KATE MARTIN: Welcome to a special episode of the National
Trust podcast. I'm Kate Martin, a lead ranger in the north of
England.
Today we're immersing ourselves in nature’s poetry and music in
this season of blossom.
We will be journeying into the world of poet laureate Simon
Armitage and his band LYR as they create art for their new
project'Blossomise’.
We're in London to meet Simon Armitage in person.
Simon holds a position in British culture serving as the
official poet of the nation, writing poems to commemorate
significant events.
We will explore the creative process of Simon's poetry and
music with his band LYR as they create an album with the
national trust called'Blossomise’.
This involves working with communities all across the UK to
bring to life the essence of the wonderful season with sound.
The timeless draw of blossom captivates hearts and minds
inviting reflection and celebration and for centuries
artists have been inspired by blossom’s symbolic powers of
renewal and hope.
Simon's own words resonate with depth and insight into the
natural world and the human experience. [
SIMON ARMITAGE: Skeleton Tree - LYR] I waded down to the cherry
tree to watch it drowning in the sea, arms reaching for ropes of
wind, limbs floundering under the rain
I’m Simon Armitage, I am the poet laureate. This is Crouch
End, north London, a lovely sunny day.
I've been writing poems and song lyrics for the'Blossomise’
project.
We’re at church studios, which is literally a big old church at
the side of the road let's go inside for this big old door.
KATE MARTIN: The studio is filled with teams readying for
the day's recording.
The production team are filming the process, recording engineers
are setting up microphones and the choir are warming up their
voices.
In a quieter backstage room Simon shares how the'Blossomise’
project was born and more about his role as the poet laureate.
SIMON ARMITAGE: Since I became poet laureate in 2019 at that
point I said I wanted to focus on the environment and put
nature at the heart of a lot of my projects. [
Profusion - LYR] Constellations bloom in orchards of April skies
the stars Blossomise
The project is to celebrate the annual arrival of blossom and
try and create something of a tradition, festival around plus
some such as the ones that take place in Japan.
KATE MARTIN: The Japanese season of blossom, draws millions of
tourists from around the world who eagerly await the moment
when the Sakura cherry trees burst into bloom.
They marvel at the sea of pink blossoms and partake in Hanami
which means flower viewing.
Beyond mere spectacle, Hanami is a cultural ritual encouraging
reflection on life's transient nature, often accompanied by
picnics and tea ceremonies beneath the trees.
So what personally inspires Simon about the season of
blossom, and how does it influence his poetry?
SIMON ARMITAGE: Blossom is an important reminder of our of our
connection with nature or maybe the fact that you know we are
nature.
I think we also like the idea of getting a bit high on the
blossom you know you see the bees that there are fair nuts
with this stuff and so I think some of the pieces are quite
trippy and a bit trancey, a bit droney sometimes.
KATE MARTIN: Informing this celebration is the fact that
blossom appears in the most surprising of places and as
Simon observed it can be found…
SIMON ARMITAGE: Growing in the most unlikely cracks and
crevices out of roofs on old buildings in a little bit of
scrubby earth somewhere or wasteland.
And that resilience I think I wanted to notice and be noticed
and the fact that it can reproduce and thrive in the most
extraordinary circumstances has got to be a lesson for hope.
KATE MARTIN: That encouraging reminder to persevere is
reflected all around us in nature when we see blossom
return each spring.
It’s something that the band wanted to capture with lyrics
and music in'Blossomise’.
So how does a poet laureate former band and start winning
Ivor novello awards for songwriting?
LYR is a three-piece band made up of author and current poet
laureate Simon Armitage, singer songwriter Richard Walters and
multi-instrumentalist and producer Patrick Pearson.
PATRICK PEARSON: The story is that Richard and Simon have been
in contact about wanting to work together for some time but they
just couldn't find a producer to work with.
I'd been working with Richard on a side project and he said
“would you want to come in and work on this piece? ” I thought
it was a great idea, I love what Simon is doing.
Richard and I sent a dictaphone up to Simon and we thought “you
know this would be the start of something fantastic”.
