In 1991, Daniel Miller of Mute Records signed a group of female madrigal singers who'd formed a goth-industrial rock band. Miranda Sex Garden were one of the label's more maverick additions, and they whirled their way through the first half of the nineties supporting Depeche Mode and Nick Cave, setting increasingly loud riffs against their indie medieval chorales. One member, Donna McKevitt, who wore a vestal virgin outfit on her first TV appearance, was quieter by nature than the others. McKevitt (vocals and electric viola) was a graduate of Kingston Polytechnic with her ears schooled in Steve Reich. When an opportunity came to score Derek Jarman's last film, Blue, in 1993, it opened a whole new musical world for her.
McKevitt has spent the last thirty years making exactly the music she wants to make. Her modern soundscapes are both restrained and deeply emotional, combining the elegance of baroque music with an eerie minimalism that reaches back to earlier, more mysterious times. McKevitt has scored countless films (she is a favourite of the documentarian Mark Cousins) and dance pieces (her work has been performed at the Royal Opera House and Sadler's Wells); she has set the poetry of Maya Angelou and e.e cummings to music, and has worked extensively in the fashion world. Her acclaimed song cycle Translucence, a setting of Jarman's poetry, was a record "full of silence and calm", she reflects now - a reaction, in part, to the chaos of the band on which she cut her teeth.
The Swimming Diaries is a collaboration between Donna McKevitt and the poet and film-maker Susan Thomson. When Thomson's mother was dying, swimming helped her process her grief, and she also wrote extensively in the course of the same month. The resulting collection of poetry contains 25,000 words, one for each of the strokes she made. This wonderful book found its way to MoMA in New York where it remains on display.
McKevitt worked in her home studio on the south coast to score music that resonates deeply with those words. She turned dreamlike lines into vivid songs, bringing new colours to them with her own voice. The meditation on grief answered a need for her too: McKevitt had just said goodbye to her dearest friend, whom she had nursed in his last illness at her family home.
The Swimming Diaries is McKevitt's most personal work yet, and a standalone album in its own right. It is also the soundtrack to a film by Thomson, shot at the stunning Clontarf baths, a seawater pool in Dublin Bay. Cranes and factory chimneys can be made out on the horizon in a setting both serene and industrial. A team of dancers deliver a raw and beautiful routine around an empty hospital bed. The story of Achilles floats in, with a young boy dressed in a toga and lit like something from Zeferelli. A medieval knight loses his armour, piece by clanking piece, at the edge of the pool.
McKevitt's soundtrack is a pure expression of what she does best as a composer. "I always like writing when there is a sense of, where the hell did that come from?" she explains. "It's almost a mystical process." One such moment was Coin Dance, which opens the album: she took inspiration from Thomson's footage of a dancer writhing on her back, placing two coins ominously on her eyes. "It's completely ambiguous," McKevitt says: "You can't tell if she's dying, or having an orgasm. It's got this real tension, this push and pull and release..."
She mirrored that tension with a taut but stately string refrain which builds, then drops, like the most heart-rending moments in Purcell's only opera Dido and Aeneas. I Don't Know Where This Train is Going and Water Holds Me Like A Lover are minimalist adventures set on mesmerising loops. The beautiful choral pieces The Wall and Go To The Limits of Your Longing belong in church, full of sweetness and subtle dissonance. And on the Reichian First Swim, things are recorded so close, you can hear the felt on the piano hammers...
" Donna McKevitt’s music for The Swimming Diaries is achingly beautiful. Intimate and spare at times, lush and cinematic at others, it demonstrates her remarkable ability to create music that is both emotionally and dramatically satisfying". John Schaefer, New Sounds at WNYC
This amazing record is out now and is available on CD and vinyl, and you can buy or listen here.
After suffering a catastrophic and almost fatal spinal cord injury, professional rugby player Ed Jackson's world changed forever. The Mountain Within Me follows Ed's journey on his recovery as he achieves the mental and physical heights of Snowdonia, the Alps and Himalayas to the life-altering challenges closer to home. From multi-award-winning director, Polly Steele and BAFTA and EMMY nominated producer, George Chignell, THE MOUNTAIN WITHIN ME is an inspiring, thought-provoking documentary about unexpected change, hope and finding renewed purpose in life.
Donna McKevitt's magnificent score manages to convey the film's myriad emotions from tension to joy, from fear to love.
The album is released September 6...
The album is inspired by the love and saviour of the same piano he played on as a child. When his own kids grew up he didn’t have room for it, so he sold it. He later saw an advert in the paper selling that exact piano, so he bought it back.
