Following the release of ‘Lines’ their trilogy of song cycles inspired by poetry (reviewed here), we caught up with The Unthanks pianist and composer Adrian McNally to discuss how this stunning collection came to be. We delve into the history of each distinctive commission and we explore the theme that marries them, as McNally really helps us to understand and appreciate their artistic journey, and perhaps unconventional aims.
Along the way, McNally offers an enlightening insight into how (and why) his austere arrangements take shape as they do and we’re treated to a detailed account concerning his work on the Emily Brontë ‘medium player’. We also find time to touch on his love of unaccompanied singing, how their current ‘As We Are’ tour ties into that, The Unthanks ‘going electric’ and how Hull might just be the romantic getaway you’ve been searching for all this time…
The Unthanks have also just announced that they will perform The Emily Brontë Song Cycle on a 17 date UK and Ireland tour. You can find those dates at the end of the interview.
So was it a conscious decision from the off to develop a set of song cycles focusing on the perspective of unique female voices across history? Or did you find you naturally gravitated towards these projects and the connection was made later?
Well I suppose closer to the latter really. These projects are disparate in terms of how they came together and when; in terms of the World War One project being 2014, Lillian Bilocca being 2017 and then Emily Brontë last year. Certainly, when we made the WW1 project we weren’t sure – or as we never are – whether a project will merit a revisiting, or capturing on record or touring. Invariably projects are put together and worked on over such short spaces of time that it’s only in retrospect that you can stand back and assess whether you’ve created anything, which anyone else is interested in or that you’re satisfied with.
So in some ways, the way we’ve released ‘Lines’ is almost like a data dump for our audience in terms of throwing it all out there for those that want it and to not create too much ceremony about it. It only occurred to us afterwards really that the commonality between them was that they were all predominantly derived from written word, written by women. So it is nice when you can find some neatness and bring them together as one.
With the ‘Diversions’ volumes, and now Lines, since forming you’ve managed to explore some incredibly intriguing ‘source material’. You once said, “anything can be a folk song” and it seems this curious Magpie style attitude of borrowing and reinterpreting has allowed you a lot of freedom as a band; you simply pursue whatever you feel emotionally drawn towards and you’re able to explore much wider possibilities as an act. Would you say this was certainly the case with this collection? How did it differ to past projects?
I suppose they were all commissioned, they were all ideas that were brought to us. But at the same time, we probably say no to ten times what we say yes to. So there was some autonomy in that sense. I don’t know, I guess we’re just drawn to stories that capture us and that we feel merit reimagining.
I read in a review yesterday the idea that this – or at least some people think this – smacks of vanity. That what we tend to do is align ourselves with greatness somehow and hope that some of it rubs off on us. But nothing could be further from the truth in a way because the result on us of being so interested in so many different facets of writing and storytelling is that we constantly demand that we reinvent ourselves as a band in order to become ‘different bands’ – one which is the right sort of line-up or ensemble to perform and re-imagine the next project which is invariably unrelated to the last incarnation.
So it’s a labour of love in a sense, in terms of how we put the material we’re interested in above our interests as a band, in terms of our own development and our own profile. There are those kinds of bands who have a very successful album, they work out what it is that their audience likes about them and they keep making that same record. It’s much easier, it’s much more commercially sound and it works for a lot of artists but to do what we do it’s very demanding logistically, artistically and it’s also dangerous, in the way it requires us to adapt our personnel constantly and therefore our line-up is less stable.
So it really is purely motivated by artistic interest and probably to do with the fact none of us are trained. The fact that we see what we do as a journey, one in which we are constantly learning. None of us know how to do what we’re doing, we’re always saying yes to things we don’t know how to do and then worrying about it later. But that’s the only way you learn.
We then went on to discuss the difficulty of actually selecting and interpreting the material, and whether he had found the Emily Brontë set any easier?
We’re certainly not Brontë aficionados. We came to it without knowing much about her work at all. I think in the same way with Molly Drake, our kind of appetite for Emily was driven by a desire not to be typecast in terms of being synonymous with all things Northern, gritty, working class, political and socially political. To do the Molly Drake project was an opportunity to bring forward somebody’s work that was from a completely different upbringing to us and to illustrate that empathy shouldn’t be the exclusive right to have of a certain section of society. Just because you’ve had a privileged upbringing is not to say that you shouldn’t be capable of emotional empathy and intelligence, to write such songs as she did.
Likewise, with Brontë. To interact with work that’s come from someone from a completely different background and time. We are predominantly drawn to tales, but Emily’s poems are mostly descriptive and metaphorical, and about nature or introspection. They rarely have a storytelling narrative, so it was a very different sort of challenge for us.
Also, I guess we never really focus on bringing something up to date or immersing ourselves in a time in order to capture that time. We’re always trying to make our work relatively ‘timeless’., which was quite tricky with Emily, as much of her work is wrapped in the language of the time. To bring it out of that is quite hard because the language is so dominating. So I guess we looked for poems that weren’t so ensconced in that language of the time.
Also, a lot of her poetry chose itself in terms of just how rhythmic it is. That you can almost imagine she wrote it for song. We know that she was very interested in music, though there’s no evidence that any of them were written as song. But certainly lots of them lend themselves very easily to song because she’s so disciplined; once she sets a rhythm her fluidity is so consistent. In modern poetry, if it all rhymes and it’s all in rhythm, it might be considered a little simplistic or conventional. But it’s a real art in itself to create a fluidity of language, that is almost musical, so it felt like a natural fit in that sense.
So am I right in thinking you recorded all the piano parts in one night’s sitting and then you kind of developed it over time with Rachel and Becky?
Sort of yes. I did write all the music for the project in the first night at Emily’s piano. I did really turn up with nothing because I wanted to be informed by the instrument. I didn’t expect, however, to be monitored quite so keenly. Everything’s worth such a fortune in there, I had to have someone in the room with me constantly, and its a tiny room. So to create under observation like that is less than ideal. But never the less it all came out in one night – I walked away with sixteen iPhone recordings but they were just musical ideas.
Then I spent the majority of the rest of my week at my residency in Howarth working out what poems worked well with which musical ideas. Which I largely did at my digs in another Brontë related house called Ponden Hall, which is now a B&B and it’s supposedly meant to be the house where Emily based the other house in Wuthering Heights on. There’s a box bed in one of the rooms, which is a replica of the one that the Brontë’s used to sit and read in – they used to go to Ponden Hall because the library there was better than their own. So both Becky and I got to stay in this bed (on separate occasions I might add) which is quite atmospheric, being in this box bed with all these side panels, one of which draws back to reveal the little window that was meant to be the window that inspired Emily to write the bit in Wuthering Heights where Cathy’s ghost taps on Heathcliff’s window. So I didn’t get an awful lot of sleep on the first night.
So the tunes were written on Emily’s piano but they were mostly put to her poetry at Ponden Hall. Then at night time when I was let back into the Parsonage because it’s a working museum by day, I’d go back in having road tested what I’d worked on at Ponden Hall.
Then Rachel and Becky entered once the melodies were written?
Yes, my initial time in Howarth was alone. Then we went back maybe a month later to record them having rehearsed them at home. Rachel put the tune to Remembrance, adapting from a traditional tune, and both sisters worked on harmony once I’d given them to tunes. We recording them at The Parsonage because we really wanted to use Emily’s piano. It was an instrument that had informed these songs to start with, so really they were written for it. As well as by it, in terms of how unique an instrument it is and limited it is. It’s dynamic range and the way it plays can really limit the possibilities. And you know that can really be a creative stimulus to limit yourself, to certain parameters. It was an instrument I found difficult to play initially but one that I developed a real affinity with and now I quite miss it.
You said it felt like ‘what you’d been looking for, for years?’
Yeah, sort of, I’ve always had this notion of a certain sound and I kind of rush towards little pianos and I see them in the hope that this is going to be the one. And it never is because little pianos are often pretty poorly made. But this one has a certain kind of resonance in the upper end that does kind of remind me of this sound that I’ve always kind of imagined.
I suppose writing the music where she lived and grew up; there are obviously very strong ties here between music and place. There’s also the opportunity for listeners to visit the Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee experience, where they can walk the moorlands whilst taking in these song cycles. Do you think this sense of place naturally enriches the storytelling and the atmosphere of the pieces?
Very much so – it is a very atmospheric place, the moors there are really very unique They’re not that far from the Yorkshire Dales slightly further North, but the look of the landscape is so different. I think it’s supposed to be the rock, it makes the whole place feel that little bit more dark and ominous. It doesn’t take much imagination at all if you know the Brontë’s work a little and the way they describe their environment, you’re right there when you land.
The house itself as well, it’s pretty much in the state it was. Lots of hard stone surfaces so the sound of the piano really kind of rattles around the place. The museum staff who were looking after me at night were telling me they were experiencing lots of tingles as they walked through the place hearing the instrument that Emily played, for it to be heard again in the space. I’m one of a very small number of people who have actually been allowed to play it since it has been restored, so it’s not a sound that they’re familiar hearing, it’s still special to hear it ringing round.
