Interview with Graham Daniels from Addictive TV who plans to bring an eclectic palette of musical experiences to rural Suffolk in an exciting new initiative.
HC: Graham, tell me your position/role in Addictive TV and how did you get there? What is your background?
Graham: I’m creative director and work with my fellow director Françoise Lamy on all our projects, particularly our Orchestra of Samples, where we film and record musicians for sampling, collaborating with other music producers to create all the tracks. It’s been a long and twisty road to where I am now. Believe it or not I used to produce television – mainly arts and music series, and Françoise joined along the way as she used to curate and organise events. I then fell into VJing in my spare time, which then took over my life, performing visuals alongside DJs at festivals and clubs, which became making music with others, performing that internationally and that’s brought me to where I am now…
HC: ‘Orchestra of Samples’ is an amazing album and the result of an incredible project. For those that don’t already know, are you able to briefly tell us what it is.
Graham: Thanks for the kind words. It’s a project we started 15 years ago at a time when we were constantly touring and gigging internationally. We’ve recorded and filmed hundreds of musicians improvising everywhere we’ve performed, from India to Brazil, slowly building up an enormous archive of video recordings which we then sample, both audio and video, creating new music by bringing together instruments from all over the world. You see the samples on a big screen behind us, so what you hear is what you see, along with live musicians on stage.
HC: How long did it take to research and find these amazing performers around the world?
Graham: 15 years so far! We never stop looking and recording, and so everywhere we travel, we always look for local talent who are happy to join the project. Some of the performers are introduced to us by local friends, or even by the festivals or venues where we’re playing, and it can sometimes take a couple of weeks to connect with someone before we travel. We’ve had a few artist residencies in France, which really helped, as they connected us with musicians playing unusual or rare instruments, and then in the UK we received Arts Council funding to allow us to do more research. But there have been occasions while travelling that we fortuitously meet incredible musicians, and we always take those opportunities to organise a quick pop-up recording session.
HC: It must have taken thousands of hours – was there a point where you thought you might give up?
Graham: Orchestra of Samples is definitely a labour of love project, and I lost count of the thousands of hours we’ve dedicated to it long ago! And no, I’ve never wanted to give up, if anything I always want to do more… record more musicians and create more tracks! When we perform it’s always great to play new material, it’s hopefully more exciting for audiences too as many have come several times to the show now.
HC: What inspired you to kick off the project? What inspired you to continue with the project?
Graham: Partly the fact we were travelling so much and wanted to take the opportunity to meet and connect with local artists all over the world but mostly because of curiosity and our love of music. Inspiration always comes from listening to the samples and creating new tracks, it’s that goosebumps moment when you find samples that really blend. Piecing together this huge audiovisual jigsaw puzzle does it every time!
HC: From ‘Orchestra of Samples’ there have been more singles, tell me about those?
Graham: After our debut album in 2017, which took many years to craft, we decided to release a few singles on digital platforms only. They were released soon after the pandemic, as like many artists during Covid who couldn’t gig, we took the time to create and release more music. We’d like to put out more as we’re constantly creating new tracks for the live shows, but it can be a challenge to find the right team to work with in terms of releasing.
HC: What other musical projects have you been involved with?
Graham: I worked on a project for a couple of years with the amazing blind sitar player Baluji Shrivastav OBE, that combined music, dance and video called Antardrishti. The show premiered at London’s Southbank Centre for the Unlimited Festival, then we toured India along with members of his Innervision Orchestra, that was an incredible experience. And with Addictive TV, prior to concentrating on Orchestra of Samples, myself and two others toured a completely different audiovisual mash-up show for well over a decade, particularly remixing films, which took us to festivals and clubs all over the planet.
HC: Your work has received a huge amount of praise and you have performed around the world, are there any particular stand out memories? Or favourite locations?
Graham: There’s so many. We’ve played in beautiful historic buildings like the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Rome and even a 13th Century castle in rural France, but also in unusual locations, like a freezing outdoor town square in the Alps full of ski-loving holiday-makers right in front of the huge Mont Blanc mountain range! We’ve really been very fortunate to travel as much as we have, seeing the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal in India, the ancient Teotihuacan pyramids in Mexico, they all stay with you. Brazil though is always an amazing place to visit, and I remember once we were taken to cascading waterfall in a forest just outside the capital Brasilia, where there were no people, it was so peaceful and we all went for a swim, just an incredible place. Visiting the Pyramids too in Egypt, especially as we performed in Cairo during the revolution in 2011, so there were no tourists and at one point we were the only people visiting the Sphinx!
HC: From the global stage to rural Suffolk, I hear you’re taking Orchestra of Samples on the road around Suffolk, tell me how it came about and why rural Suffolk?
Graham: Now that I’ve lived in Suffolk for a few years, it seemed the right thing to do – taking the project with local guests to art centres and festivals around the county, especially as Suffolk is so spread out! Last year we began working with Creative Arts East who organise rural touring for projects across Suffolk, Norfolk and parts of Essex and Cambridgeshire, taking both music and theatre shows to communities in towns and villages that otherwise wouldn’t be able to see them.
HC: Tell me about the guest performers on the tour, how did you find them?
Graham: They’re a mixture of musicians we’ve worked with before and others we’ve since met or been introduced to in recent years. A wonderful percussionist we’re performing with is Gary Newland who’s been running the Drum Camp in Suffolk for 30 years, which is an amazing international percussion festival near Bungay! For the show in Lowestoft at The Seagull, both singer Kitty May will be joining us – she’s a fantastic artist from the area, and percussionist George Fothergill who founded the charity Status Creative supporting marginalised creatives in Suffolk. We’ll also be collaborating with virtuoso pianist Will Fergusson, which I’m particularly looking forward to! And joining me on all the tour are also our two regular musicians František Holčík on clarinet and Electronic Wind Instrument, which is a bit like a synth version of a clarinet, and Alejandro de Valera on one of his many custom-built fretless guitars!
HC: And your new project Sonic Wave, also in Suffolk, tell me more…
Graham: Since moving to rural Suffolk some time ago, we both noticed that a lot of interesting artists don’t perform here, as I’m sure they don’t in many rural areas of the country – it’s generally only the major cities. In East Anglia, some might perform in Ipswich or Norwich, but rarely in the smaller towns, so we want to try and change that, and as we live in the Waveney Valley we’ve decided to organise nights called Sonic Wave, starting in Halesworth at the fantastic venue The Cut, then in September in Bungay at The Fisher theatre, where we’ll remove all the seats to create a more gig-vibe dance floor. We’ve received funding from Arts Council England through their grassroots music scheme and this will really help kick start the project.
HC: When does it start?
Graham: June 13th with a special double bill at The Cut in Halesworth. The night will start with afro-folk singer Namvula and her very infectious grooves, followed by Sunda Arc, the brother duo from Mammal Hands, with their atmospheric and cinematic jazz electronica. Then on September 27th at The Fisher in Bungay, will be the very glamourous LatinX band Alex Etchart & Vientos with support from the amazing Irish singer-songwriter Emma O’Reilly who’s now based in Norwich.
ORCHESTRA OF SAMPLES ON TOUR:
Felixstowe, May 25 at Two Sisters Arts Centre
Aldeburgh, July 11 at Jubilee Hall
Lowestoft, July 17 at The Seagull
Maui Festival, August 23
Bungay Folk Festival, September 7
Glemsford Sudbury, September 20 at Glemsford Village Hall
More info and ticket links here.
