Following in the footsteps of Bellowhead’s Jon Boden and Carolina Chocolate Drops’ Rhiannon Giddens, 2019 saw Cambridge’s very own Nick Mulvey join the ranks of Cambridge Folk Festival’s Guest Curators.
The Ex-Portico Quartet member, who broke out as an innovative singer-songwriter at the start of the decade, seemed to pick right up where Giddens’ left off; inviting eclectic acts, such as desert rockers Imarhan, to feature alongside forward-thinking speakers like Mac Macartney.
As Danny Neill observed in his festival coverage, “Wherever you encountered him, Nick Mulvey seemed to be spreading warmth, colour and music to lift the spirits” which definitely mirrors my own experience of Mulvey. The passion and thoughtfulness heard in his music became just as recognisable in his role as a curator, workshop facilitator and host this year.
During our chat, Mulvey spoke about avenues into Ethnomusicology studies, his recording process and of course his personal experience – both on-and-off stage – of this year’s Cambridge Folk Festival.
Congratulations on the success of this year’s curation! This must feel like something of a homecoming for you?
Do you know what, it really does. I embraced that this weekend. I feel very enjoyably spoilt by lots of lovely people who have been incredibly nice to me. It’s been about celebrating Cambridge and celebrating the festival. Plus, I sit between a lot of webs of a lot of communities and this has been about celebrating that as well.
How has it felt walking around the site and taking it in this weekend?
So nice. Naturally, from my process, I’ve had a lot on. But I’ve really been able to enjoy it in-between and then yesterday evening, I played my main stage slot, which I feel really happy with. Sometimes it all just goes right and this was one of those times. My family were there and we were all having a dance afterwards. A little groggy this morning though… shades on!
How did it feel going from the Den in 2012 then to Stage One yesterday?
I actually played the Den again, a little secret gig on Thursday night. It feels I’ve come a long way, I’ve learnt so much about my job and what it means. I was always a songwriter and I thought, “All I have to do is sing my songs, plug-in and play”. But there is so much more in having to actually turn up, enact and enliven those songs in real-time. Plus I’m really involving the audiences, getting them singing these days. It’s something I embrace a lot more and it’s really working for me.
What are your experiences upon reflection after having donned your curator’s hat for the first time?
It’s been a really good experience. It was about a year ago now that they got in touch and asked me to do it and it’s been a really fun, new challenge. Initially, beginning gently over the year I’ve been at other festivals and going to gigs: listening to music, asking, “will this fit the festival bill here at Cambridge?” I’m also very proud of the speakers we’ve brought down this weekend.
I was going to ask you about that, we’ve had Mac Macartney here as well…
Yes, he’s one of the things I’m most proud of this weekend. He joined us on Friday in the flower garden. There was a gathering of about a hundred people to hear him speak. Mac is an author, speaker and a change-maker. He’s very deeply in touch with the issues of this time from an ecological perspective and more. Elders of the indigenous North American Lakota people mentored him and trained him to understand his own land and his own indigenous history; our land as British people.
We’re living through times of incredible systemic collapse. It feels like everything is changing: there’s great crisis, there’s great opportunity, as well as of course radical uncertainty. What I’m proud of is on Friday with Mac, the hundred of us there – we sat and we turned and faced. I think that’s a remarkable thing, in that so often today we’re distracted in some way. We must choose to turn towards the uncertainty of these times to whatever degree we’re able to.
Mac has this real wisdom. He talked about the ‘awakening of the sleeping giant’ and the sleeping giant would be the millions of good people who would do nothing in this time, who care but are not moved enough to act. He calls for a radical response through kindness, presence and all of us really asking ourselves, “What is of true worth?”
This obviously ties in with the Extinction Rebellion workshop you are about to attend?
It was important for me to make a space within the line-up this year for Extinction Rebellion, but more specifically the local Cambridge branch of Extinction Rebellion, so rebels would have a space to come and talk about their motivations. This is just scratching the surface of course; I mean the house is on fire and we’re all gathering in the garden for chitchat!
Then we’ve had the live sets from your selected acts this weekend as well of course – have you had a chance to catch many performances?
I have mostly. I loved Chartwell Dutiro yesterday morning that made me so happy. He’s a legend of Zimbabwean music. We had Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita, which was absolutely sublime. But one of the biggest connectors of the day was Fofoulah. I was gutted to miss it but everybody just loved that set. They’re fun and energetic but they’re also quite intense. I think people like that though; I think we forget sometimes that people need that kind of intensity.
You mentioned Chartwell there, how was it leading workshops for you, effectively playing a similar role as he did in your early musical development?
Chartwell came to my school when I was seven and I remember it so clearly. His energy, he’s just a sunshine man. He’s really tapped into what matters as far as I’m concerned. He just radiates kindness and ease. Then he came to my school when I was fifteen and the same thing happened. I think around that time I’d resolved to follow a life of music. Then again, when I was twenty-one he was a tutor at SOAS University of London. He was one of the key reasons I went there.
Chartwell has really marked my life. Saturday morning I went to see him and we had such a brilliant connection. It made me so happy. I told him this and he said, “Sometimes you don’t know as a practitioner or facilitator the impact you have on people.”
It’s nice that you’ve drawn those links. Because then I went on to do this talk and I didn’t quite know what to expect. I knew it was open to the public so it wouldn’t just be budding musicians, where we can just talk technical, it’ll be a mixed crowd. But actually, I forget that when it just comes down to going into the music, that’s my happy zone. You can’t get me off the stage!
I can talk forever about what my intentions were, what my influences were, not all of it is cerebral and conceptual. A lot of it is about following my feeling. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing, but over the years I’ve found I have been able to share from this space. I was incredibly happy to see how it was received and it really helped me get in the zone for my set later in the day. It was a real turning point.
You mentioned feeling no over-arching link between the acts but there certainly seems to be a sense of exposing the festival audience to experimental or traditional music from different cultures that they may not already be familiar with?
Definitely. I think that was kind of second nature because I’ve loved such a wide range of music all my life. Which I don’t think is entirely uncommon because we’re brought up with such diverse access to music than our parent’s generation. But I think even within that, I was into you know Shamanic music, all sorts as a kid. I loved it if it was further afield, from an entirely different century. I was a bit of a geek about it. So bringing that in was quite natural for me, I just followed my tastes really.
Lastly, what’s next for you musically – you’ve just released your U2 cover of ‘No Surrender’ – is there new music on the horizon?
Absolutely, it’s all about new music for me. I feel like I’m building towards an album but I’m being quite open to what form it takes. I think times are changing and I’m interested in that. So I’m engaged with my fan base in the ways artists are today and I’m enjoying feeding into that. With each release and song, I’m learning a lot more about it. I’m enjoying dissolving the normal album cycle.
I’ve got a new song that I’ve written recently and I look forward to putting that out very soon. What that means to me is that the energy that’s involved in the moment of creating the song and then quickly recording the song, is still very fresh and very potent when it comes to actually releasing the song. “Who do I want to partner with? How do I want this song to look and how best to present this song?”
The reason why that’s meaningful to me is, because in the past with the normal album cycles you might write a song, then it might be three to five months before you have a batch of songs together to track as an album. Then it might be a further six months until you select the song as a single: you lose all this time between writing and release.
Whereas now we’re more adapted and attune with the Internet, as you see in Electronic music and Hip-hop. I find it very creativity stimulating. It all flows a lot more freely and I hold it a lot lighter. This idea of gearing up for my next ‘massive release’ hoping to make a splash – it’s dead! Everyone’s got Netflix on their phone!
Photo Credit: Aaron Parsons