Collaboration

Over the past three records, collaborating with other musicians has become more of a regular experience for J. Willgoose, Esq. and this is the case again with Bright Magic. How does the process work for the band?

“For Blue Heaven the demo is quite close to the end result but in terms of the melody Andreya Casablanca [from Berlin indie band Gurr] just very quietly and politely shelved what I’d done and came up with something way cooler. The thing I’ve noticed over time is there’s no point collaborating with someone if all you’re saying is ‘here’s a thing, can you do that?’”

“The point of a collaboration is to take a track somewhere you wouldn’t on your own, so you should be inviting that creative disagreement in some respects. [Highly respected German musician] Blixa Bargeld had a totally different idea for Der Rhythmus Der Maschinen which didn’t quite work with where I wanted it to go, but he still happily took care of my concerns, while doing his own thing. I’d never have done what he did at the end of that track, which is brilliant. He’d written a more expansive, story-based thing to go over the whole track and we had to say, ‘no we just needed this one line at the end’. He re-wrote it quickly and delivered it beautifully. The engineer Boris turned to me and said, ‘I’m enjoying watching you have a very intense time’.”