David Motion NEVER LET IT END. Crystal Groove Records

Composer, producer, sound engineer, wine merchant David Motion (whose past work includes sountracks for Orlando, To Live And Die In L.A., TV series Trial & Retribution, and contemporary classical album Neo Classic) has created one of the most fascinating releases of 2011 with Never Let It End.  

Having studied at London’s Royal Academy of Music (piano and composition) and performed and recorded as a member of the techno pop band Home Service, David Motion went on to establish a highly successful career as a recording engineer and record producer. Between 1984 and 1991 he produced singles and albums for such artists as Strawberry Switchblade (including the UK number 5 hit Since Yesterday), Red Box (including the UK number 3 hit Lean on Me), Carmel, Black, Win and Tom Robinson. He also produced the Japanese artists Chara, Toshihiko Takamizawa and Mimori Yusa.

Subsequently David has concentrated on composing music for picture. He composed the score for Sally Potter’s highly acclaimed feature Orlando, earning glowing praise from The Hollywood Reporter: “Visually and aurally ‘Orlando’ is jaw-dropping, a tour-de-force…the robustly delicate music score is a scrumptious delight, one of the best film soundtracks in recent memory”. He has also released 2 albums displaying an extraordinarily wide musical palette of which Never Let It End is a prime example.

Whilst the album includes a strong diversity of sounds, the whole hangs together beautifully and is certainly one of my albums of the year. It mixes ambient, rap, classical, pop, rock in a way that I’ve never heard before. The guest performances are amazing and often out of character/out of comfort zone but Motion has managed to inspire some truly wonderful performances from tenors, sopranos, actors, and even a psychologist. Check out the real military narrative on ‘Touching The Face Of God’ which I promise will blow you away. The album is underpinned by strong door-opening melodies and interesting, intelligent lyrics.

This is a unique, innovative album which is highly accessible and hugely entertaining.

4.5/5

My new album - almost 4 years in the making. David Motion

I really had no idea what kind of album I was going to be doing next. I’d finished my neo-classical album, which had done nicely and there was pressure building on me to do another in the same area. I’ve often had the sense that you write the music that you’d like to be listening to. I wondered what would come out if I kept it totally open, just writing freely and naturally without trying to limit or confine it by genre. What seemed to emerge was electronica with lots of classical elements.

It quickly became clear that some of the tracks needed voices, some spoken, some sung and it was a real pleasure to be thinking about who or what would be great for each track. It became an album of collaboration, woven from different voices and textures.

Some tracks needed spoken words. The soothing voice and words of Dr Terry Morris the Hypnotherapist on “Colours Of The Sky Relax”. DO NOT DRIVE or operate heavy machinery while listening to this track! Even hoovering may be dangerous…

My Dad, Artist and Poet David Freeman, gave my wife Vera and me a poem on our Wedding Day in June 2009. I thought it might work well with one of the pieces I was working on. I cornered Edward Fox at my wine shop and he very kindly agreed to come to my studio to record a reading of the poem which became “As Long As Longing Lasts”.

Evelyn Glennie and I worked on a Lynda La Plante series a few years ago. One day she was mucking about, playing a standard drum kit in the most unorthodox way - with 2 beaters in each hand. Fortunately I managed to capture it before we moved on. It forms the long 32-bar tom-tom sample on “Never Let It End”. There was also a John and Yoko moment on this track, when Vera and I found ourselves running a poem she was writing over the backing track. Now we had words. I asked our singing Diva friend Kim Criswell to come in to do a
soprano section. She was due to come at midday as I had to be somewhere else at 15.00h. She finally rolled up at 14.35h. Didn’t take her hat off. There was even time for harmonies and I was out of the studio at 14.50h. What a pro!

I was a bit the worse for wear one night with my brother-in-law Ray. At one very fuzzy point he told me how much he liked the tracks I did with Carmel back in the mid-80s. I dug the album out and, fuelled by pints of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, found myself banging out a gushy message to her online. She wrote back a day or two later and within weeks I found myself in Altrincham near Manchester working on a couple of tracks with her. “Dress of Green” (a backing track I had all but abandoned in the meantime…) and “I Want Your Love”. She encouraged me to sing backing vocals. At first I was sceptical but then totally got carried away with it. Now try stopping me…