You started your label, Gondwana Records, back in 2008 in order to promote the vibrant Manchester jazz scene. Can you tell us more about the scene and the artists that inspired you to start Gondwana, artists that you helped shine a spotlight on?
So the Manchester scene around 2005 to maybe even 2010… Matt & Phreds Jazz Club in the Northern Quarter in Manchester was live jazz seven nights a week, but it wasn’t just your old, traditional jazz styles. It was much more contemporary and a lot of the artists were musicians that were playing in The Cinematic Orchestra, Ryan Christian, Only Child and all sorts of trip-hop projects that were very contemporary at the time.
When they were at Matt & Phreds Jazz Club they would basically be playing things like Blue Note and Impulse! tunes and Strata-East and Black Jazz stuff but in a contemporary kind of way, pushing those sorts of drum & bass and hip-hop beats into the music. And this really excited me because I was essentially seeing a load of exciting musicians pushing the boundaries of traditional jazz and I started chatting to a lot of them and… I was only 25 when I set up the record label, so I was about 22/23 when I started hanging out there on a regular basis and obviously I hadn’t much money and wasn’t very well known at all at this point.
I’d kind of come from the jazz big band and orchestra world and I’d spent some time studying sound engineering and music technology, so it was like a whole new world and trying to convince people to collaborate with me and put records out… Originally I just wanted to put loads of records out by the musicians there, but they were quite a lot older and didn’t trust, or didn’t think that I was going to make a good job of releasing records for them, which I can understand.
So the next solution was to start writing my own music, but putting the spotlight on some of the musicians that were playing at Matt & Phreds Jazz Club. I would say that three of the key players that I picked and was fortunate to work with were Chip Wickham, the flautist and saxophonist who is an incredible performer and session musician but also a great writer and composer now as well; Nat Birchall, the saxophonist, who I would class as the John Coltrane of the north of England. He lives out in the hills near Glossop, just outside of Manchester, and makes beautiful spiritual jazz. And also Jon Thorne, the bass player from Lamb, who also played on loads of great trip-hop records. They were three of the players that were regularly playing at Matt & Phred’s that I really liked.
In later years I worked with the drummer Luke Flowers from The Cinematic Orchestra who was also part of the Matt & Phred’s scene; John Ellis, the piano player, who was also part of The Cinematic Orchestra; and Phil France, the bass player from The Cinematic Orchestra. I was a big fan of Cinematic. The first two albums they put out, “Motion” and “Every Day”, were really important. It was mad that all these musicians were living in Manchester, right on my doorstep, so I felt the need to celebrate that and put some records out and collaborate.
I wanted it to sound fresh, but also a bit classic. I was really into modal jazz and the 60s and 70s stuff and I didn’t feel there was a label that really understood what I was trying to do and where I felt comfortable. So Gondwana Records began.
Promotion of your home community, scene and musicians has always been of huge importance to you, often working alongside a strong foundation of Manchester-based musicians, as is the case on your new album, An Ever Changing View. Can you tell us a bit more about the album’s lineup and how it is working alongside so much local talent on a regular basis?
I guess the reason I live in Manchester is because there’s so many great musicians. In the north of England, if you add in Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield, you’ve got an incredible catchment area of talent. It’s always been something I really like supporting (northern musicians), trying to encourage them that they can stay in Manchester and earn a living and play beautiful venues across the world. Not just in my band, but also, when the time’s right, to develop into solo artists. I always loved that about Art Blakey and people like Miles Davis, and the Jazz Messengers… How you could take these young talented musicians and put a spotlight on them and eventually they would become the stars in their own right.
That’s certainly something I’m enjoying seeing. I’ve been working with young musicians like Jasmine Myra, the saxophonist, who’s now a solo artist and really shining. She’s from Leeds. Also Nat Birchall and Chip Wickham… Their careers have gone in a really positive direction and their fanbases are growing. Also, some of the musicians in my band are starting to release solo albums like the flautist and saxophonist Matt Cliffe who’s just put out a beautiful duo album with just piano and horns and it’s just so, so beautiful. I really encourage and support that.
I guess the other thing is, you know, I want to live in Manchester and I want to be part of a community. That’s really important to me. Rather than having musicians travel from all over the place to come and rehearse and record… There’s a logistical side to it where it works really well to have people as close by as possible, and that also helps socially as well. Each musician I’ve met has introduced me to another musician. That’s the nice thing about jazz. It’s not an ageist kind of thing in terms of the musicians you collaborate with, so I’m working with a lot of musicians that are in their early to mid-twenties, but I’m also still really good friends and collaborating with musicians in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and when you bring all of those together it’s really beautiful to have that sense of community and that social side of it all.
