When complacency kicks in, it’s a downhill slide. The musical landscape is littered with examples of artists at the top of their game who let it all slip away.
Feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt will fuel the artistic fire for many years to come and they also go a long way towards explaining the sublime new album by one of South Africa’s truly great songwriters, Chris Letcher.
Having graduated from the Trinity College of Music in London with a master’s in music for composition, Letcher has embarked on a PhD in film music composition at the Royal College of Music.
He admits to feeling nervous and “completely inadequate” in the beginning, but says he is more comfortable now and that the experience has had a profound impact on his new album Frieze (Sheer).
“Part of doing all that stuff was becoming more familiar with all the recording technologies and being more in control of that, not having to rely on producers,” says Letcher.
He says that through his work, composing music for numerous films and documentaries, he has embraced ambient sound and electronic music, which is clearly evident on Frieze.
Its 16 tracks are typical Letcher fare — intimate literary excursions. But, these new songs are transformed into a mature collage of sound that will distinguish it from his previous work with Matthew van der Want and Urban Creep, illustrated by his reworking of older material that breathes new life into these ageing gems.
Letcher’s new vision means his sonic palette has expanded, as demonstrated by the album track I Was Awake I Could Not Move My Eyes, which presents the story of a man lying in an intensive care unit, waiting for a lung transplant.
The subtle clanking and throbbing percussion was created using sounds recorded from machines in the actual lung transplant unit. As Letcher sings “My sleep abused by bells and panic alarms”, the machines and tubes sing along in unison.
Last week Letcher returned to South African shores, with his new band in tow, for a whirlwind tour to launch his new album.
“We are kind of doing a similar thing now with the band that we used to do with Urban Creep, putting five people in a car and covering crazy distances,” says Letcher.
He says the last month has been a manic affair; he is in the middle of recording music for a new film, My Black Little Heart, which he describes as a powerful movie produced by Zentropa, which will premiere at the Berlinale Film Festival in February next year.
Frieze illustrates once again that Letcher is one of the greatest songwriters to grace the shores of this southern-most tip of Africa, yet his past albums remain out of print and his music has been largely ignored by local radio — no wonder he is currently based in London to establis his career in music.