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Adam Szabo – Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Manchester Collective.
Rakhi Singh – Head of Artistic Planning and Co-Founder of Manchester Collective.
Manchester Collective mark their fifth anniversary in 2021 and their first album, ‘The Centre is Everywhere’, is out now – www.manchestercollective.co.uk
- Hi gang, welcome to Vents Magazine! Before we get the proverbial show on the road, how has your 2021 been thus far?
RS: 2021 thus far has been a mixture of Groundhog Day interspersed with some fruitful and productive moments, so not all bad at all. It’s also nice to see the edges of Spring appearing and to feel the days getting longer rather than shorter. We’re through the worst….
AS: Yeah, I certainly hope so. It’s a fresh experience to be putting dates in the diary rather than taking them out, that’s for sure! I think we’re on the up.
Congrats and major kudos on the upcoming March 26 release of your very first full-length album which is entitled The Centre is Everywhere! How does it feel to have an LP hit the record shelves?
RS: It’s a great feeling! We’re gradually building up our discography and have lots more interesting (we think..!) releases planned for the coming 18 months.
You released an EP in September of 2020 called Recreation; was that sort of a build-up to this big album drop?
RS: Even though Recreation was an EP rather than LP it was our statement of intent, so not really a build-up at all. It was something that was carefully crafted and curated by us and hopefully gave people a decent idea of what we’re all about. Risk, exploration and total commitment.
AS: It’s a very different kind of record. Recreation was really about contrast – crazy textures, wild sounds, compressed into an intense, volatile package. TCIE is a slower record – we have the time here to build an even more ambitious musical arc and go a little deeper. It’s felt like a quite a thoughtful record to work on.
Can you tell us what the title – The Centre is Everywhere – means to all of you personally?
RS: Personally, I think it reflects this idea of time and space, and how the music on the album swirls around and engulfs us in different ways. This is most apparent in Ed’s piece the melodic lines are constantly moving around the group, which is both surprising and mesmerizing.
AS: For me, the last twelve months have been incredibly dislocating. I think many of us have felt a little adrift, like our roots have somehow disappeared. There’s a lot of tumultuous music in this record, but it’s also one of the most beautiful things about this music, that great beauty can come out of chaos.
Why was it important to go with The Centre is Everywhere as the album title? It’s a beautiful, memorable name for the LP, by the way!
RS: The title is the name of the centrepiece of the album – a composition written especially for us by Edmund Finnis. Interestingly, in a time when everything has been turned upside-down and inside out it resonates in a particular way, despite the piece being written pre-pandemic.
The new album is being released on the Icelandic label Bedroom Community. What have they been like to have as a label?
RS: They’re awesome! It’s a pleasure to be part of such an amazing roster.
You’re well known for turning classical music upside down and reinterpreting it via experimental programming and cross-disciplinary collaborations. For the lay person perhaps curious about giving your music a try, can you break down why it is they will enjoy your music?
RS: We design programmes primarily with the emotional experience in mind so you’re not going to get some dry academic reason for something being there. In that sense we’re more like a band and we perform like that too. Actually, there’s a chance that you may not enjoy everything we perform but as our musicians pour their heart and souls into every note, it will be a powerful experience – positive or negative!
The timing of the release of the debut LP also happens to fall on the fifth anniversary of Manchester Collective being together. Congratulations on the anniversary; does it feel as if it’s already been five years, or is it a case of ‘where has the time gone?’
AS: It’s definitely a ‘where has the time gone’ scenario. We’re so driven by the work that we want to create, it’s often easy to miss these little moments as we move on to the next project and the one after that. We really never could have guessed that we’d be making this kind of music together, or working on this scale, when we started out in the club space under Islington Mill in Salford. It’s a real thrill.
Considering that so many albums live or die based off of the time-honoured tradition of touring, what is the game plan for promoting The Centre is Everywhere? Is touring in the equation at all right now considering COVID-19?
RS: I guess this is where being a classical organisation plays into our favour as we’re doing concerts – or were doing – all year round. Releasing records is just adding another string to our bow… terrible pun I know, I just couldn’t resist…
AS: The other time-honoured tradition that we’ve got to fall back of is radio play! Fingers crossed that we’ll be getting some good airtime over the next couple of months. In lieu of touring, we also have a live broadcast planned for the BBC on March 25 – the day before the record drops – so it will be getting a big old plug there as well!
Noted producers Brendan Williams, Valgeir Sigurdsson and your own Adam Szabo all had a hand in helping develop and bringing out the amazing music in The Centre is Everywhere. What was that collaboration process like?
AS: It’s been a real blast working with this production team. It’s sort of an unusual project in that we’re all coming at it from very different worlds – I’m a classically trained artist/producer, Brendan makes all kinds of records, most recently the new Blue Note disc for jazz-electronica trio GoGo Penguin, and Valgeir is another thing altogether! Amongst many, many other collaborations, he made a bunch of records with Bjork. So, seeing these influences come together has been fascinating. I think we’re slowly developing quite a new musical grammar together for classical recordings – it’s certainly a different approach.
Does The Centre is Everywhere represent not only where Manchester Collective has been over the last five years, but also the new roads the band is forging ahead with in the future?
RS: It’s a snapshot of what we’re about but we always like to have some surprises up our sleeves so both we and our listeners never get too complacent!
AS: It’s always fun working at scale. This is our first full length record featuring string orchestra – it’s lots of musicians to have in a room together! The possibilities are endless…
What sort of recording techniques were used in the recording of the album? Was it a mashup of old and new?
AS: Yeah, definitely. We actually recorded the whole disc on two sets of mics – some gorgeous old ribbons and a set of condensers. A lot of the fun that we had in post was in moving between these sound worlds to achieve specific effects, messing about with gnarly reverbs at key moments in the Schoenberg and Glass, finding new colours wherever possible. Of course, if it’s not all backed up by epic performances then you might as well hang up your boots, but we’re lucky to have an incredible line-up of musicians and collaborators, led by the wonderful Rakhi Singh.
March 26 is noted as the date the LP drops digitally with a vinyl release in the immediate offing sometime after. Can CD fans expect a release too, or is it too soon to say?
AS: Who knows. If you want CDs, get in touch! If the audience is there, we’ll make them.
Final – SILLY – Question: Manchester Collective is noted for their energetic live performances. Is there a particular artist or band in any point in music history that you would be keen on checking out in concert?
RS: I actually got to see Prince play a couple of times and that was mind blowing. I would have loved to have seen Michael Jackson and I can imagine Freddie Mercury would have blown your socks off, even if you’re not such a Queen fan. I bet Beyonce puts on an epic show.
AS: Janis Joplin at Woodstock in ‘69. Or the Rite of Spring premiere at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in 1913. Both very messy performances I believe.