Playing on this piano again, Frans has revisited his childhood years and his love of creating simple and beautiful piano melodies whilst incorporating his extraordinary musical journey to date. Taken from the album is Frans’ new single Parting; a beautifully bittersweet slice of ambience that is filled with harmonically gorgeous interplays between the piano and stunning string quartet throughout. Talking about the single, Frans elaborates, “Parting is about saying goodbye to your loved ones. It was written as a song for a play for The Royal Danish Theatre - being sung at a funeral. The cellist Live Johannson and I have enjoyed playing together a couple of times - so I decided to make a special arrangement for this album.” Throughout the album Frans takes the listener on an undeniably immersive listening experience, constantly pushing boundaries and creating unique soundscapes in order to completely mesmerise with the help of his intricate storytelling charm.
Frans Bak played piano throughout his childhood, immersing himself totally in the melodies that he created, where he found solace. He later graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Music and formed a number of bands, experimenting with music, fusing together his classical training with different genres, sounds and modern technologies, and in doing so, has carved out a unique sound through his own compositions. Today, Frans continues to work as a highly accomplished
composer, with over thirty years experience scoring for the film, TV and advertising industries, receiving international critical acclaim for his compositions for Nordic, French, American and British TV series including Disparue, Doctor Foster and Lilyhammer. A pioneer of the Nordic Noir genre, his captivating music for The Killing is widely acclaimed, setting new musical standards for crime TV and inspiring other composers to apply the ‘Nordic feel’.
1 . Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - Borrowed White (2.41)
2. Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - From The Past (3.10)
3. Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - No Way Back (3.03)
4. Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - Big Boat (3.28)
5. Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - Nathan's Gone (1.43)
6. Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - Martha's Little Theme (1.50)
7. Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - Valmir (3.55)
8. Frans Bak - Little Ship (3.01)
9. Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - Alva (2.37)
10. Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - At The Parking Lot 3.36)
11. Frans Bak, Morten Zeuthen - Deciding (2.26)
12. Frans Bak, Peter Pejtsik, Budapest Art Orchestra - Structure of Power (3.57)
FRANS BAK
I was in the Faroe Islands in 2021 meeting up with local film composers - and playing a concert with a local string quartet.
It was a special concert for me - we played a lot of my film music, but I had also chosen some chorales and hymns – and I enjoyed so much playing these with them - it felt like we had a connection - all the time in the world - and was able to give presence to the moment, and let the music speak for itself.
After the concert we talked about playing more together. The Faroese musician - Teitur - attended the concert. He encouraged us to follow up on this, and we talked about adding him to the project - as a playful element.
When I came back to Denmark, I couldn’t get this experience out of my head and started composing new music for this constellation – and found some songs I had composed earlier. I re-composed and re-arranged these for the quartet and me - and added electronics and soundscapes.
Luckily, Teitur and the quartet kept their interest in this - so I went back to the Faroe Islands and recorded the new music with the quartet - and Teitur became producer of the album. We worked in Studio Bloch - and in Teitur’s studio, and I ended up coming back several times and fell in love with the Faroe Islands.
So finally - here it is: “Atlantic Hymns” - A Danish composer and pianist with an acoustic string quartet from the Faroe Islands - playing hymns with a playful element.
Hope you enjoy listening.
DONNA MCKEVITT (Music) and DEREK JARMAN (Poetry)
Countertenor: Michael Chance, Contralto: Donna McKevitt, Mezzo Soprano: Melanie Pappenheim, Viola: Catherine Manson, Soprano: Kelly McCusker, Cello: Caroline Dale
Translucence is a cycle of twelve poetry settings punctuated by five instrumental interludes, and is scored for the highly unusual combination of three female voices (Soprano, mezzo and contralto), counter tenor, viola and cello. With a maturity far beyond her years at the time of composition (she was still in her early twenties) Donna McKevitt’s music mirrors Jarman’s poignant journey through the memories and emotions of Jarman’s last years.
“McKevitt’s intimate and sensitive settings deftly capture the essence of Jarman’s words and images. The spare textures are beautifully realised and McKevitt skilfully blends varied influences into a coherent whole. A moving evocation of love and loss”
Barry Witherden Classic CD *****
A record contract was quickly found (highly unusual for any composer’s Opus 1), review copies were sent out, extraordinary critical endorsements flowed in and everything seemed set for the album’s triumphant public release in late 1998. There was a sting in the tail however and as a result of problems with Jarman’s estate the record had to be withdrawn before release and all remaining copies destroyed. Despite building a cult reputation in music circles from the review copies that escaped destruction, the record remained unobtainable until its welcome release on Dharma Records in 2004, with a memorable concert to launch the album at Tate Britain.
1 What if the present were the world last night
2 Translucence
3 Nature
4 Dance against the void
5 I sit here immobile
6 Prelude to Sebastiane
7 Sebastiane
8 Sweet Wisdom
9 I am a mannish muff diving size queen
10 Gravity
11 Adam and Eve and Punch-Me-Not
12 Impatient youths of the sun
13 The System
14 No dragons will spring from these circles
15 February
16 Prelude
17 I walk in this garden
CAROLINE DALE