Sync Music Matters Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Anna Meredith Interview In this weeks episode of Sync Music Matters I'm talking to Anna Meredith MBE Anna was awarded an MBE for Services to Music in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. She’s a genre-crossing composer and producer whose work blends the worlds of contemporary classical, art pop, electronica and experimental rock. In terms of her artist work you can check out Varmints for which she won the Scottish Album of the Year award and Mercury Prize nominated album FIBS which Pitchfork lauded as one of the best experimental albums of 2019  Recent Film credits include The End We Start From starring Jodie Comer, Paul Rudd’s dark comedy Living With Yourself for Netflix  and A24s Tuesday starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus which is due to be released this year.  Anna Meredith's Website

In this episode of Sync Music Matters I’m interviewing Jeanie Finlay Jeanie Finlay is a documentary filmmaker.  She has made films for HBO and the BBC including four commissions for the acclaimed BBC Storyville strand such as BIFA nominated The Great Hip Hop Hoax and BIFA winning Orion: The Man Who Would Be King She directed the Emmy Nominated Game of Thrones: Last Watch which was a behind the scenes look at the making of the final series.  Her most recent film, Your Fat Friend, is in cinemas now and is a documentary following author and blogger Aubry Gordon who writes about fat acceptance and anti fat bias.  During the course of this interview we also delve in to Jeanie's rich musical past and her general love of creating. In Episode 17 of the Sync Music Matters podcast - Interview with Anna Meredith, we discuss her work as a genre-crossing composer and producer, and chat about her MBE for services to Music in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. She also won the Scottish Album of the Year award and has a Mercury Prize nominated album FIBS for her own artist project.

In today's episode of Sync Music Matters I'm talking to TV, Film and General Media composer Nainita Desai Nainita Desai Media Composer who you might be most familiar with for her extensive work in TV and Film She is an RTS Winner a BIFA, Cinema Eye Honours and Ivor Novello nominee and is officially a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit. She was also IFMCA Breakthrough composer of 2020 Nainita’s recent projects include Netflix’s 14 Peaks - Nothing is Impossible (ASCAP Composer Choice nominee for best documentary score )  She scored the critically acclaimed Oscar Nominated film For Sama, The Sundance winning feature The Reason I Jump and American Murder - The Family Next Door Netflix’ most viewed documentary feature We talk about her Love for Star Trek and Barbara Streisand - not necessarily together. We also discuss her fascinating route in to music via working as Peter Gabriel's Assistant and working as a TV foley artist. You can find more about Nainita Desai here: https://nainitadesai.com/ If you like to listen to some of Nainita Desai's influences, you can here: Jean Michel Jarre Brian Eno Daniel Lanois Peter Gabriel - The Last Temptation of Christ Real World Studio Dave Bottrill BBC Radiophonic Workshop John Barry Stephen Sondheim Ennio Mirricone 14 Peaks: Nothing is Impossible The Reason I Jump Colin Stetson - Hereditary Gabriel Yarid Michel Yared Clint Mansel Michael Nyman Thomas Newman - Revolutionary Road Trevor Jones - Last of the Mohicans David Shire - The Conversation Nicholas Britell - Don’t Look Up Nicholas Britell - Succession   In Episode 9 of the Sync Music Matters Podcast - Interview with Editor Paulo Pandolpho, we speak about his journey from making films with his dad’s VHS camcorder in Brazil to becoming an Emmy nominated editor on The Crown.

Listen on YouTube In today’s episode of Sync Music Matters I’m talking to TV & Film composer and solo artist Danny Mulhern. Danny is a very philosophical guy and we go pretty deep in today’s interview, exploring improvisation and flow state as a tool for creating music. Flow state can be defined as: “mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energised focus.” We talk about overcoming procrastination or what Stephen Pressfield in the War of Art, refers to as “resistance”  And Danny generously shares about a difficult period in his life when he fell out of love with music. His love was ultimately rekindled through collaboration and ultimately the “human connection” which had been missing for some time. We go Under The Skin with the movie What They Had and talk about a upcoming project about the Meaning Crisis cognitive psychologist John Verveake Danny Mulhern TV & Film Composer and Solo Artist Biog Danny Mulhern is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer who in addition to writing for TV and film, releases his own unique brand of instrumental music.  Much of his recent work has been with the London Contemporary Orchestra on records and film scores, including the critically acclaimed What They Had, starring Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon and Robert Forster. Other Film and TV scores include long-running BBC forensic crime drama Silent Witness, BBC wildlife documentary The Natural World and entertainment shows with Derren Brown, Matt Lucas and Simon Pegg. His own music is best described as contemporary classical with an ambient/electronic crossover. To my mind Danny’s music is wonderfully textural and he often plays with polyrhythms as he explores philosophical ideas around improvisation, intuition and collective intelligence Look out for his forthcoming album Singing Through Others. Which is Inspired primarily by conversations around sense-making and the meaning crisis. Some of Danny Mulhern's Musical Influences Jimi Hendrix Paul McCartney John Lennon The Beatles Joni Mitchell Brian Eno Bob Dylan U2 - The Clash Aztec Camera Crowded House - The Specials - FKA Twigs Max Richter Jóhann Jóhannsson Hans Zimmer Rob Simonson Some of the things which inspire Danny Mulhern: Ian McGilchrist Steven Pressfield - Get Back (The Beatles Documentary) John Vervaeke (Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Rebel Wisdom (Youtube Channel) The Social Dilemma David Baddiel In Episode 8 of the Sync Music Matters Podcast - Interview with Nainita Desai, we talk about her extensive work in TV and Film, having scored for Netflix's 14 Peaks - Nothing is Impossible, for which she was ASCAP Composer Choice nominee for best documentary score, as well as Oscar nominated picture For Sama, and American Murder - The Family Next Door, Netflix's most viewed documentary feature.

