six albums including Love This Giant, a collaboration with David Byrne, and she completely shreds on the guitar. Vagabon is a Cameroonian-American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and producer described as an “indie rock game changer”. She started uploading tracks to Bandcamp in 2014 before releasing her debut album Infinite Worlds in 2017. And finally, David Byrne is one of the planet’s most engaging and prolific creators. He formed new wave band Talking Heads after dropping out of art school and they became one of the most influential bands of the twentieth century. Recently he has been working with Spike Lee on a film version of his Broadway show American Utopia, which has been described as ‘The Best Live Show of All Time’. Ahmed Gallab, also known as Sinkane is a Sudanese-American musician and singer based in New York, who blends Funk, Jazz, Dance, and Pop. His latest album ‘Dépaysé’ is about self-discovery as an immigrant in the USA. Together they’ll discuss feeling the pressure to do something different, what American identity is and how it shows in their music, and whether they make things to make people think, or move their feet.

This week Music Life gets crazy about pop with host Becky Hill, who asks MNEK, Ella Eyre and Frances all about their signature styles, if there's a formula for writing the perfect hit, and when songs don’t turn out as expected.Becky was a finalist on the first series of The Voice UK, and has since gone on to achieve global Pop stardom, working with the likes of Rudimental, MNEK, Little Simz, Jonas Blue, Jax Jones, Sigala and many more. An album is finally expected next year. Former Music Life guest MNEK is a Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and record producer. He has written and produced for some of the biggest artists around the world, including Beyonce, Christina Aguilera, HER and Dua Lipa, and he’s amassed over 1 billion streams. Frances is a singer-songwriter and producer. She’s been releasing her own music since 2015, and has written and produced for the likes of Katy Perry, Dua Lipa and Meghan Trainor. And Ella Eyre is an award-winning British/Jamaican/Maltese singer-songwriter, who rose to fame back in 2013 when her collaboration with Rudimental topped the UK chart. Since releasing her debut album, Feline, back in 2015, she has toured with the likes of Olly Murs, Little Mix and the Script, and has worked with everyone from Ty Dolla $ign, Yxng Bane, and Kiana Ledé to Meghan Trainor and French Montana.

Kranium is a singer and songwriter who blends dancehall and reggae. Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and raised in Jamaica, Queens, New York, he’s worked with the likes of Ty Dolla $ign, Burna Boy, Mahalia and Ed Sheeran. He chats to Masego and Alicai Harley about working quickly in airports, what their best choruses are, how they use the sounds of what came before, and what it’s like working with the industry’s biggest names. Answering those questions is Masego, a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and rapper based in LA. The video of him recording and live-looping his hit single Tadow with producer FKJ has been viewed over 240 million times. They're joined by an artist blowing up in London right now, Alicai Harley. She’s a singer, songwriter, and rapper known for her freestyles, whose sound fuses elements of dancehall, R&B, pop and UK grime.

An unbelievable line up this week sees Tune-Yards' Merrill Garbus ask Danielle and Este from Haim, Black Pumas' Eric Burton and Bardo Martinez of Chicano Batman if they consider the audience when writing, the ways in which their creative process has adapted from when they started out, and how they use the music of the past in their work. Eric Burton - a singer, songwriter, former busker, and one half of Black Pumas - was discovered whilst performing on the streets of Austin, Texas, by a friend of Grammy-winning artist and producer Adrian Quesada. Bardo Martinez is a Los Angeles-based vocalist, keyboardist, and bandleader of Chicano Batman. They have toured with the likes of Jack White, Alabama Shakes and Portugal The Man. And Haim are one of the biggest pop-rock bands of our time. Their latest album, Women in Music Part III, reflects on the strength of their bond, and personal struggles the three sisters have experienced during the writing process, which they have described as “collective therapy”.

Sonic Youth founder Thurston Moore is joined by Brix Smith, Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) and Rachel Aggs to discuss staying creative in lockdown, connecting to their audiences, and the link between politics and their work.Thurston Moore is a songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, and founded the band Sonic Youth. Joining him is Stephen O'Malley, a guitarist, producer, composer, label boss, and visual artist from Seattle, Washington, best known for his work in the doom metal group Sunn O))). The band has been described as creating “titanic drone metal” and their latest release was last year’s Pyroclasts. Brix Smith is a songwriter and guitarist best known for her work with post-punk band The Fall. She went on to form Adult Net and more recently Brix & The Extricated; she’s now recording her first solo album. And Rachel Aggs is a multi-instrumentalist originally from London and based in Glasgow. She sings, plays the guitar and is best known for her distinctive guitar work in Sacred Paws, Shopping, and Trash Kit. She’s also recently released her first solo album, Visitations 0202.

