THE MAKING TRACKS PODCAST
In The Making Tracks Podcast I interview musicians about the story behind a song, their life story, philosophy, psychology, spirituality and more.
My own experiences as a musician, when I had leukaemia have made me realised how much music can help us through hard times, make sense of our experiences, and to feel connected to others. I now want to invite other musicians to explore the meaning of music, and its importance in their lives.
The Making Tracks Podcast is funded by Arts Council England , Youth Music as part of Making Tracks, a partnership project between Trinity Bristol, Basement Studios and Aspiration Creation Elevation (ACE).
FIND LINKS TO ALL PLATFORMS
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EPISODE 14::
STANLAEY
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Sonic world building
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The temporal topography of a song
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The colour of songs
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Combining classical with glitchy electronic music
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The need for self-compassion
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Breath
EPISODE 13::
AYANNA
WITTER-JOHNSON
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Studying composition in New York
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Making music that straddles the universal (classical), personal (songwriting) and cultural
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Changing the world from within through music
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Exploring her Jamaican heritage and its folk music
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Writing using her cello
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Why Jamaican music has spread so far
EPISODE 12::
XYZELLE.
EPISODE 11::
ABI FLYNN
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Moving from the Philippines as a child
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Growing up as an Asian person in a predominately white community
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Finding confidence as a teenage girl and a person of colour
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Learning to trust your creative instincts
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Writing in a foreign language (Tagalog)
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How music can tie you to a sense of place and belonging
TRACK: "Courage"
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Her miraculous healing from a terminal diagnosis, emerging from emotional and inner work - such a similar experience to my own
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Recording “Courage” whilst “basically on her death bed"
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Adjusting back from isolation, drawing parallels to lockdown
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Alchemy and inner transformation
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How closeness to death gave urgency to her music making - and the loss of motivation afterwards
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How becoming a mother has changed her outlook on death
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EPISODE 10::
JASMINE CROWE
TRACK: "Sky is Falling"
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Her father - an astrophysicist, philosopher and pianist
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Songwriting to process his passing away
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Songwriting collaboratively long distance during lockdown
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Coping mechanisms and mental health
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The relationship between music, time and memory
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Astrophysics, Jupiter and stardust
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EPISODE 9::
ANUSHA
TRACK: "Someone I Never Wanted"
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Her experience of sexual harassment at university
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Combining her background in classical music with poetry & hip-hop
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Songwriting to make sense of difficult experiences
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How art can precipitate social change
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The value of play
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EPISODE 8::
GROVE
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What being queer means to them
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Discovering their black heritage, and how these two identities intersperse
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Self-exploration
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AI
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Nina Simone, and how a life can be a piece of art, and a form of protest
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Evolving as a society beyond duality and classifications
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EPISODE 7::
RIZIK
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Leaving marketing to pursue his dream of being a musician
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Feeling shame about calling yourself "an artist"
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Materialism in Los Angeles
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Feeling pressured by his Palestinian parents into a conventional path
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The fraud complex
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EPISODE 6::
ANDY CATO (GROOVE ARMADA)
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His early experiences of dance music
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Playing jazz with his dad
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Music culture as social change
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Zen
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His transition into regenerative farming
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Parallels between farming and song-writing
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EPISODE 5::
SAM BROOKES
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Grief
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Healing through songwriting
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Depression
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The magic of live music
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Finding peace within ourselves
EPISODE 4::
THOMAS KAM
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From Oxford University to India to Bristol Hospital
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Being diagnosed with leukaemia
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How songwriting made cancer manageable
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Dear Lady Death
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Making Tracks
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Writing music in hospital
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Making the podcast
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Menu
EPISODE 3::
ELI CARVAJAL
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His mom's journey:
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from a dancer to a lawyer
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From NY to London
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her recent heart attack
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Chinese poetry
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The songwriter as a prism for creative consciousness
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Our first experiences of performing
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Writing songs about family
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EPISODE 2::
KATHRYN WILLIAMS
TRACK: "Heart Shaped Stone"
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The downsides of fame
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Writing music in collaboration
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Different recording and production style
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Using silence in music
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Teaching songwriting
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EPISODE 1::
DIZRAELI
TRACK: - Everybody Here's Golden"
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His mental breakdown
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The ecstatic moment of release from depression
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Sampling the city
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Inner silence, inner peace
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Black Lives Matter
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Poetry vs Rap
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His time studying percussion in Senegal