During the course of my podcast interviews, I keep coming across the notion that composers have a “unique voice”. Indeed this is true of any artist  In episode one Stephen Warbeck talks about your creative voice being a part of your personality that shines through in your music. Stephen tells the the story of director Phillip Kaufman requesting “music as mad as you are” of Stephen In episode 2 Todd Baker talks about his days at college where he felt that certain students had a very distinct creative voice early on. He on the other hand, spent his college years perfecting the technical side of writing, producing and mixing and then went on to develop his unique voice. Can You Ever Have a Truly Original Creative Voice?    Some people may question whether or not you can ever create a piece of music that is truly unique. After all there are only so many notes and so many combinations of those notes. Creative coach Mark McGuinness believes that the art which we consume throughout our lives will go a long way to influencing how we create. But everyone’s influences will be different and it’s actually the nuances between those influences and the way that we draw on them or combine them that ultimately creates something unique.  Is that unique combination of influences our creative voice? There is a great quote from DeadMau5: “every music producer copies, good producers copy in new ways”  Finding vs Hearing Your Creative Voice   Creative coach Peleg Top introduced me to an interesting distinction.  “You don’t find your creative voice, you hear it.” This really resonated with me because it reframes your creative voice as something that it is already within you rather than being something that you have lost or need to find.  It’s intrinsic rather than extrinsic.   So now instead of looking for my creative voice and I’m listening for it. But in listening for my creative voice the tendency is to listen to the end product. Trying to identify subtle nuances that define my voice but I wonder whether that is flawed.  I wonder whether hearing your creative voices is less about the final product and more about the way we approach being creative in the first place.  In episiode three Isobel Waller-Bridge reveals that she is rarely thinking of how the musical will sound in the end but rather what's her emotional staring point? Creating from the Heart vs Creating from the Head   I have always said that writing music, whether it be for tv and film or commercial release is about eliciting emotion in the listener.  The more emotion that we can draw on when writing, the more likely that music is to move someone emotionally.  Look at Adele. Every album she releases goes to number 1. Aside from the fact that she has an incredible voice, what is it about her music that captivates listeners around the world? I believe that when she writes and performs she channels so  much emotion into her songs that it moves people on a different level. Sure we can create intellectually and this is a very valuable skill but if that is combined with writing emotionally, then maybe that’s where we find the magic.    

Listen on YouTube In today’s episode of Sync Music Matters I’m talking to RTS Award winning Editor Mike Holliday. Mike has worked on plethora of high profile comedy productions including Horrible Histories for which he received a BAFTA on behalf of the production team, The BBC’s hit comedy Ghosts, CODE 404 for Sky, The BABY for HBO, Dead Pixels, Man Down, Yonderland, Drifters and The Reluctant Landlord to name but a few. Editors are often auditioning music and making creative choices with regard to what, where and how music is used in any given TV production. As such I’m very keen to talk to them and understand their process.  Mike talks about how he auditions and uses music which is invaluable for anyone who has an interest in having their music used in TV and film.  He reveals some of the many parallels between composing and editing including the critical importance of rhythm and always being in service of the production as a whole. That and the fact that whether you are making music or editing footage we love revelling in the “nerdery” of it. We go Under the Skin of Ghosts and Code 404 and talk about how bands like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Rage Against The Machine have shaped his musical perspective. We also touch on the forgotten 80’s classic The Man with Two Brains, and the Rotheram Born comedy duo the Chuckle Brothers which he was editing when he first started out.   Ghosts   Lucrecia Dalt    Arthur Sharpe  Oli Julian  Ralegh Long  Rage Against the Machine  Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik  Funky Monks Documentary Guns N' Roses  Metallica Jamiroquai  Stevie Wonder - Songs in the Key of Life    The Beatles    Loving is Easy - Rex Orange County   Rock n Roll is Cold - Mathew E White  Mistakes - Late Street Dive  TV Film and Directors that have Inspired Mike Holliday Succession  David Fincher  Terry Gilliam Stanley Kubrick Eyes Wide Shut Angel Heart Jim Hustwit is a composer and music producer In Episode 7 of the Sync Music Matters Podcast - Interview with Danny Mulhern, we discuss his work as a TV and Film composer on the likes of BBC drama The Silent Witness, BBC wildlife documentary The Natural World, and the critically acclaimed film What They Had, starring Hilary Swank, to name just a few.

