I’m never going to think I’m the best thing ever... I’m still going to put as much effort into what I do
MARION MCMULLEN FINDS OUT HOW CELESTE WORKED DURING LOCKDOWN TO BRING OUT HER IDEAL DEBUT ALBUM
SOUL singer Celeste began last year being showered with awards and on a fast-track to music success. The British-jamaican performer’s prodigious talents saw her winning both BBC Sound of 2020 and the BRITS Rising Star award, but future plans immediately changed with the start of lockdown.
The 26-year-old did her best to make the most of the enforced free time to both recharge her batteries and make the best album she could.
“It was such an up and down year, where even amongst all that was going on, I had some of the happiest and most spontaneous times I have had in a long time,” she says.
“Even though we had all these new rules and constraints, I found the fact I didn’t have a diary that was set out for the rest of the year and beyond quite liberating.
“Just simple things like riding my bike around or listening to music felt freeing in a way they wouldn’t have otherwise.”
Celeste has certainly been in demand. She worked with Golden Globenominated composer Daniel Pemberton on Hear My Voice, the focus track for Aaron Sorkin’s film The Trial of The Chicago 7, and became the first artist to write and record an original song for John
Lewis’ Christmas advert campaign, with A Little Love. Pixar Studios also called her in to lend her vocals to the final track on the film Soul.
Now she has finally released her hugely anticipated debut album, Not Your Muse. She says: “I was supposed to finish the album in March 2020, but everything shut down. I had written most of it, so all I needed to do was go in with my producer and band to go over the last few bits, meaning there wasn’t much I could do by myself but wait.
“What happened though, is I started looking at ideas I hadn’t finished from before starting work on the album and it became apparent they were the missing ingredients that I needed for the album to feel right.”
She says: “I knew from the beginning to follow my instincts to try and have a sound that I felt an affinity with, which comes from a jazz and soul world.
“I didn’t want it to sound too poppy, or similar to whatever the popular sound was at the moment, as that always changes.”
Celeste has drawn on aspects and experiences of her whole life so far to bring it to life. “Some of the songs I’m writing from the perspective of how I felt as a teenager, but through the lens of who I am now all these years later, in that I have been able to process it all. It’s definitely allencompassing of all those different feelings that I have had over the years but reflecting on them at an older age.”
Those BRIT and BBC accolades have undoubtedly been a huge boost to her career and confidence, but she’s careful not to get too carried away, either by the praise or the pressure these things can bring.
“I’m still figuring out what effect those things have had on me, to be honest. Obviously, you are happy and proud to have received them, but in the first few weeks I didn’t really let it phase me.
“People keep telling you that you are destined for great things, but that’s not something I’ve ever focused on or even thought about, really. It seeps in though and I’ve definitely put that pressure on myself a little bit. I’m never going to think I’m the best thing ever or anything like that and I’m still going to put as much effort into what I do, but I became very aware of that expectation that I had to live up to.”
There’s now talk her track The Trial of The Chicago 7 could be in line for a Best Original Song nomination at the Oscars.
Celeste says: “To me, it’s really surreal that people are even speculating that it’s a possibility.
“It just came about during lockdown, when Daniel Pemberton asked me if I wanted to pull something together with him for the soundtrack that he was working on. A lot of it was me writing lyrics or recording stuff in my bedroom and sending them to him over the period of a few months, so none of it felt that real.
“Also, at the time, I didn’t really know what it was specifically for.
“Apparently, Aaron Sorkin wanted to use a Beatles song over the end credits, but Daniel, while working on the rest of the score, secretly started working on an original song for it.
“Eventually, the director got to the final edit and realised Here Comes The Sun didn’t work and he didn’t know what to do, which is when Daniel revealed what we had been working on.”
Meanwhile, Celeste plans to keep making the music she loves. “It’s hard to see what the future will look like these days, but I do know that I am excited to just keep on making music and for the right reasons.
“I really want to play shows as well. That’s something I’ve really missed, so hopefully people around the world will take to this album and eventually, when everything opens up again, I can go to those places and see their faces.
“Even if it’s just shows in small pockets around the world, that would be more than enough for me. That’s what I’m craving more than anything else.”
