Lucy Railton
Questions by Cate Christiansen
BASTA: Why the cello? When and how did you begin to play?
LUCY: I was very small, 6 and a half maybe? My brothers and my mum were already playing the cello, and I think I just wanted to be the same, but I was the only one that carried it on.
I was probably drawn to the sound, but I can’t remember, my whole family are musicians, so it was very natural to start something new, I was already playing piano by that point, I wanted an instrument I could hold, one that was mine!
B: In previous interviews, you’ve spoken about how your propensity for experimental music comes from a rebellion from classical music and commitment to freedom of expression. In finding meaning within this freedom, how do you feel your voice has developed and changed across your solo works (and/or collaborative projects)?
L: Yes, well I think that’s a common route musicians take with improvisation, the form is freedom, because it’s supposed to be your true voice. Improvisation has always been a tool for freedom, globally and historically, the problem we encountered was the institutionalization of music that drove all kinds of problems into the act of musical creativity, expression, and freedom. I didn’t have a bad experience with my classical music training, thankfully. I went to the Royal Academy in London, a very traditional school, and you could say rigid, but it was what I wanted at that point. Lucky me—I don’t regret taking that path.
I’m someone who is always looking for a new route, and I’m privileged that I have been able to take many paths in my creative life, and I still do, that is a freedom I am very thankful for. I would say that over time, my solo work has become more about myself and less about ideas or experiments… or if it is experimental, it’s about my relationship to that process, rather than just doing process for process’ sake. That’s a sort of Contemporary Music hangover.
I have spent many years collaborating with other people, amazing projects, often realising the ideas of others, and this is great, but the shift in recent years has been a move towards my own urgent creativity. I’ve in some ways come back to the cello again, but then I’m sure I will depart again. I’m constantly in flux with the medium of my music and that’s how I like it.
Photo by Francis Fuego
B: What does a day in your life look like?
L: Urg.. so impossible to answer… I am basically always travelling, so I don’t have a routine, but my perfect day would be some kind of experience with beautiful nature, silence, good food, warm weather, and a session of music making or a concert with people I love. That is the dream, it sometimes happens…!!
B: You mentioned previously having received criticism for being a “serial collaborator.” To what extent has collaboration been integral to finding your voice as an artist? Could you talk about what draws you to these collaborative works, and working across multi-disciplinary modalities (film scoring, dance performances, video art, etc)?
L: Yes, I think the (light) criticism has come from people who need to understand things in narrow categories. Honestly, it doesn’t matter to me if my output seems unclear to people. I am just taken where I feel drawn, I just go. Now my touring life is more international, I have stronger ties with the US, Mexico, Japan, for example, my interest in collaborating is as much about understanding other cultures (and being in them for some time) as it is about the personal exchange.
Also living in London until I was 30, a city full of people from all over the world, I was naturally working with people cross culturally, it’s that sort of place. It’s also where I started to work in film as a recording musician, that’s where the film music studios are, and that was a staple job for me all through my 20s. I’ve played on many film soundtracks and through that experience I started to understand the way it works. Working with film directors as a cellist, rather than a composer, I was always asked to put more of myself in to it, improvise, do some electronics, add something more than just what they write down on the sheet music, after a decade of this I realised I was composing a substantial part of the music myself, creating a sound for the film scores, and so I developed a muscle for it myself.
I love working in film as a composer, it’s the closest you can get to being a filmmaker without being one. In the best cases, you’re very tight with the director, and it’s fascinating to be close to their complex way of working, it’s a multidimensional type of creativity, far more than music making. My drive to collaborate is really all about connecting with people who think differently to me, if it's how to move with their body, how to light a room, how to edit a scene. All the facets of multidisciplinary work can be understood as a type of musicality. I have a way of understanding things in shapes, colours, dynamics, space and silence, etc..
B: Do you get stage fright?
L: No. I get technical fright, I mostly worry about cables!
Subaerial
Duo album with Kit Downes (Organ). August 2021 on SN Variations.
Cover art: Maya Rochat.
More information
B: You’ve previously referred to your recorded works as benchmark “documentations.” In terms of your process for creation, how do you balance experimentation, play, improvisation, and product-output? In other words, when improvising/experimenting, how do you know when you’ve found something to record for documentation?
L: Hmm, yes. I have an album called “Subaerial” with a great musician and friend Kit Downes, for cello and church organ, we recorded in 2017 in Iceland. This is essentially improvisations edited into pieces. With Kit, with this style of playing, my language, my own, and the language of the duo, we’ve had many many years to develop together, like all improvisers, you hone your own sound over time, the way you phrase for example, it is improvised, but it has a strong foundational vocabulary that has been evolving for years.
For me, the process of improvisation is a search for authenticity, it can still be an experiment, but it has to feel like me, like us. It’s looking at a photo and being able to recognise your character in it, or not. I think this is how I go through materials and end up using them on records. Even if I’ve recorded a crackling synth, or wind, or a syllable, it has to have a song to it that I can relate to. I can’t really fill space with stuff that has no meaning, and instinctively we know what feels right when we are seeking for a quality that speaks of self, I have always trusted that instinct.
Learn more about Lucy: https://lucyrailton.com