Prepare yourself to fly through the vibrant soundscapes of Nányë…
Nányë comprise of musicians and producers Ella Joy, Elliot Hingston, Roman Banwell and Oliver Rushen. The band have recently “pre-released” their début EP Hummingbird exclusively on Bandcamp ahead of the March release date across Spotify, iTunes and other digital services.
The concept Hummingbird EP explores the relationship between music, art, and mindful conscious living, whilst considering the impact of religious dogma, the power of honest expression in animals and liberation of the artist through creative friendship.
We had a chat with Ella about all things Nányë, so, stick the EP on and have a read…
How did you form Nányë?
“Nányë was founded by Oli Rushen and myself (Ella Joy), around October in 2016, amongst evenings of music exploration and improvisation in our garage studio. The sound started with an electric guitar and vocals, with long progressive and transitional pieces. We generally aim to record as many ideas and jams as we can, and if we liked an idea, we would re-work our favourite sections. That began to form a structure, which we kept if it resonated with us after a week or so. It was about finding the sound that excited us, the high or emotional destination that we wanted to return to together. We started showing a few friends, including Elliot Hingston, who was already over regularly to work on a few projects. His rhythm and dedication to a groove blew us away and there was instant chemistry, and it made perfect sense for him to join the team. After a few months and a good few gigs and tracks, Roman Banwell played an off the cuff set with us and it introduced a vibrant extra level of texture. His pioneering use of signal flow and modular guitar synthesis was a beautiful final layer to the project, which has brought us to perform at some amazing venues and events during our first year!”
What’s the creative process behind writing your songs? How do they go from an idea to a body of work?
“Our process really does vary from song to song – we feel more free to create when our routine changes. Some songs spring to life on stage during performances, and some are brought in by individual team members – a couple of tracks from the EP were produced by individual members in their first stages, on varying different softwares. then brought to the rest of the team to finalise and polish. We’ve got a lot of songs that originated from myself & Oli, which were enhanced by Elliot’s amazing mind for percussion and Roman’s beautiful use of his pedal board. If we have a tune that’s originated from a jam, we always listen to the recording and work out our favourite bits, which then naturally develop during studio sessions. An essential part of the band chemistry and respect is that we all dedicate as much of our lives to recording and production as we do to live instruments – we’ve been producing individually for years now, meaning we can fuse the writing techniques from the history of live improvisational jazz or the innovation of modern studio artists like Four Tet and Floating points.”
What were the biggest challenges recording the new EP?
“One of the biggest challenges has to be that we were robbed last summer – our laptops and some instruments were stolen, which meant that we were without a lot of our newer material at that time for a good few months. It was around 4 months until we got a new laptop, and were able to continue the EP projects. It did mean that there was a big pause in terms of recording certain tracks, but a fresh look at our newly reclaimed works provided a great new perspective and meaning to the end of the recording process. If it hadn’t have happened, we would have probably had a very different first release, but we feel that the final body of work is something that we’re really happy with.”
What’s next for Nányë?
“We’re working on finishing off our second EP – it’s got more of an industrial techno/garage vibe and we are working with a few very talented wordsmiths which is something we have been excited to do for around a year now. We’re wanting to liberate another side of our brains – the first EP is full of soundscapes and slow morphing sections, but we all also enjoy a fat tasty groove and quick electronic transitions. We love the direction that so many different genres and movements of music are headed towards, and modern hardware has so much scope for performances that couldn’t be created live even five years ago! This has lead us to continue our exploration of improvised electronic music that has more of a “live dance music” vibe than anything we have done before. On top of that, we’re also working with a number of film makers and animators on some short films that we’re scoring. We love the harmony between music and the moving image, and are really excited to have clients to work with at the moment and to develop that side of our work.”
“Amongst that, we’re hoping to carry on collaborating with the people around us – we’re working on an album that accumulates a lot of the sounds and artists from Guildford that we love, and its always a pleasure to get passionate people in our studio and mix about a big juicy pot of brain-sounds.”
“We’re also hoping to be playing some more festivals this year! We kicked off the year at Spectra, Aberdeen, which is a fantastic event put together by Curated Place. They take over a city and fill it with beautiful electronic sounds, and amazing light instillations. It’s beautiful.”
Like what you hear? Of course you do! Go follow Nányë on BandCamp, Facebook & Instagram.
If you’d like to study at ACM and follow in the footsteps of our students like Nányë, please call our Admissions Team on 01483 500 841 or visit www.acm.ac.uk/open-days to book a place on an ACM Open Day today.