It’s all captured there on the record too: the harsh winds, the birdsong and the Grandfather clock.
Yes, there is a loneliness up there and there’s a loneliness to Emily’s writing. That was one of our thoughts about only using Emily’s piano. The sole instrument being a metaphor for her loneliness and for the kind of isolation you experience being up there.
Did you go into this project with any musical touchstones in mind? You’ve talked in the past about Steve Reich and Chris Wood. It certainly sounds minimalist or neo-classical at times, were there influences in particular that you tried to bring to it?
Not really. You know I really did try and let the instrument inform me. But I think as a pianist working with Folk music and folk singers, the neo-classical/minimalist vibe does come out in that I feel that there is this natural kind of commonality between the two. Because we think of one as being really kind of human and the other as being rather quite cold and glacial, so the commonality between the two isn’t immediately obvious but if you think about the way in which a lot of folk music is modal and is often set to a single drone. Or it could be the tune works to a single chord right through. What you get in Folk music quite often is a lot of freedom that allows the singer to sing as they would unaccompanied because it’s musically ‘still’ because of the modality, and that in turn allows the singer greater freedom.
Of course with a folk instrument like a harmonium or an accordion where you make consistent sounds, you can make space and freedom for singers by playing a-rhythmically because the instrument you’re playing will last forever if you keep pumping air into it. Whereas a piano is mainly a percussion instrument so you play something and it dies away. So you need to play something else. So that’s where minimalism and neo-classicalism comes in: all those repetitive patterns are essentially there to provide the same function as those a-rhythmic modal accompaniments of modal folk music. You can essentially play something over and over again and by virtue of being repeated, it becomes ignored, and the repetition allows the singer freedom.
It also allows the listener freedom from the accompaniment to focus on the performance of the singer and the storytelling. It’s about trying to stay out of the way musically. And when chord shifts are necessary – because a musical change needs to happen – you may be able to work it in gradually or imperceptibly by using patterns that change gradually, or perhaps where only one note in that pattern changes, so essentially you’re not breaking the spell.
So that’s why I use it essentially. Because I’m basically a player of an instrument that is a percussive instrument and that’s my way of staying out the way. But if there was one thing with the Emily project where I did subconsciously lend from the music of her time, in a way that might have conjured that time, it’s probably ‘She Dried Her Tears And They Did Smile’. I think there’s a little bit of that time in that tune. I don’t think I would’ve written it without having worked a couple of years ago on something called the Beggar’s Opera, which was a folk opera at the time by a man called John Gay. It was almost a send-up of the opera of the time and we worked on it with Charles Hazelwood (the conductor and organist) a couple of years ago with a bunch of people including Phil Jupitus, Adrian Utley from Portishead and Stephen Jones, the bass player from Goldfrapp. So the influence of those songs was heard on ‘She Dried Her Tears…’ as that was written around that time.
How did this differ to parts One & Two in the ‘Lines’ series, where you worked with a larger ensemble of musicians, such as Sam Lee and Cosmo Sheldrake?
That was fun to work with Sam. We had all sorts of sources that it was almost overwhelming. There’s so much to cover from that time and where to start with it? But again I think we were drawn predominantly to the female poets because we felt that voice was the lesser heard and we don’t know so much about the female voices from that time. So it was an obvious draw. Also to find stories that were relatable and weren’t specific to that time and those that include lessons about war that could apply to any time. Certainly, Teresa Hooley’s ‘War Film’ is an example.
Working with Maxine on the Lillian Bilocca project was a dream come true. She’s such a natural talent and so unassuming about her writing. It was very easy going and flexible during the writing process; with lots of toing and froing as we bounced ideas back and forth. It was such a pleasure to be involved in theatre! We get to do a few audiovisual projects but like in the case of the WW1 piece the visual element of the live project is often on a screen, projected behind you, not all that live. We certainly found it far more engaging to do multi-media projects where everything involved is happening in the room. And to learn what life is like for actors, compared to musicians is really interesting.
And obviously, you were an active part of the cast, including a community cast…
Yes, there was a community cast and as musicians, we’re used to being in a different town every night, to be in the same one weeks on end is really special. And I dare say Hull doesn’t have the most salubrious reputation but I think people should try it, I’d recommend a romantic weekend there! All the old pubs in the old town are just wonderful. The market has got great character. We had a lot of fun, leading this new sort of existence.
The response it’s had has been great for Hull as well, allowing Lillian’s story to be heard more?