Bebel Gilberto welcomes Martha Wainwright, Sam Amidon and Martin Hayes to talk about the influence of their musical families, their most memorable live shows, why improvising is so essential, and walking the creative tightrope between doing something new and following traditions.Brazilian singer and songwriter Bebel Gilberto is the daughter of Bossa Nova star Joao Gilberto and singer Miucha. Martha Wainwright is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter born in New York City to musicians Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, and her brother is Rufus Wainwright. She released her debut record in 2005, and has since released a further six albums. Sam Amidon is a folk artist from Vermont, USA, who plays guitar, fiddle, and banjo. He followed in the footsteps of his folk musician parents, who would play Irish and Appalachian folk music for him. And Martin Hayes, a traditional Irish fiddle player, and founder of the Irish-American group The Gloaming. He grew up in County Clare, where his father PJ Hayes was a respected fiddle player. He won six All-Ireland Fiddle competitions before moving to Chicago, and has played for President Obama at the White House.

If you don’t know Paul Epworth’s name, you’ll certainly know his music, as he’s produced for the likes of Adele, Florence and the Machine and Rihanna. He asks 100 gecs, Arlo Parks and Dave Okumu about working with analogue equipment in a digital world, studio disasters, ideas that evaporate as they take too long to capture, and the difference between making your own music as opposed to making it for other people. Futuristic pop duo 100 gecs's debut album, 1000 gecs, captivated fans all over the world, including Charli XCX, Rico Nasty and Fall Out Boy, and they’ve been described as a “brain-melting, genre-crushing vision of pop’s future”. Arlo Parks is a 20-year-old musician and poet who is one of the most exciting artists coming out of London right now. She is redefining intelligent pop-soul with her thoughtful, confessional music that has seen her described as "the voice of Generation Z". And Dave Okumu is a producer and songwriter, known for fronting the Mercury Prize-nominated band The Invisible. He is one of the most sought-after collaborators in music, having worked with Adele, Amy Winehouse, Yoko Ono, King Sunny Ade, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, and Tony Allen.

Songwriter, keyboardist, percussionist and Dirty Projector Felicia Douglass chats to Sly5thAve, Leon Michels, and Tiana Major9 about their desires to become musicians, skills and hobbies they’ve acquired during quarantine that have fed into their work, and how they start a new piece of music. Tiana Major9 is an up-and-coming singer-songwriter who has been praised as a “singular voice in British Black soul”. Her music combines thoughtful soul, jazz, and R&B, and she features on Stormzy’s Mercury-nominated album Heavy Is the Head. Leon Michels is an American producer and musician. As well as co-founding the labels Truth & Soul Records and Big Crown Records, he’s also credited on Adele’s Grammy-nominated album 19, and has worked with the likes of Lana Del Rey, Dr John and the Black Keys. And finally, Sylvester Onyejiaka, aka Sly5thAve, is a multi-instrumentalist, producer and arranger whose compositions are shaped by his faith in hip-hop and a deep understanding of soul, R&B, jazz, and West African music. He has performed alongside Prince, and worked with Stevie Wonder, Janelle Monáe and Quantic. In 2017 he released an orchestral album in tribute to Dr Dre, who congratulated his arrangement live on stage.

Singer and cellist Kelsey Lu is joined by Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Lotic, and Fatima Al Qadiri to discuss how their ancestral backgrounds influence the stories they tell, the use of nature as a metaphor, and if they ever feel alone being an artist. Fatima Al Qadiri is an experimental Kuwaiti music producer and artist, currently based in Los Angeles. Last year she received a Cesar nomination for Best Original Score for her work on Mati Diop’s debut feature film Atlantics. Lotic is a Berlin-based electronic musician, born and raised in Houston, Texas. She has worked with and opened for Björk, who described her as “one of the fiercest performer DJs” she has ever heard. Beverly Glenn-Copeland is a Philadelphia-born singer, composer and transgender activist, whose recording career spans fifty years. His music fuses vision, technology, spirituality and place to create a genre-defying sound. And Kelsey is a classically trained cellist from Charlotte, North Carolina. She has collaborated with the likes of Skrillex, Sampha, Solange, and Florence and the Machine, and recently created an audiovisual project of meditative sound baths called Hydroharmonia.