Vibrance was an immersive experience that reshaped the City of London with light, sound and live performance.

I pitched my music for Pierre Engelhard’s visuals called Dimensions of Light – Light bounces back to me, which I won, and I did the music completely independently in the space of 2 weeks. The light show was at The Guildhall Yard. This was such an exciting project to work on, especially having just moved to London, Engelhard’s idea of the city’s lights reflecting back at us really resonated with me. I wanted the music to create an almost synaesthetic experience with the dreamlike visuals, using ethereal, constantly morphing sounds and voices that feel not quite human. Inspired by artists such as Oneohtrix Point Never and Jon Hopkins, the composition was designed to physically bounce around the vast space of Guildhall Yard.

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I had a lot of moments of confusion and stress, primarily because of miscommunication. I originally did the music to match entirely with the storyboard I recieved, with two weeks to create, produce and mix a 5 and a half minute track.

This was the storyboard:

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If you watch the video, you'll see how the colour palette, the sequence, the intensity and the events are quite different to the storyboard (e.g., no floating heads or pink flashing party lights). The reference playlist I received was very ambient-focused, and included artists Colleen, Andy Stott, Jon Hopkins, all very ambient and slow tracks. You'll see at the climax however though, that there is definitely a drop. This is what you can hear in my music in my video too, but with the new visuals it feels very disconnected. The music I made was also very warm and soulful, rather than bright and glitchy, so I was quite unsure how disassociated the music and visuals now felt. 

Unfortunately, I only received the first draft of the actual lightshow 1 day before the deadline to submit my mix, so I didn't have time to make the changes I would have to fit with the new glitch-y and more pastel-like visuals. I'm glad I didn't rush and try to create a completely new track, which I first attempted, since this was also the first draft of the actual lightshow, of course this developed and changed further, for example the 'climax' was diluted down further. However I do think that the new visuals were so great and talented by Engelhard, and that the new video was so much more complex, unique and provoking than the storyboard. And of course I was honoured to have done the music and been picked!

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I think my message for whoever ends up reading this, is if you're an artist with a first collaboration similar to this, communicate much more than I did, and get ready for sudden changes. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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