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Something which perhaps shines through more than ever on the album is your relationship with your natural surroundings and landscapes. Can you tell us more about the role nature played in the album’s creative process?
I think when I’m making music I’m always looking for a lot of clarity, headspace and freedom in many ways, and I think being close to the sea and countryside… Immediately my breathing improves and my calmness. I want to be outside a lot so I go for more walks and really enjoy the surroundings in every sense, whether it’s being in the forest or by the sea or going up some mountains. I think the other thing I really like as a composer, as well as the space and freedom, is painting landscapes. It’s been something I’ve always enjoyed from the “Fletcher Moss Park” album right through to today. I’ll sit in a room with a beautiful view and I just put my headphones on and I compose for like six to eight hours a day with no other distractions.
I book these writing retreats where I just go for anywhere between four days and two weeks even and I just write. I’m out of office in every other sense. At the label everyone knows I’m not working. All the artists know that I’m away writing music. It’s become a really good solution to spinning so many plates as an artist and record label owner.
Three of the places where I wrote the new album were in the North Wales area. Penmaenmawr was one of the places… A beautiful house on the side of a mountain. The street was called Water Street, and that’s where I wrote that track and also where I came up with the idea for the album title “An Ever Changing View”. I also wrote the title track and “Jewels”.
That location was just so beautiful and magical. To compose looking out of the windows there… You’d see the sea and the clouds and you’d see Llandudno peninsula poking out. That view just changed so much. Everyday the weather was like rain, sunshine, clouds. You’d get rainbows and all sorts of magical things happening. I remember a cloud actually floating down the street because it was so high up as well. Just watching the tide come in, people walking their dogs… All sorts of things that are just full of energy, life and inspiration. I really enjoyed that location. The house was owned by an architect, so the interior design was all beautiful modernist furniture. It almost felt a bit like an art gallery.
Newborough Beach and Forest on the Isle of Anglesey is one of my favourite places in the world. I’ve traveled and been on many beaches, but still… I’ve been going to North Wales and Anglesey since I was a kid. Growing up in the north of England, it was a great place to drive with my parents and Newborough Beach and Forest just immediately… I just have a massive smile on my face every time I go there, and I found this beautiful cabin that I could write in with views. You could see over to Caernarfon and that side, but you could also see down to the area close to the beach at Newborough. I wrote the tracks “Natural Movement” and “Calder Shapes” there as well as a whole bunch of tracks that I haven’t released. I tend to write about 30 to 40 tunes per album, and then some get picked for this album like a compilation sort of thing and then others are used on EPs or future releases. That was just such a beautiful place. I go there three or four times a year.
And then, also on Anglesey, nearer to Holyhead, there was a beautiful big cabin in a forest that I stayed in. I put some microphones outside the cabin, because there was a balcony, and recorded loads of field recordings of the birds and nature around me and sat at a felt piano recording the tracks “Tracing in Nature” and “Field of Vision”.
The only other location, which wasn’t in Wales, was in Bridlington in the northeast of England in this amazing 1950s modernist house which was looking right out at the North Sea… Beautiful views, massive glass windows and incredible architecture; lots of wood and beautiful 60s and 70s lamps and furniture. I wanted all of these locations to feel quite special and I wanted to feel excited about all the design features. I love architecture and interior design so I felt that was important because the more excited and energized I was by the space, the more interesting the music would be. I wrote “Mountains, Trees and Seas” and some stuff off a little EP, “Bright Sparkling Light”, that we’ve been selling exclusively on tour, as well as some other bits.
They were the four locations. Yeah, it totally inspired me looking out the window and making music.
Adding your practice of meditation into the mix, would it be right to say that these two things (meditation and nature) working together are the key ingredients in breaking the boundaries in the music you make?
I think what’s interesting about that is, I feel like the location and the process of making the music has become the meditation rather than the meditation being an additional thing. I remember reading a lot about mindfulness, and an example of mindfulness was going fishing because you would basically go somewhere beautiful and you would set up camp and you would focus on one beautiful thing for hours and hours on end. Although I am a vegetarian (laughs). But that whole idea of sitting and relaxing and focusing on one simple thing is one of the best types of meditation you can do. So when I was finding these locations to write and looking out of these beautiful windows, essentially that was me fishing but in a musical sense. I’m trying to paint these beautiful landscapes and kind of searching with my eyes for inspiration. I’ve got my headphones on and I’m going ‘How does this sound connect with this view that I’m looking at?’. When you open yourself up for that, you really do start to make quite meditative and beautiful music because you’re in a happy and positive state of mind.
