episode #17 Anna Meredith

Anna Meredith (ANNA MEREDITH!!) is guest #17 on excuse the mess. This episode is a 4-part epic, the director's cut! It’s testament to Anna’s dynamic, hilarious, inspiring podcast chat that I can release 3.5 hours of podcast and be confident you’ll be entertained throughout. Whilst we’re all locked up in our Covid-Bunkers you might welcome this extended deep dive into the mind and music of this phenomenal composer. Let the music escapism commence...

Anna is one of the most well known and widely loved composers from the UK (the nation even confirmed this by awarding her an MBE).

She studied classical composition and has a vast amount of commissions under her belt. Her piece Five Telegrams opened the BBC Proms in 2018, it is one of the largest scale classical pieces I’ve ever seen, with visuals projected onto the Royal Albert Hall alongside her music performed by hundreds of musicians. Watch it here:

Over the last 10 years (ish) she has been exploring a more electronic sound world and creating quite the storm. Her music is muscular yet warm, complex and direct. She was brought on as composer to the award winning film ‘Eighth Grade’ (dir. Bo Burnham) and the Netflix series ‘Living With Yourself’ (with Paul Rudd).

Anna came round preCorona-Lockdown and we recorded tonnes of brilliant conversation and music making. I’m really excited to release a huge amount of #content. 4 parts in fact. Find them all below or on your favourite app here.

A • CHAT 1

In this part we have a good old fashioned podcast rambly chat. We talk vegan cakes, exercise, the importance of composer community (referencing the Camberwell Composer’s Collective she was part of), we discuss her technique for mapping out compositions and classical culture amongst many other things.

B • MUSIC MAKING

This part of the podcast is where myself and the guest write a brand new piece of music on the spot, using just one instrument and electronic manipulations. We opted for the humble pesto jar as our instrument, why not!

You will hear the journey of the piece from the ‘blank page’ to the finished piece at the end. I had such a blast working with Anna on this track. This is a brilliant opportunity to discover how Anna’s razor sharp composition brain works in real time.

C • AUDIENCE QUESTIONS

Your Questions answered by Anna (and some extra conversation). Many thanks to all of you that sent in questions. It was lovely to try this out as a segment on the podcast, we really enjoyed it.

D • CHAT 2

In this final instalment you get a multitude of factoids about Anna’s critically acclaimed album, Fibs (2019). She draws a track name from a bowl at random and tells us the first thing that comes to mind. You’ll also be hearing juicy extracts of the tracks alongside these insider scoops.

We also talk about her 2018, BBC Proms commission Five Telegrams - if you aren’t familiar with the piece watch it here. It’s on a ginormous scale with incredible visuals transforming projected onto (and inside) Royal Albert Hall. Finally, we talk about her experiences working with Bo Burnham on his award winning film, Eighth Grade.

As we discovered in our music making, pesto jars are a hugely underrated musical, particularly sonorous are the Sacla brand.

two trusty plugins used heavily on the percussive elements in ‘oopsloops’ - Soundtoys Decapitator and Devil Loc

Thank you so much for visiting the website and listening to the podcast. A HUGE thank you to Anna for agreeing to join me on the podcast. It was hugely inspiring for me and I hope for you too. A special thank you to her manager Rachel for all her expert organisational help.

All photography by the wonderful Raphael Neal

Please do get in touch with me if you have any feedback for the podcast, i'd love to know your thoughts.

excuse the mess is gratefully supported by Arts Council England, PRS Foundation and iZotope Audio.