A whole year passed and we hadn’t heard anything and we
thought “maybe this is not going to happen” and then the
dictaphone came back in the post and I was like “I'm sorry I've
got round to this but here's some stuff” and there was some
poems on there, there was some sound.
KATE MARTIN: The collaboration between producer Patrick,
vocalist Richard and lyricist Simon became LYR's debut album
and was titled'Call in the Crash Team’.
It was so well received that the band continued creating and most
recently embarked on the'Blossomise’ album.
But getting together is a challenge in itself as vocalist
Richard explains.
RICHARD WALTERS: So I'm in Hampshire, Pat’s down in Devon
and Simon's obviously up in Yorkshire so we're really kind
of-
If you lived on the Isle Of Skye or something you might be
further away but we're pretty scattered, so when we get
together it's really important really vital time together.
KATE MARTIN: So to delve into the band's creative process do
the lyrics come first or the music?
SIMON ARMITAGE: In this case all the lyrics came first so there
are 10 poems there are 11 haikus and I wanted to be able to go
into the studio where we do the composition and lay them all out
and say to Pat and to Richard which of these will make the
best songs?
RICHARD WALTERS: Blossom CV I remember that poem really stuck
out and I think it was probably one of the first ones we started
working on.
SIMON ARMITAGE: [Poem] Blossom CV Blossom was a Mountaineer didn't
look down wait anchor in hairline fissures and stress
fractures think of blossom as solar panels when the weather
turned and the seasons unravelled blossom was a
weathervane rootless and homeless blossom rode and
drifted on thermal currents as the climate shifted-
KATE MARTIN: The process of taking inspiration in blossom to
a finished poem can take weeks before Simon is happy with his
work.
SIMON ARMITAGE: So with a poem like blossom a CV each quatrain,
each four line stanza probably went through nine or ten drafts
before I got somewhere that I was relatively happy with.
I just had too many images, competing images for everything
to cohere into one poem and I started worrying that it would
just become a very big mixed metaphor.
KATE MARTIN: So Simon dealt with each image individually, as
something of a summary or a life history of blossom.
Not necessarily one tree, but all the situations that a
blossom tree might find itself in and all the ways that we
might perceive it.
Now back to producer Patrick to discover how the blossom music
was born.
PATRICK PEARSON: The kind of initial idea for this was taken
from a sample that Simon had made on the piano in South Bank.
He’d recorded it on his phone and said “look I've got this
piano motif, is there anything we could do with it? ” I took
the piano sample and sort of manipulated it.
KATE MARTIN: An essential part of music production is
experimentation so Pat used music software to take that
piano chord and stretch it out, then he tried playing it faster,
totally transforming the character of the sound and
looking for a direction for the composition.
RICHARD WALTERS: It begins with some piano chords and they're
reversed and turned into something quite weird. They
don't don't sound like a piano anymore!
Pat's quite strange guys so he does little things in quite an
odd fashion which is what makes him brilliant producer.
PATRICK PEARSON: And I think it just developed from there.
The sample the way that it stretched had given me a kind of
pulse and we added some samples on top of that and then
eventually we added drums to replace the samples.
And at one point I actually went further down the industrial
quite high saturation quite high distortion, but I think the
feedback was that it got too much and it lost its identity.
So then you pull that back, you don't go too far down there you
realise that might be the wrong way for that, but the sample
stayed in there.
RICHARD WALTERS: There's a tendency that Simon will bring a
lyric, a poem to us and I think you will quite often have one
idea of how it's going to be and then it was suddenly go up in
this entirely different direction.
And Pat came up with this very kind of dark electronic kind of
dirgey not remotely blossomy sound.
It has that kind of strange eerie darkness with the calm
before the storm.
I think we're aware that like you think about a project based
around blossom and it could be this very kind gentle beautiful
thing and I think it's really important it had to have some of
our personality as a band.
KATE MARTIN: One signature element of LYR’s sound is the
interplay between Simon spoken poetry and Richard's lyrics
which are sung. The mix means there are often two different
narrative voices in each of the songs.