Not Your Muse (left) is out now on Polydor Records. Celeste will also be touring in spring 2022. Go to celesteofficial.com
THE CAPOTE TAPES (15) ★★★★★
IF YOU’VE seen the Toby Jones and Philip Seymour Hoffman biopics, you may think you know more than enough about novelist and socialite Truman Capote. And don’t expect the titular Capote tapes to add much, either.
Documentary film-maker Ebs Burnough definitely overplays the importance of old interviews recorded with pals of the Breakfast At Tiffany’s writer. As they don’t contain any bombshell revelations, he gradually loses interest, focusing instead on fresh interviews with Capote’s adopted daughter Kate Harrington. For me, there was way too much talk about a party he threw in the 60s, but his final years of disco and drug-fuelled debauchery hold a morbid fascination.
■ On digital now
■ Review by Andy Lea
ASSASSINS (12) ★★★★★
IN FEBRUARY 2017, CCTV cameras captured shocking footage of Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of North Korean despot Kim Jong-un, being fatally poisoned by two young women in Kuala Lumpur airport.
Grainy footage of them rubbing a nerve agent into his eyes, which played on the world’s news bulletins, was as bizarre as it was shocking.
This fascinating and rigorously researched documentary relates what happened to the two assassins, Siti Aisyah and Doan Thi Huong.
Director Ryan White leaves no stone unturned, interviewing cops, intelligence officers, diplomats and family members to examine the girls’ claims that they were duped into believing they were performing a prank for a Youtube channel.
I won’t reveal what happens in the end but I’d advise against Googling their names. This is a shocking, heartbreaking and at times unbearably tense true crime thriller.
■ On digital now
■ Review by Andy Lea
GREENLAND (15) Preview
STRUCTURAL engineer John Garrity (Gerard Butler) leaves work early to prepare for a neighbourhood party with his estranged wife Allison (Morena Baccarin) and their young son Nathan (Roger Dale Floyd).
A comet named Clarke is due to pass perilously close to Earth, providing 24-hour TV news channels with an interstellar light show to broadcast live to the world. The Garritys and their friends watch in horror as a fragment of Clarke hits Florida, razing miles of heavily populated land.
As the gravity of the situation sinks in – the world is witnessing an extinction-level event – John and his loved ones are selected for immediate evacuation to underground bunkers in Greenland.
The family race against the clock to make a flight from Warner Robins Air Force Base and the fabric of society unravels around them at sickening speed.
■ Stream from Friday on Amazon Prime Video
HOT news off the press this week: West Wales WILL have a St David’s Day concert this year.
The clever folk at Theatrau Sir Gar and Llanelli’s Ffwrnes Theatre have been busy filming and recording a special online concert to mark our patron saint’s day.
It is the eighth year for Theatrau Sir Gar to successfully collaborate with Llanelli-based Loud Applause Productions on a St David’s Day concert.
“The big difference this year is, of course, that the concert is virtual, rather than before a live audience,” Cerith Owens of Loud Applause Productions said this week.
“The theatre will be releasing details shortly on how members of the public can ‘tune in’ and watch the St David’s Day concert. But we can promise a very special evening’s entertainment.”
Previous Loud Applause/theatrau Sir Gar collaborations have been staged at Ffwrnes, The Lyric in Carmarthen and The Miners’ Theatre in Ammanford.
This year, it will be the turn of Ffwrnes to take centre stage with recordings taking place last weekend at a theatre which is also doublingup as a mass vaccination centre.
“Of course, we took all the possible precautions in terms of health and safety,” said Mr Owens.
“There were strict rules and social distancing in force for the recording of the concert and, thanks to the theatre staff, technical engineers and film and sound recordists it all seemed to work a treat.
“I can’t wait to see the finished version and I am sure that sentiment is shared by so many who have been starved of live entertainment during the coronavirus pandemic.”
