Ben Moore Morris
Ben Moore Morris has released his debut album I Remember which has seen him work with vocalist Karin Fransson.
We caught up with him to chat about the record, working with Fransson and what lies ahead.
- You have just released your debut album I Remember so what can we expect from the new record?
I do cinematic music as I am aiming to do music for film and documentaries ultimately and while that is one of my goals I try to make music that is interesting to listen to but without the moving image as well.
People tend to say that the album takes you on a journey and each track is like a small journey.
The album is almost in sections and so you will have a rift of a piano and then it will go to another... it is almost like you go into another room or to another part of the story. Sometimes they are quite abrupt changes.
- The album has been out for a little while now so how have you found the response to the record?
I have only started promoting it properly for the last few weeks but the people who have come back to me have been really positive; I would say almost 100% positive. People have always got good things to say about it and they are saying that it is quite different (laughs).
- Karin Fransson supplies the vocals on the album so how did you end up working with her? And what were you looking for in the vocalist?
I go down to a mic night in a local restaurant and I went down one Tuesday and she was there with a friend singing. Straight away I knew that her voice would be perfect for my music and so I just asked her to get involved.
Originally we were only going to do one song together but when I saw that it went so well I asked her to do some more. I was looking for a dreamy, pure, floaty sort of voice but also something that was really captivating and clear. I just wanted the lyrics to be really really clear.
It is weird because I think of her voice as a sound as well, which it is, but I tried to use sounds that would go really well with her voice. People seem to really get what I was trying to get across.
It is very much a self indulgent piece as I didn’t do it for commercial reasons and it was done to show the kind of music that I do - it is almost like a showcase
It has served two purposes to be a showcase to sell to directors and people like that but also to sell as music.
The first song on the album Walk To Me was the first song that I did with Karin and when I saw that it went well that was when I asked her to do some more for me.
Have you got a favourite?
- I did like Walk to Me but I also liked A Child’s Life too.
I have got a twin brother called Luke and another brother called Tom who lives in California with his wife and he called me up one day to tell me that his wife was pregnant.
Straight away I just began composing and it was one of those songs that just came together amazingly and it was just right. It is one of those tracks that when I sit down and listen to it I ask ‘Is that me?’ (laughs).
- You have had a very hands on role in making this album as you have composed, arranged, produced and performed all of the tracks so how did you find the whole recording experience?
I was really new to it. Although I have been playing piano for most of my life I am self taught and I can’t read and write music - which is a good and bad thing.
So I stated off in London and I didn’t have any recording equipment and I just didn’t know where to start - I didn’t even know which keyboard to buy.
I just got the basic equipment it is called CUBase Essential 5 and I just started recording live from the keyboard and it went straight into the computer. It was quite interesting because I learnt quite quickly how to record layering; so you play a piano and then you play the strings over the op of it so it begins to sound like an orchestra.
You could see the progression but now it is harder to see because I have mixed the tracks up and so Walk To Me was actually the eighth track that I recorded. It was good fun.
Karin came over and we did a practice and then just a basic recording she would then take that with her and record it properly on much better equipment and send it back to me.
I did everything apart from mixing and mastering it - it is much better to send it to a studio because they have got much better equipment.
- Toby Warren has mixed and mastered the record so how did that collaboration come about?
I had tonsillitis and I just spent a week in bed looking at different mixing and mastering companies because it is incredibly pricey. I came across this site and phoned them up and they sounded just like the right people because they specialised in cinematic and film music.
I went along to see them and had a chat and show them what I did and they were actually really excited about it because they felt it was knew and original music. He did a great job actually because he saw what it was; it flows by itself and it doesn’t have a rhythm all the way through and he dealt with that really well.
The main thing that I wanted was the piano to come across really nicely because the piano, quite often, is the foundation of most songs and everything is built around that.
- As I said you have written all the tracks on the album so what kind of feel/imagery were you trying to create with this collection?
That’s a good question. It is exactly one hour of music and I know it is quite cheesy but it is sort of how I would see the world in one hour of music. Lots of the tracks are about memories and events that have happened over the year and a half that I was making it.
When I look back over the songs it is like looking back over time because I remember when I was making this track that was happening. So lots of the melodies totally relate to memories of things that are happening for example I did a track called A War Must End because must of us have grown up seeing war on TV - if you are lucky.
Each piece has a story about something that happened at that time or something that I was thinking about - so you could say that it is a collection of memories, events and thoughts. It is really hard to put it into words actually, that is why I put it into music (laughs).
- So where did your love of music start?
When I was growing up there was always a piano in the house and when you are a kid you just sit down and play it now and again and you don’t really know what you are doing.
My parents saw I was keen at mucking about on the piano and so they bought me a nice keyboard when I was eight - that was when we moved to France and I started playing all the time.
My twin brother plays the drums and my other brother plays the guitar and we had a little band - it was great.
I ended up making up lots of the songs but when you in a band you have to do specific things and Tom would ask me to just do the bass guitar and I didn’t like that so I started making up my own things and we separated.
It was always something that I wanted to do when I got back from school and I listened to lots of film music such as Braveheart and things like that.
I never wanted it to be something academic and my parents offered me lessons all of the time but I didn’t like school or homework and soon I thought of a teacher I stayed away from that.
I do regret that a little bit now because technically I am not nearly as good as someone my age who has taken lessons.
But I can make up stuff and I have my own style of playing. As long as I can compose my own melodies that is the main thing really.
- You are self taught on the piano so how has that impacted on your style?
My hands do weird things when I play and I get a lot of comments about that. But I suppose that I wouldn’t really know because that is the way that I have always done it - someone who has taken formal lessons would probably be able to tell me.
I think that I do see things a bit differently because I don’t know all of the technical terms for things and it is more about creating a nice sound out of something and putting sounds together to make something.
- Finally what is next for you?
I have just finished a dance song (laughs). It has got quite a lot of the cinematic elements to it but it has also got a dance beat to it - it has got Karin’s voice on it as well. So I am just going to start releasing some singles.
Ben Moore-Morris’ album I Remember is out now
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw