Happy February everyone! I've been busy orchestrating and arranging new music over the last 6 months. Really excited to get some new music finished!
On February 19th, I recorded my latest collaboration 'Sam Fender Reimagined' with the Northern Film Orchestra. Working with Kobalt Music and Universal Music Group gave me the opportunity to create new orchestral reimaginings of Sam Fender work. The music has been mastered at Abbey Road Studios by esteemed Engineer Simon Gibson. This six month project has had an array of talented musicians, engineers, mixers leading upto the release.
Re-imagining Alternative Rock to Orchestra
My diary back in October of 2022 was free for a few months and I thought it would be fun to put my energy towards some orchestration. After loosing my Dad back in summer of that year to a terminal illness, I thought it would be beneficial for me to put my mind towards something with a positive outcome. I set to work looking for a genre of music, current with my love for the North East of England that I could translate for orchestra in an imaginative way. I first choose to look at some of the work by Newcastle song-writer Alan Hull of the band Lindesfarne. I had notice earlier that this had already been done recently in 2020 with a performance by the Northern Sinfonia. Those performances were fantastic and were performed with the addition of local star Sam Fender. That was my lightbulb moment. Fenders music resonated with me, particularly his second album 'Seventeen Going Under'. The search for the northern sound but with a rock sensibility was something I had been searching for and new I wanted to re-imagine these in a avant-grade way for orchestra.
The first question I needed to ask myself was, which songs would I choose. The song titled
Get You Down was at the top of my list for its pulse rhythm and lyrical melodies. The second was the song The Dying Light. I think this song really struck a chord with me and I felt it would translate well for orchestra as the piece grows and develops linearly. The last song I knew had to be the title track of the album, Seventeen Going Under, but I wanted to orchestrate/ arrange part of the song that I felt was the core of the story behind it. After watching a live performance of this final song from Glastonbury 2022, I heard the audience of the performance after the song had ended cheering back to Fender the vocal counter melody. This was fascinating and I could already hear that same musical material from an orchestral point of view. Potentially horns or woodwinds. I knew at this point I had my lucky three tracks that I was going to take and translate for the orchestra.
Orchestration: Linear Focus
The idea behind these re-imaging tracks were to translate the original material of Fenders music and band of instruments for orchestral instruments. Instruments like the electric guitars and the multiple effects on those instruments through to the drum kit were all aspects of the original songs I wanted to keep the energy and respect the musical material as much as possible. A lot of the energy from the drums material I already had an idea of what I wanted to do with that, spreading the snare drum hits and kick drum sounds across multiple instrumental effects in the orchestra. For the guitar effects of Fenders music, I knew I had to look at using a harp and played with the idea of using sustaining instruments like the vibraphone motor and warmth of the muted trumpets. A lot of these colours were unconventional pairings to what may have been done before with orchestrating pop songs, but a great influence for me as an orchestrator has been scores by Richard Rodney Bennett, Elizabeth Lutyens and Maurice Ravel. All of whom I am sure would be Newcastle United fans like Fender!
The Final Score
I worked with friends at the Northern Film Orchestra in Manchester to record the 62 piece orchestra. The musicians played a fantastic job capturing the properties and emotion of the music very well, they really were at the top of their game and ended up recording for nearly the entire morning. The orchestra consisted of:
Strings: 12 Violins, 4 Violas, 4 Cellos, 4 Double Basses
Piano
Harp
Woodwinds: 2 Saxophones, 2 Flutes, 2 Clarinets, 1 Bassoon,
Brass: 4 Horns, 2 Trumpets, 3 Trombones
3 Percussionists.
Sound like a lot of fun! – Ray Laidlaw, Lindisfarne
We all loved Alex's writing and imagination for this project. It was a pleasure to have him back in the studio with us – Northern film Orchestra