I remember looking at the sea and the sun… The sun is another really important factor when I’m writing music. I love sunrise and sunsets and dawn chorus and things like that. I just find it’s one of the most magical points of the day. But the sunlight on the sea, at certain points… The sparkle became something I was obsessed with trying to recreate in the music. So that’s why there’s a lot of chimes, glockenspiels and bells on the album, as well as these custom-made hand hammer triangles. I loved the idea of that sparkly, silver light and finding instruments that would capture that metallic kind of visual. And then things like the flute and the voice on the last track, “Triangles in the Sky”, for me is like the idea of clouds or birds floating in the sky. So there were a lot of creative ideas that, through that meditative state and playful mindset I was in, made me make this record in a certain way.
I would say in some ways this is the most energy I’ve put into an album in the sense of my individual role. I play a lot more instruments and layered up a lot more sounds, and I feel like it’s got the most layers of myself in there and it’s the most vibrant and energetic I’ve ever felt. So in some ways I don’t know whether it has a meditative quality or a calming quality. It’s definitely the most lively I’ve been on record I think (laughs).
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When it comes to jazz, you’ve often cited artists such as Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Miles Davis and Don Cherry as some of your biggest influences, but you also take huge influence from the world of dance and electronic music. Who would you say your biggest influences from that world are?
I listen to a lot of contemporary music from Warp Records and Ninja Tune and stuff on Erased Tapes. I like a lot of the neoclassical stuff: Nils Frahm and Ólafur Arnalds. But also, on Ninja Tune, bands like The Cinematic Orchestra and, more for his DJing, but Mr. Scruff has been a huge influence. His five, six hour super eclectic DJ mixes were very educational for me. And then on Warp Records, artists like Boards of Canada… The idea of a very mysterious band that again have a deep love of nature and are quite reclusive is quite attractive to me as an artist. Their production levels are absolutely incredible; the layers of sound and just the choice of instrumentation. Also, I think Aphex Twin… Although a lot of people would say he’s so far from my music, there’s something really inspiring for me about Aphex Twin. The freedom he has and every album is so different and so playful and brave. It certainly spurred me on to be more adventurous with my music and to try and make each record have its own style, sound and identity. Then from Manchester, another one on Warp Records… Autechre I find fascinating. Just how far they’ve pushed contemporary music.
But then I would say, in the mid to late-90s and early 2000s, sample culture and hip-hop culture definitely had a big impact on me. People like DJ Cam and Madlib and Saint Germain, all those sorts of artists that were taking beautiful sections of jazz tunes and looping them. That became something I was quite obsessed with. Not in the sense of sampling myself, but the idea of writing and composing more refined and perfect loops of patterns for the bass player and the band to play, to the point where I drove a lot of jazz musicians mad because all I wanted them to do was almost play like a sequence, sample-based type of music, and these are all amazing jazz musicians that can do a lot more than that. So trying to refine them to basically play for three minutes with five chords and a couple of notes on the bass drove them mad at points, but eventually they understood what I was trying to do when I explained it more and more.
Right now, one of the artists that I love is Makaya McCraven, the drummer. All of his output, but in particular the new album on XL/International Anthem is a beautiful album start to finish.
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Would you say that the way in which jazz has effortlessly found a place in more modern genres such as electronica and hiphop, and vice versa, is evidence that jazz as an artform knows no boundaries?
Yeah, you can go right back. I mean, it’s evolved so much. But one artist that is the obvious one in terms of pushing and stretching and moving the genre is Miles Davis. He went from “Birth of the Cool” to “Kind of Blue” to “In a Silent Way” and “Bitches Brew” and really expanded the idea of jazz, creative freedom and improvisation.
For me individually, I’ve always found it one of the most exciting, expressive and unpredictable genres to study, and live performance wise there’s no better thing to go and watch. My band are on tour at the moment… 31 tour dates, and we might play the same set but we’ll play it differently every night of the week, and that’s a really beautiful thing; the fact that it can evolve into something completely different whether it’s played live or in the studio.
I think what’s interesting is how there’s different periods where the popularity of jazz expands and all of a sudden a whole generation that wouldn’t class themselves as jazz connoisseurs or listeners have suddenly embraced this beautiful art form. I’ve noticed it at my gigs. My audience has expanded quite dramatically over the last five years. I’ve been releasing and performing for fifteen years as an artist but I’ve noticed a new wave of people that have come up to me at multiple concerts and said ‘This is the first jazz gig I’ve ever been to in my life’. Now that’s really exciting and interesting and I can even see it in the way the crowd behave and react at the concerts and festivals.
Jazz was always one of those things where you would have clapping after every solo and all sorts of quirks that are unique to the jazz world. But people are now listening to it as a whole piece of music and a performance; much more like a music listener would, with a massive applause at the end. So all of that is slightly changing the dynamic of the audiences I’m seeing on tour.