The St David’s Day concert line-up is as follows -
■ Soloist Samuel Wyn-morris (recipient of the Carmarthenshire Music Culture Award 2019), accompanist
Andrew Pike
■ Harpist Alis Huws (official harpist to the Prince of Wales)
■ Guest reader Julian
(actor)
■ Soloist Osian Clarke (recipient of the Carmarthenshire Music Culture Award 2019), accompanist Catrin Hughes
■ Soloist Lauren Fisher (recipient of the Carmarthenshire Music Culture Award 2019), accompanist Catrin Hughes
■ Compère Alun Gibbard
Julian Lewis Jones is instantly recognisable as a star of the big screen and the small screen. Originally from Anglesey, he now lives in Nantgaredig in the Towy Valley.
A fluent Welsh speaker, he has appeared on various productions on the Welsh-language channel S4C, including as a presenter of a popular fishing programme Sgota.
In 2009, he starred in Clint Eastwood’s drama film Invictus, as the head of Nelson Mandela’s bodyguard team. In 2010, he appeared in the TV
Lewis
Jones
series The Tudors as Mr Roper, the park keeper. Also in 2010, he appeared on British TV series Spooks as Russian spy Viktor Barenshik.
From 2012 onwards he appeared in the Sky 1 drama-comedy series Stella as Karl Morris, and in 2012 in an episode of the BBC Two dramacomedy series Ambassadors.
Compere Alun Gibbard’s career started with BBC News. He then presented and produced documentary and feature programmes for BBC 1, BBC Wales, ITV Wales and S4C.
In 2008, he left the broadcasting world in order to write for a living. Since then he has published 29 books, mainly non-fiction, and one novel. He has contributed weekly to Golwg Welsh language magazine on a range of themes and topics for nine years.
Alun has devised and led many creative writing and communication workshops, working with adults, students and young people.
In 2013, one of his books – Who Beat the All Blacks? – was shortlisted for the British Sports Book Awards. Alun has also been Chair of Judges for the Welsh Book of the Year.
Alis Huws is official harpist to the Prince of Wales and a freelance soloist and chamber musician.
She has played for the royal family on several occasions, and given performances across Europe and the Far East.
Alis performs regularly at high profile events for the Welsh Government, including the opening of their new offices at the British Embassy in Berlin last year, their St David’s Day celebrations at Lancaster House, and the official royal opening of the Senedd in 2016.
In 2017, she participated at the World Harp Congress in Hong Kong, and joined Katherine Jenkins and Only Men Aloud in a performance celebrating the Uefa Champions League Final in Cardiff. She also represented Wales at the Hankyu International Fair in Osaka in 2016.
Alis has obtained her master’s degree from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (RWCMD), under the tuition of Carmarthenborn Caryl Thomas.
As part of her studies, she spent time in Amsterdam on the Erasmus scheme, studying with renowned harpist Erika Waardenburg.
At RWCMD, she was awarded the Midori Matsui Prize for music, the Royal Welch Fusiliers Harp Prize, the Mcgrennery Chamber Music Prize and the Rev Paul Bigmore Music in the Community Award. Her studies were generously supported by the Tillett Trust, The Biddy Baxter and John Hosier trust, the Arts Council of Wales and the EMI Sound Foundation.
She is looking forward to welcoming the World Harp Congress to Cardiff in 2022. She is the youth co-ordinator for the event.
Guest soloist Samuel Wynmorris
is from Llanelli and former pupil of Ysgol Gyfun Y Strade and a graduate of the Guildford School of Music, where he gained a first class honours degree in musical theatre.
Until the restrictions of lockdown, Samuel was forging a successful career on stage on the West End in the musical Les Misèrables, playing the role of Feuilly in the Sondheim Theatre. Samuel has also been acting as ‘cover’ for the leading parts of Enjolras and Jean Valjean.
Sam was the first member of Llanelli-based Loud Applause Rising Stars and under its auspices has performed at a series of concerts and musical events. He is also in demand as a popular compère.
Last year, he was a recipient of the Carmarthenshire Celebration of Culture Award – Excellence in Music Category.
During the coronavirus crisis, this column will not be featuring ‘live’ events, but will be putting the spotlight on West Wales singers and choirs and any online internet recordings. Please email if you are already planning an event postlockdown in 2021. If you have news of cancelled and postponed events, email robert. lloyd01@ walesonline. co.uk