Translate: Meeting Of Minds

Translate was conceived in a house by the sea, a sea that doesn’t feature in the film. The Baltic to be exact and I was smoking Swedish cigarettes with Freddie Meadows. I’d let my camera fall from an unbalanced tripod. As I retrieved it from the icy waters it felt like Europe and the world I loved was falling, like my camera, never to work again. I wanted to create an ode to the place, a love letter to Europe and travel and all its quirks and idiosyncrasies.

It was Chris’s vision to create an audio-visual feast capturing the best free-surfing across Europe. We set out to make a soundtrack rather than a ‘score’ giving us the scope to mirror the changes in the locations, the waves and the surfers. We created something that would evolve as we experimented with some core ideas in a live A/V setting first, reacting to the footage in a direct and raw way. We only had one chance to perform in front of an audience before lockdown (at the London Surf / Film Festival) so we ended up doing most of this process in the studio, but tried to keep the approach the same. A lot of the recordings are improvised. I set the studio up to be able to jump from instrument to instrument and loop round a scene, building layers each time and not stopping to edit until it fell like that energy was in the right place. We distilled those ideas into an album and then ultimately a stand-alone film.

I always wanted a visual narrative that would work with a live band. So thinking how this would look on the big screen was always in mind as we were shooting. I wanted to be up close and personal, to feel the energy in every shot - be it surfing, landscapes or cultural experiences. I wanted to create visual poetry that would transcend language so viewers could take away their own interpretations that are in no way less true than my own feelings about the film. I think that’s the difference between art and a documentary or a film with a defined story, the viewer plays as big a part as the creator in understanding it.

I worked closely with Chris. He would have an idea for how each scene should feel. I’d watch the footage with a guitar or keyboard in hand and start improvising the core ideas that we’d work into live sessions. There’s a lot in Translate to be inspired by - from the colour of the water, to the style of the surfer, to the weather. All these elements help lead you to the pace of the music or the tone or the kind of instruments you might want to lead the piece.

I was in San Bartolome de Pinares, a small village in the mountains northwest of Madrid, during the annual festival, which sees horses ridden through bonfires in the streets. This ancient tradition was originally intended to purify villagers from the plague and protect the animals for the year ahead. It was visceral and otherworldly. I knew we had to cover the track Horses by Bonnie Prince Billy as soon as I watched the footage on my return. Luckily it’s one of CJ’s favourite tracks.

The opener Translate is orchestral, textured and cinematic with live strings and tape-manipulated samples and has an almost Nordic, ethereal feel. I worked with the ultra-talented Robert M Thomas who layered up so many violins and violas.

It’s a very over-used and abused term but I can’t escape the fact that this film takes you on a real, literal journey around Europe and the soundtrack reflects that. We wanted this to be a proper trip. Never out-and-out psychedelic but definitely sublime and immersive, free and sonically unrestrained.

I’m not sure I can answer that, I’m quite happy riding solo in most avenues of life… but with films I like the fact we can bounce ideas about and it’s not very often I meet someone I can connect with like CJ. I guess we ‘get’ each other, but I can’t really describe how. We have similar creative tastes - that helps. Musically he’s more leftfield than me so always brings something fresh to the studio. He keeps me challenged and I try to do the same on a visual level.

Basically I love the way he makes films, always have and he is still into the noise I make. That might sound simplistic but it’s really the core of why we are still making stuff together. We’ve become good mates and we’re totally honest with each other when it comes to working on the films and there’s a good balance of pushing and encouraging and respect and all the stuff that makes any relationship work for an extended chunk of time. We’re both pretty laid back and share the same goals for the project - the main one being for when we can tour again and take Translate on the road.