Yes, well certainly we weren’t the first to unearth the story it’s been told in both book and theatre form before, Maxine was aware of that and I think it was very much why she created something that did tell the story but in quite an abstract way really. Hopefully not so abstract that had you heard nothing about it you wouldn’t understand but hopefully if you’d taken in the story belt and braces you’d still get something from the play because the way in which she really focused on the really personal endeavours and hardships of the main characters, presenting them in such an interesting and progressive way in terms of the way the play used site-specific space, in probably Hull’s most historic building. You know half the audience saw the play in one direction and half saw it in another. It was all very innovative and exciting to be a part of.
Nice to make a bit of a racket as well! With ‘Whistling Woman’ we brought out a different side ourselves. In the actual play we had to be a band in a working men’s club in the mid-Sixties, so we were playing ‘Save The Last Dance For Me’ by The Drifters, which was a big hit in Hull. I got to play electric guitar, which I’ve never done in my life. So it was a lot of fun.
So to close, do you have anything else on the way in terms of a next ‘Diversion’ project?
The next plan in May is Rachel, Becky and Niopha going out unaccompanied, which was just a natural rather obvious thing to do following our relatively recent orchestral exploits – to go back to the beginning. For Rachel and Becky that is singing unaccompanied. There’s no point in my nose feeling out of joint, as it was partly my idea, but not a new one. We do get asked to do a lot of things and as such our own blackboard of ideas remains full, it takes a while for any of them to come out because people find us more interesting things to do! But yes, it’s been something that’s been up for there for a long time: to do an unaccompanied record.
Hopefully, it illustrates to some extent as well that when we do something like work with a Symphony Orchestra there is no vanity or ambition in it. It is purely explorative, artistic and musical. By following that with what on paper looks like arguably the least ambitious thing to do – to make a record with no music on it -hopefully illustrates that we’re not hell-bent on going in one direction in terms of ‘bigger and bigger’. It many ways standing on a stage with just your voice is far more petrifying that with a great big orchestra behind you. I’m sure that Rachel and Becky would concur with that.
It is something for me personally that I still prefer to hear – Rachel and Becky unaccompanied. I still prefer my folk music unaccompanied. If we get a night off you’re more likely to find us above the pub in a room somewhere listening to some old boys and girls. However had we stuck with that and moved no further than that, then Rachel and Becky would probably still be singing in the folk clubs and no further.
So bringing those stories, traditions and heritage to a wider audience has been our motivation. It’s very gratifying now that we have an audience that trusts us and will come and listen to unaccompanied song. So however you get people interested you can hopefully bring them back to the source, to make them interested in that, in quantities that wouldn’t have been interested had we not acquired them by using a much more expansive musical vernacular throughout the years. The fact that we’ve had such attention for a song, such as ‘Magpie’, which is more or less unaccompanied, is very rewarding. It makes it feel really worth all the effort, to have got to the point where we’ve come full circle and have an audience interested in unaccompanied song.
There are no plans to make a studio album of that project, but what we hope to do is record the tour and release a record from that. Our kind of conviction being that unaccompanied singing is foremost for me a performance art. It’s a form of storytelling, which if you take that literally, needs an audience. Certainly, Rachel is a performer who sometimes kind of goes blank in the studio because the audience isn’t there! So she has to kind of think about what she’s doing and if she has to think about what she’s doing then it doesn’t come naturally. She’s a performer in the literal sense of the word in that she needs an audience to perform to, where she goes into that space where she doesn’t think about what it is that she does.
The Emily Brontë Song Cycle Tour
OCTOBER 2019
16 GATESHEAD The Sage Gateshead (18.30 / 21.00)
17 LINCOLN Drill Hall
19 MANCHESTER Home (Manchester Folk Festival)
20 EDINBURGH The Queens Hall
21 BRIGHTON Dome
23 YORK National Centre for Early Music
24 BRADFORD St George’s Hall
25 OXFORD North Wall Arts Centre
26 SAFFRON WALDEN Saffron Hall (on sale 22nd May)
27 HULL Middleton Hall
28 NEWCASTLE UNDER LYME New Vic Theatre
29 LONDON Hackney Round Chapel
30 LONDON Shoreditch Town Hall
31 WORCESTER Huntingdon Hall
NOVEMBER 2019
01 SHEFFIELD Crucible (on sale June)
03 DUBLIN National Concert Hall
04 CORK Opera House
Special Guests – The Bookshop Band (except Gateshead and Manchester).
Ticket links and details of their current tour can be found here: http://www.the-unthanks.com/tour-dates/