Listen on YouTube In this episode I’m talking to Award Winning TV, Film and Theatre composer and sound designer Isobel Waller-Bridge. In this episode of Sync Music Matters Isobel reveals how she finds musical inspiration in anything but music. In fact when talking about inspiration, she references people like Francis Bacon, Tilda Swinton and Anne Carson.  But Isobel also shares her love for composers like Ennio Moriccone, Danny Elfman, Gustav Mahler and Wendy Carlos amongst others.  We also dig into the prevalence of drone based music in modern film score and her love for it... as well as Detroit Techno.  We go under the skin with her work on the Netflix series Munich: The Edge of War as well as her recent project with the Philharmonia as part of their climate change season.  We also talk about her electronic score for Vita and Virginia and how the instructions from director Chanya Button were “lazers and no piano!” Isobel Waller-Bridge Credits Isobel Waller-Bridge’s recent TV soundtracks include, Emma, Black Mirror - Rachel Jack and Ashley Too, Vanity Fair, Vita & Virginia, The Split and Fleabag. And recent theatre credits include Woyzeck at the Old Vic and Knives in Hens at the Donmar Warehouse Isobel’s eclectic scores move seamlessly between sweeping orchestral and analogue electronica, often blurring the lines between music and sound design. She won Best Composer at Underwire Film Festival and winner of Best Sound Designer at Off West End Theatre Awards Film Scores by Isobel Waller Bridge Munich - The Edge of War OST Emma OST Vita and Virginia OST Have a listen to some of the music that has inspired Isobel Waller-Bridge George Benjamin Silvina Milstein Let it Be - The Beatles  Emma   Atonement -  Ennio Moriccone PJ Harvey Danny Elfman Danny Elfman - Edward Scissorhands (OST) The Social Network  Thomas Newman - American Beauty OST Hans Zimmer - Dune OST  Daniel Avery  John Hopkins Bernard Hermman - Taxi Driver OST Hildur Guðnadóttir - Joker (OST)  Mica Levy - Monos  Jóhann Jóhannsson - Sicario OST Jóhann Jóhannsson - Arrival (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) John Williams - E.T. The Extra Terrestrial  Wendy Carlos - The Shining  Wendy Carlos - Clockwork Orange Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs  In Episode 6 of the Sync Music Matters Podcast - Interview with Editor Mike Holliday, we talk about his work on a plethora of comedy productions, from Horrible Histories, to the BBC's hit comedy Ghosts, to CODE 404 for Sky, and THE BABY for HBO.

Listen on YouTube In this episode I’m talking to Andrew Stannard, a senior producer at Universal Production Music (UNIPPM) Andrew and I reveal our love for 80s TV themes and hark back to an era when big melodic hooks were an industry staple. We look at what makes a great production music track, from using unique sonic textures to splicing unexpected genres. Andrew brings some music trivia gold to the table with the revelation that one of Hollywood's biggest composers wrote a TV quiz show theme. Andrew has worked in Production Music for over 20 years, starting off as a music supervisor for Zomba, moving into sales for BMG before joining the production department at Universal. He’s produced countless albums in all manner of genres and has worked with seasoned media composers as well as beat makers, electronic producers, and specialist composers. I know Andrew through my work on the Filmic Folk production music albums I did for Universal. Essentially combining traditional folk instrumentation with cinematic strings. As well as producing new music for Universal Andrew Stannard looks after an archive of old recordings on the Bruton and Chappell labels. He has supplied samples to artists like Danger Mouse and Disclosure and through this, had a hand in the worldwide number on hit record ‘Crazy’ by Gnarls Barkley I see production music as an unsung hero of the music industry. The composers don’t usually get the glory like TV and film composers but there is some incredible production music out there. When bespoke music written to picture isn’t an option, many companies will turn to trusty production music libraries like those of Universal. Have a listen to some of the incredible music mentioned by Andrew Stannard Fame Theme - Irene Cara Going For Gold Theme Tune The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star Kylie Minogue - I Should be so Lucky Alan Hawkshaw Keith Mansfield - Grandstand Theme  Barry Stoller - Match of The Day Aqualung Andrew Skeet Ollie Holmes Golden Swagger (UNIPPM) Inon Zur Chariots of Fire - Abraham's Theme Steve Reich Vangelis Claude Debussy Thomas Tallis - Spem in Alium  Alexander Parsons Mortimer and Whitehouse - Gone Fishing Playlist Hans Zimmer - Dune (OST) Knightrider Theme Tune -  Stu Phillips Harry Thuman - Sphinx In Episode 5 of the Sync Music Matters Podcast - Interview with Isobel Waller Bridge, we discuss her award-winning career as a TV, Film and Theatre composer, working on the likes of Emma, Black Mirror and Fleabag.

Listen on YouTube In this episode of The Sync Music Matters Podcast I’m talking to Music Supervisor and Consultant Isaac Allaway (previously) Emma Middleton. Isaac is a film trailer specialist and was voted “Music Supervisor of the Year” in 2020 at AIM Sync. He was also a winner and finalist at the Music & Sound Awards for his work on trailers for The Crown Seasons 3 & 4.  I often talk about the important of irreverence in the creative field and Isaac loves to try new and unexpected musical ideas. I love the fact that he has a ‘curveballs’ folder. Isaac and I talk about how he went from studying English literature to setting up his own Music Supervision agency. We go under the skin on his recent projects working on The Witcher and The Crown where he provides insights into the world of both sourcing and writing music for movie trailers. We discuss his love affair with the music of John Powell... and how he left behind the Javelin in favour of a career in music. So grab yourself a brew, sit back and enjoy this fascinating and insightful interview with Isaac Allaway The trailers, music and companies that we discuss are all linked in the show notes below Isaac Allaway's website and work Rubato Music The Witcher Season 2 - Trailer (Rubato Music) The Crown Season 3 Trailer (Rubato Music) Companies mentioned by Isaac Allaway Create Ad agency Audio Machine Music that has inspired Isaac Allaway John Powell - How To Train Your Dragon OST  John Powell - Should I Know You (How To Train Your Dragon 2 OST) Murray Gold composer Gustavo Santaolalla composer Turin Breaks Turin Breaks - Ether Song Doves Elbow In Episode 4 of The Sync Music Matters Podcast I'm talking to Universal Production Music's senior producer Andrew Stannard [nectar_blog layout="std-blog-sidebar" pagination_type="default" category="podcast" posts_per_page=""]

Listen on YouTube Todd Baker Interview In this episode I’m talking to Composer and Sound Designer Todd Baker. When we think of music and visuals we generally think of TV and Film but audio plays a pivotal role in creating an immersive gaming experience. And as I found out in this interview with Todd Baker, the music often serves the kind of complex narrative you would find in film.  Todd likes to blur the line between music and sound design with a view to creating a more immersive gaming experience. Todd Baker’s unique sound can be heard on BAFTA-nominated games such as Monument Valley 2 by Ustwo Games, Media Molecule’s Dreams and Tearaway on the PS4 and Alto’s Odessy from Team Alto.  Todd was even commissioned by Google to provide the music for a Google Doodle for Earth Day 2020. As well as being a master of composition and sound design, Todd is also a phenomenal guitarist and co-founding member of the prog-jazz-funk-pop quartet The Lydian Collective. Todd and I discuss: How one person can change your life Getting into the game composing industry Blurring the line between music and sound design Overcoming self doubt and imposter syndrome The impact personal life on professional life Top Gun Listen to the Music of Todd Baker Todd Baker's Website Early Conceptual Works - Sound Circle Monument Valley 2 - Original Soundtrack Lydian Collective (Todd's Band) Listen to Music that has influenced Todd Baker Ben Walker - Folk Guitarist Green Onions - Booker T. and The M.G.s Limbo & Inside - Martin Stig Andersen  Steve Vai - Passion and Warfare Steely Dan Leftfield Howie B - Limbo Cliff Martinez - Solaris (OST)  Catriona Mckay Heromi - A Place to Be Video Games Companies Blitz Games Media Molecule UsTwo In Episode 3 of The Sync Music Matters Podcast I'm talking to Trailer Music Supervisor Isaac Allaway [nectar_blog layout="std-blog-sidebar" pagination_type="default" category="podcast" posts_per_page=""]