Philip Wakeman

What do we mean when we say that music should take us on a journey?

Clearly, you can’t go on a journey by standing in one place. So the music needs to take you to a new place. But this new place is eerie and weird: it is dark and claustrophobic and there might be snakes. Better to keep one foot in a safe place.

Here we see the dilemma of trying to push boundaries as a musician. Too safe, and there’s no journey, no growth, no experience. Too experimental, and you get swallowed up by the undergrowth. You need a familiar hand to hold as you venture into the dark.

This is what I strive to accomplish with my music. In my collaborations, I have always sought to bring an air of dark complexity to my work, from the cinematic soundscapes of Chris Letcher (Spectroscope, SA Mail & Guardian album of the year 2011) to the twisted desert rock of Rich Webb (Le Rayon Vert/Let It Rain, Alt country album/Single of the year, 2019 Independent music awards, NY).

As a composer, I don’t believe that you are stuck with whatever tradition you happen to be born into. Life is a smorgasbord, and you can take whatever your heart desires as long as you use it to create something new. As such, my journey as a musician has taken me through a variety of weird and wonderful pastures, from space rock to folk, from classic metal to flamenco, from Brazilian street music to free jazz.

Music is and has always been my obsession. I can’t remember a time before music. It fascinated me how combinations of simple sounds could elicit a strong emotional reaction in a listener, and I quickly recognised the immense power of this dark art. I promised myself that I would one day understand its secrets. With no formal musical education, I spent hundreds of hours writing piano scrolls on graph paper to see if I could visualise the relationship between the notes on the page and the feelings generated by them. I learned how to play the guitar purely so I would have a tool with which to explore this new domain, and once I had reached the limits of my abilities on the instrument, I purchased a Tascam Portastudio so that I could record multiple guitars and further expand my sonic horizons.

Music has taken me all over the world with various tours and contracts. I never intended for any of that to happen: I was simply obsessed by music, and I followed it wherever it would lead me.

Now, a new obsession stands naked under the spotlight: the combination of music and visual imagery. How much does the music say without a visual context, and how is the visual recontextualised by the music? Just as the music and lyrics of a song work together to produce something greater than the sum of its parts, I believe there is a unique and untapped well of experience waiting to be unlocked in the juxtaposition of imagery and sound, and I can’t wait to get started.