C Duncan might not be instantly recognisable but chances are you know the Mercury Prize nominated composer’s music very well. Chris Duncan spoke to Limerick Post Newspaper ahead of this week’s show.
MERCURY Prize nominated composer C Duncan brings his dreamscape summery indie pop to Limerick this Friday. The acclaimed artist, and possibly the most polite man in showbiz, spoke to Limerick Post this week.
The Glaswegian bedroom composer went from relative obscurity to being the critics favourite with a lush debut album made in a bedroom studio, with patience, a year of long late nights on a budget of 50 pounds. Nothing about C Duncan’s music is cheap. It is the product of the long hours put into making great pop songs perfect.
“That record took about a year to make,” Chris explains.
“The song is the quick bit. It is the production that took time. It made me spend a lot of time going back over stuff getting everything exactly how I wanted it.”
Along with the time taken to craft the Mercury Prize nominated ‘Architect’, the record is the culmination of decades of music training and being immersed in the process of creating music.
Christopher Duncan (28), is the son of two classical musicians. He played piano and viola in his childhood, played guitar, bass and drums in bands formed at school. He finally studied composition in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
“It is a funny thing for people to pick up on, how cheap the album was to make. When I was making the record I never thought about needing more equipment. Christmas would come along and somebody would buy me a new microphone or sound card or something.”
Finances never came into it. What is quite interesting about this is you can make a record, if you put the time in and you can spend as much time as you want if you don’t go into a studio. It would have cost tens of thousands of pounds if I had used a studio.
Christopher Duncan’s second album ‘The Midnight Sun’ came out last October. The follow up to ‘Architect’ won over the critics of The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Mojo and The Quietus, to name a few.
“I wanted to make the second album different to the first. I wanted to make something more coherent as an album. There are bits of barbershop and dream pop in ‘Architect’ but for the second album, I wanted an overall sound using onboard synthesisers and software to create a lush but slightly icy electronic core.”
This album was also created from his home studio. The composer orchestrates layer upon layer, painstakingly assembling his musical pieces, building them to their full potential and often letting his classical training and influences surface.
Duncan fuses electronic elements and sweeping synth sounds with his signature layered vocals and dreamy instrumentation to create a record that submerged the listener into an ethereal combination of choral harmonies, acoustic instrumentation, and electronic inflections.
While the name C Duncan may not be familiar to most, you may already be well aware of his music though he has accumulated a solid fan base particularly since the Mercury nomination. C Duncan’s music has appeared on TV shows in the UK and Chris is always surprised to hear where one of his tracks might pop next.
“I would like to write music for TV or film at some point.” He already can boast that his music has been used in documentaries, home improvement shows and many gardening programmes.
“My parents watch a lot of gardening programmes and every now and again mum texts to tell me I’m on Gardeners World.”
Any green fingered readers out there should try playing C Duncan’s album to their plants and see those flowerbeds thrive this summer.
And if you still believe that plants responding to music is a load of ragworth, then at least you have added a very fine album to your collection.
Chris Duncan is enjoying touring the new album and the bedroom composer is really starting to enjoy sharing his music in the limelight, fronting his band of good friends from the Glasgow arts scene.
“I really enjoy playing to people and being surrounded by people all the time. I’m getting more confident on stage. The live drummer brings a more rhythmic element to the music and adds more energy to the set.”
C Duncan and his band play Dolan’s on Friday May 5.
