Tag: Hayden Thorpe

Today, Hayden Thorpe announces a special new record entitled Ness, due for release on September 27th via Domino.

Using a process of redaction, Thorpe brings songs to life from the pages of best-selling author Robert Macfarlane’s book of the same name. Ness is inspired by Suffolk’s Orford Ness, the former Ministry of Defence weapons development site during both World Wars and the Cold War. Acquired by the National Trust in 1993 and left to re-wild, it to this day remains a place of paradox, mystery and constant evolution. Thorpe’s Ness is an ode to Orford Ness, the physical place and the book it inspired, both featuring the words of Robert Macfarlane and the artwork of Stanley Donwood.

The announcement arrives today alongside the beautiful ‘They’. Written following Thorpe’s first visit to Orford Ness with Macfarlane where they ate lunch “beside bomb craters and destroyed buildings” in a place where “within living memory an Armageddon was being prepared”, “They” questions the comfort that might be found in thinking of deep time. “For me, it’s Ness in summertime,” says Thorpe. “Full of the lightness and looseness of a blue afternoon. Musically speaking, it’s a riff on our experience of time. The interweaving polyrhythms and delays are a play on that.”

The video, directed by Hayden Thorpe and Andy King and filmed at Orford Ness acts as an introduction to Ness: the shingle spit, the book, and the album. It opens with Thorpe speaking Macfarlane’s words and imploring us to “Listen. Listen now. Listen to Ness. Shut up and listen though, will you? Really listen.”  As the music of ‘They’ then emerges, so does Thorpe on the boat ride over to the “untrue island”.

Thorpe first encountered Macfarlane’s work via a copy of his 2012 book Landmarks which then led him to Ness, Macfarlane’s 2018 collaboration with Stanley Donwood. “He writes about non-human forms in a way that captures an essence that, as humans, we can understand,” Thorpe enthuses. After the pair met and then collaborated at the Kendal Mountain Literature Festival, the idea developed that Thorpe make an album from Macfarlane’s prose. His copy of the book is now covered in black ink, covering words, lines and sentences, to “reveal the song underneath”.

Whilst the production was a new challenge for Thorpe, he credits his community and collaborators for their support in bringing Ness together. The orchestral parts are played by Propellor Ensemble, whilst Jack McNeill, their band leader arranged all the parts and played clarinet across the record. Kerry Andrew composed and sang all of the choral arrangements and performed some spoken word.

From the sensual, libidinal and free ‘She’ to the uncanny requiem of ‘Merman’, the contrasts of the Ness landscape are heard in the music, from folk to experimental orchestra to elegant pop. Elements of the Ness found themselves on the record too, such as seeds placed on the bass drum during recording, or thistles rubbed together for the sound of shakers or whirring.

Talking about working with Macfarlane, Hayden said: “I feel like I’m getting to work with Dylan Thomas or James Joyce whose sing-song prose is only ever a melody away from music. Rob is an extremely generous collaborator, which likely explains the impressive cannon of music he has been involved in. After hearing the sketches, he empowered me with free rein over the words.”

Macfarlane comments: “My philosophy on collaboration is always find the people who are making extraordinary work, and then just trust them. Hayden had a beautiful phrase that really sang with me that he heard the language and the place as a kind of desert music. I was absolutely knocked over by his way of being in the world; that deep calmness, quiet grace that is very sensitive, compassionate, kind, thoughtful.”

To mark the release of Ness, Hayden will be part of Ness Speaks: Words and Music, curated by the National Trust at Orford Ness on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th September. Featuring an intimate and acoustic performance by Thorpe and joined by Propellor, the event will also include a Q&A session with Robert Macfarlane and a chance for visitors to explore the sights and sounds of Orford Ness’ unique landscape. More info on the event can be found here.

Thorpe remarked on Ness in our current landscape: “It might be easy to think of this album as a less personal one, but my personhood was carried in Ness and in-turn, Ness in me. The same lifeforce that so possessed Robert Macfarlane to write the book carried forward like an electrical current. Ness is uniquely qualified to teach us of what has been and what can be. It is the place where weapons developers learnt how to train the sun’s energy onto those we disagree with. Today, amid new horrors and hostilities, Ness stands as a poignant reminder of those end-of-days-ways and the restorative powers of the natural world.”

Ness is available to pre-order on exclusive black Biovinyl (with hand-numbered A4 lyric sheet signed by Hayden Thorpe and Robert Macfarlane), standard black Biovinyl, CD (in partially recycled jewel case) and digitally.

Artist’s website: https://www.haydenthorpe.com/

‘They’ – official video: