COMPOSER CROSSES POP-CLASSICAL BRIDGE
Meredith’s music a mix of bold arrangements and mellifluous hooks
Anna Meredith spent nearly 15 years composing for park benches, elevator lifts and prestigious classical music programs before releasing a couple of EPs and finally, in 2016, a debut solo album. That record, Varmints, received accolades in the pop music press for its mix of bold arrangements and mellifluous hooks. The classically trained half-Canadian (on her dad’s side) musician, who grew up in Scotland but makes her home in London, is now on tour to support her second fulllength album, FIBS. We talked to Meredith about composing music for other people, her own work and futuristic British game show themes.
Q Where is the most unusual place you’ve heard your music?
A There’s a big high street discount shop in the U.K. that I would never have thought in a billion years would add my stuff to their playlist. Sometimes I’ve been in there buying huge quantities of pants or socks and it’s playing, which is always slightly unexpected.
Q Your CV includes music for Hong Kong park benches, a Manchester shopping centre lift and the resurfacing machine at the Somerset House ice rink. Do you seek these projects out?
A Mostly, they’ve come to me. Sometimes it’s been like, “We’d like you to write an installation piece, what do you fancy?” For example, I was given a choice of locations in the shopping centre. The idea came itself when I saw the lift and it made complete sense what I should do.
Q You also wrote the music for Bo Burnham’s coming-of-age comedy Eighth Grade and Paul Rudd’s Netflix series Living With Yourself. What do people expect t when they approach you about projects like these?
A With both of those things, the people who approached me seemed to know quite a bit of my stuff already. They said they wanted something quite strong, that had a real character. They didn’t want background drones or cutesy mandolins, but something that would add tension or quite a lot of weight.
Q What kind of work have you turned down?
A A whole bunch of stuff over the years, lots of orchestral work, film projects. Mostly because I had to carve out time to make the new album, nearly a year’s worth of time. It involves a real leap of faith to turn down that paid work.
Q The new album jumps around a lot from genre to genre — at one point I had to check to make sure it was still the same record.
A I’m trying to keep the spectrum
as broad as possible. I like having the extremes of loud and quiet and fast and slow.
Q At recent shows with your band (Maddie Cutter on cello, Jack Ross on electric guitar, Tom Kelly on tuba and Sam Wilson on drums), you’ve been performing a medley that includes songs by ABBA (Lay All Your Love on Me), Carly Rae Jepsen (Call Me Maybe), Daniel Bedingfield (Gotta Get Thru This) and Moldovan pop group O-Zone (Dragostea Din Tei). What does this say about your relationship to pop music?
A I don’t really listen to much music at all. The songs in our little encore medley are just things I liked once for whatever reason, I couldn’t even tell you. Also, each one focuses on a different member of the band, so it reflects what they like as well. I listen more to audiobooks.
Q There’s also a bit of the theme from a British game show called The Crystal Maze in there, is that right?
A Yeah, it’s just a tiny second of an in-joke. Even in the U.K., it will pass most people by. But it’s just this very amazing theme tune for this futuristic game show and is kind of bonkers. If you ever have a boring afternoon I’d recommend watching old episodes. It’s a big part of my childhood, so it felt like a nice way to wrap it all up.