I think the younger generation through streaming platforms and through the sample culture that they grew up listening to… I mean, when I was thirteen/fourteen I didn’t really understand how these producers and DJs were making records. I thought they were geniuses in the studio with loads of musicians around; multitracking or kind of playing live.Then when I realized that fifty, sixty, even one hundred percent of the tracks were samples, my head just melted and I became obsessed with understanding this whole idea. I think the generation I come from and the generations after (the younger generations of jazz artists) are definitely influenced by multi-generations of jazz/hip-hop/drum & bass/afrobeat and everything because there’s jazz in all of these genres.
If you look at Ezra Collective who won the Mercury Prize… Massive afrobeat influences. The likes of Fela Kuti and Tony Allen were really incredible artists that developed a style and a sort of sound that was so fresh and had a club culture feel to it, and it’s still one of the DJs’ favourites.
I think that’s how jazz has evolved and has become more accessible; the idea of taking elements of jazz from multiple genres. And club DJ culture has had a huge impact with the likes of Gilles Peterson and Mr. Scruff… Playing super eclectic music from right across the board for five hours and throwing in old, classic jazz records, but then mixing it in with something like a Theo Parish Detroit House tune, or an Art Blakey tune next to a A Tribe Called Quest tune. It really starts to almost join the dots. Gilles always said joining the dots is one of his big things, or searching for the perfect beat. That whole culture that he’s created and what DJs have done… Jazz musicians were going to festivals and dancing in nightclubs and absorbing all of this and it made this fresh, exciting new sound.
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Looking back, did you ever think that Gondwana would reach the heights it has? Now with artists such as Hania Rani, Mammal Hands, Svaneborg Kardyb, Jasmine Myra, Portico Quartet, Chip Wickham, Sunda Arc, GoGo Penguin, the list goes on…
The funny thing with most of my journey is that it’s never been driven by money or success. It’s genuinely been about loving the process of recording, collaborating… I love the mixing, the mastering, the manufacturing and the artwork and videos. Just that love and passion for it I think is probably (and accidentally) why it’s grown and become so successful. I’m having a great time working with these artists, hearing their stories, recording and listening to their music. It’s certainly been a dream job for me and I definitely didn’t think we would get to 15 years and beyond that.
I started the label with a thousand pounds and a bunch of musicians kindly played for free for a couple of days with an engineer on a shoestring budget. We put it out on CD only and then digital and then eventually vinyl. So to go from that to fifteen years down the line having seven members of staff, sixteen artists on the current roster… To see artists like Portico Quartet and Hania Rani and previously GoGo Penguin explode into international artists has been just the maddest thing, and something that I’m obviously really proud of.
Sometimes I don’t get a minute to think about it because I’m just so immersed in it all… For the 10th anniversary we had a festival at the Roundhouse which was one of the best experiences and memories of my life to be honest. Having loads of artists at the Roundhouse playing on both the main stage and two other spaces in the building, and just everyone hanging out and having a drink and chatting, it was just such a good vibe. So yeah, never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d be here.
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A beautiful ninth album. A European tour with a headline show at The Royal Albert Hall. What lies ahead for Matthew Halsall (and Gondwana Records)?
I’ve only done seven out of thirty one live dates, and then I’ve got another five or six DJ dates. I’m doing an audiophile tour after that in some nice bars and clubs which should be fun and a nice way to unwind at the end of the year. I can have a little bit more of a drink, relax and play records in some nice locations.
I’ve got some really exciting gigs coming in next year, a lot of festival stuff. This year I said I wouldn’t play in general at festivals. I made a decision that I just wanted to do one big block of touring between September and December and not really any festivals. I wanted to do two forty-five minute sets with an interval… Like an old school jazz club kind of feel to all my shows. To do that I could only really do it as the only artist on the bill.
I can’t wait to carry on with these live concerts and share this new album with all the fans before taking a little break in January. But I’ve very much already got the idea and the blueprint for the next album. Some tracks have already been recorded so I’m quite desperate to get back in the studio and get writing and finishing tracks off. I can’t say too much but I always do one album that’s light and kind of meditative and then one that’s a bit darker and heavier. The next one is a slightly bigger, darker beast if you like. That’s where I’m going, with a lot of energy and rhythmical elements to it.
Regarding the label, there are lots of Gondwana events which in some ways are my favourite things. I don’t always play live at them and if I do I play first so I can get off stage and start supporting and enjoying the rest of the evening. But those events are something I cherish a lot.
There are a lot of albums… The whole of next year and half of the year after have already been recorded, most of them have been mixed and are at the artwork and video phase. I think there’s at least six albums a year for the next two years, if not more… So yeah, lots going on!
