The Blackheart Orchestra
Prog Award nominees and Hawkwind tourmates The Blackheart Orchestra present their most personal work yet in their new, third album, Mesmeranto.
The melodic prog duo talk about touring with Hawkwind and their latest album.
Opening for a legendary prog band on tour is an opportunity that most bands could only dream of. But for Manchester duo The Blackheart Orchestra, they’ve had the honour of doing it twice. After supporting Hawkwind on their In Search Of Utopia – Infinity And Beyond tour in 2018, including a sold-out performance at the London Palladium, The Blackheart Orchestra’s Rick Pilkington and Chrissy Mostyn opened for the space rock legends’ UK tour again in November 2019, including a highly anticipated performance at London’s award-winning
Royal Albert Hall.
“During the tour, Dave [Brock] told a story about how in his younger years he used to be busking outside the Palladium, and years later he’s on stage there two nights in a row,” smiles Mostyn. “A year ago, we were asked where our dream place to play was and, lo and behold, a year later, that’s where we will be. Playing the Royal Albert Hall was a dream come true. It shows you should never give up dreaming.”
Pilkington adds: “[Touring with Hawkwind] was an incredible feeling. I’ve been a Hawkwind fan most of my life. In Search Of Space was such an iconic album for me. They’re lucky to have such a wonderful audience that are so open-minded and who were willing to accept a bunch of weirdos like us.”
“When we started the tour, I thought this could be fantastic, or an absolute disaster for us,” laughs Mostyn. “The audience could have thought: ‘What on earth have they brought along with them?’ But they were great, and we’ve noticed a few Hawkwind T-shirts in the crowd at our gigs now!”
After the release of their second album, Diving For Roses, in 2014, The Blackheart Orchestra were nominated in the Limelight category at the 2018 Progressive Music Awards. From here, their exceptional musicianship and sincere lyrics exposed them as strong contenders in the progressive world.
“The support from Prog has been incredible,” Mostyn says. “We’ve always struggled to figure out where we fit musically, because we don’t really belong anywhere, but now we feel completely embraced by prog fans.”
“We’ve been a little village tucked away in the trees somewhere, but Prog put a signpost on the main road saying: ‘This way…’” says Pilkington. “Progressive music is progressing every day, and that’s what we are a part of.”
The Blackheart Orchestra have just released their new, third album, Mesmeranto, and it’s their most personal collection yet.
“Every album has been honest, because we don’t have the ability to write superficially,” says Pilkington. “We write about the way we feel and experiences are changing us. This album has been a journey of 18 months of extreme joy and extreme sadness. All the songs on Mesmeranto make up a long diary of what we have been through over the last 18 months – it is one hundred per cent raw emotion.”
The album is a beautiful and heartbreaking kaleidoscope of emotions and thoughts of someone who has recently suffered the devastating loss of a loved one. The extremely moving opening track, Ennikur, sets the tone for Mostyn’s deeply personal and cathartic lyrical ode to her late mother.
‘Over the horizon, out of view/A melody is waiting to rescue you, and carry you home…’
“At the time, I wasn’t really allowing myself to understand what the song was about, but in hindsight I knew that Ennikur was about learning to let go of somebody,” says Mostyn. “It seems so obvious now that’s what it was about, but I guess you only let in what you can cope with at the time.”
The duo’s signature powerful crescendos of harmonies and atmospheric melodies are accompanied by some darker and more assertive tones than on previous albums.
“This is our first album where it touches upon a bit of anger, in the songs Drown Me Out and Good Weather,” Mostyn says. “I’ve never considered myself an angry person, but I’m starting to accept that’s it’s okay to get angry about things. When something tragic happens to you, you stop caring about what’s around you and sounding more like: ‘Here I am. If you don’t like it, I’m not going to apologise for it.’”
Mesmeranto’s anthem for hope, Left To Right,
is a musical climax between a combative drum melody and Mostyn’s powerful high notes.
“It’s a song about the futility of war,” she explains. “We are still killing each other now and it doesn’t fix anything, but we march on regardless. We are not meant to be experiencing such horrible things and I believe it hurts us a lot.”
“We’ve been having wars since the beginning of time and we’ve never learned anything,” adds Pilkington. “It seems 40 or 50 years ago, people were more inclined to think: ‘Let’s do something about war.’ I think we need that in society today more than ever.”
Their use of unusual instruments and onomatopoeic vocal techniques add a charming sense of uniqueness to the music. In the song
Wolves, Mostyn uses her vocals to emulate the howls of a wolf, and in Violet the use of a bowed bottom string of a guitar tuned down to D creates a darker and raspier sound than a cello.
“Violet is about admitting the power that someone has over you when that person leaves,” Pilkington says. “When you’re left by yourself and forced to admit that you’re devastated. The sounds of the bow guitar add to the dark undercurrent of the song and feel like the emotion moving through somebody.”
“I love using my voice as an instrument,” Mostyn says. “It’s almost more expressive than singing words, because you’re not tethered to anything.”
Pilkington adds: “Chrissy’s vocals are not inhibited by any technique, style or influence, it’s as though her voice and heart are connected by a cable.”
Accordingly, the last track on Mesmeranto
brings the album’s musical elegy of life and death full circle.
“Another Lifetime is trying to express the passage from this life and into the next life,” Pilkington explains. “My ambition was to create that feeling of emergence into the next life. The orchestration was trying to say: ‘I’ve just arrived in Heaven. Here we are.’”
“WE’VE BEEN A LITTLE VILLAGE TUCKED
AWAY IN THE TREES SOMEWHERE, BUT PROG PUT A SIGNPOST ON THE
MAIN ROAD SAYING: ‘THIS WAY…’. PROGRESSIVE MUSIC IS PROGRESSING
EVERY DAY, AND THAT’S WHAT WE ARE A PART OF.”
Rick Pilkington