SIMON ARMITAGE: Because of the nature of your voice I think if
I display anger in the lyrics you often come back on the other
side as a sort of leavening presence and vice versa.
RICHARD WALTERS: Yeah there’s a bit of a conversation happening.
I tend to sing in a falsetto and my voice is quite gentle so it's
never going to kind of go into a death metal section or
anything. [
Blossom a CV - LYR] In spite of everything that you do.
We’ve had songs where it feels like it's kind of like the devil
and the Angel.
SIMON ARMITAGE: Like a word off!
RICHARD WALTERS: A word off yeah!
KATE MARTIN: So how do Simon and Richard decide, which voice is
lead vocal and when?
SIMON ARMITAGE: Well I sit down and I score all the sheet music!
I don’t know! how does that work?
That work that happens when I'm asleep!
RICHARD WALTERS: I think you kind of naturally find the
spaces and gives us-
Even when you read it on the page you can feel the rhythm
there's a definite tempo that stands out.
I think it's just about giving it space and giving it pauses
and allowing the music to be dynamic and grow. [
SIMON ARMITAGE: Blossom a CV - LYR] You have to spell
resurrection and the true meaning above revelation.
Blossom the magician transforms-
KATE MARTIN: Simon shared that the songs were not prescriptive
works but invitations for communities across the country
to partake in shaping them.
This was represented in the recordings by the choir made-up
of singers from all over the UK joining to add their sound.
SIMON ARMITAGE: Choral elements of these tracks was in our minds
right from the very beginning.
We wanted that resonance we wanted inclusivity and
involvement and I think the choir in the songs represents a
community.
The harmony of voices coming together different perspectives
different viewpoints.
KATE MARTIN: A big influence on the decision to record the choir
in church studios was the acoustics of the space.
High beamed wooden surfaces meant that the choir would sound
warm and vibrant when recorded.
Artists such as Coldplay, Mumford and Sons and Beyoncé
have all recorded here before.
ADEL TUZANI: My name is Adel Tuzani. I've been invited to
contribute to the recording from the Soul Sanctuary Gospel Choir.
It’s always a drudge when you have to warm myself up but once
I get going it's just a joy, it always is and that's why I keep
doing it after 13/14 years.
RIO HELLYER: Hi I'm Rio and I am sort of alto mid in Choir Noir.
People singing together in the same room it just really it just
does something good for the soul.
ALEXIS CONSTANTINOU: My name is Alexis I sing tenor. Beautiful
songs, loving it!
MARIANNE RIZKALLAH: I’m Marianne, I’m one of the
Sopranos in Choir Noir.
Singing the songs today it's been wonderful the arrangements
are amazing.
Kat our musical director has been talking about how all the
parts blossom, so it starts from the lower parts going up to mid,
going up to high and everything kind of erupts and goes into
bloom.
And you really hear it in arrangements that suddenly kind
of burst out of nowhere like the first flowers spring. [
GENERIC: Blossom a CV - LYR] "in spite of everything that you do
wrong you still get me..."
RICHARD WALTERS: I think there's a message in that song about
climate change and the effect that is having on the seasons
and things blossoming.
My lyric is in spite of everything that you do wrong you
still get me it's decided you're pushing me to the edge, me being
blossom. [
GENERIC: Blossom a CV - LYR]
SIMON ARMITAGE: I am trying to reinforce the idea of kinship
with the natural world because ultimately that's where we came
from.
We are spiritually, biologically, scientifically,
every other adverb that you can think of connected with the
world around us and we need to honour that bond.
KATE MARTIN: Thanks for listening to this episode of the
National Trust podcast. This spring discover some of the best
places to see blossom in our care and beyond. If you'd like
to hear more of the'Blossomise’ tracks Simon Armitage and LYR
have composed, or read the poems then please click the link in
the show notes.
There are also details to live events, performances and stories
on the National Trust website.
You’ll also find videos to the tracks made by inspiring young
film makers from across the country on the National Trust
YouTube channel.
To make sure you get new episodes of this podcast please
subscribe to Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts,
until next time goodbye.