Influences: A Deep-Dive Into Graeme JD Ronald’s Creativity

His new album 'Danielle' is out now...

Remember Remember was a project we weren't about to forget.

The product of Graeme JD Ronald's imagination, it grew from one man and a loop pedal to become a lush, ambitious ensemble.

But all good things come to an end, and with the end of that chapter the Scottish composer relocated, moving to the United States.

The urge to work within music was never dissipated, though, with Graeme JD Ronald electing to continue under his own name.

New album 'Danielle' breaks with his previous work, while still containing many of the creative conduits that made Remember Remember so appealing.

It's a film score project of sorts, echoing a brave, moving documentary shot by Gareth Warland.

A full 12 track album, it's a gorgeous return from a talented composer – Clash caught up with Graeme JD Ronald to uncover a little bit more.

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Enya – 'Boadicea'

When I was younger I would never picture myself unselfconsciously listening to Enya, but the older I get, the more drawn I am to unabashedly Celtic music. I think it happens a wee bit to everyone who moves to America from Scotland or Ireland.

This tune isn't even all that traditional anyway, a wordless vocal and synthesiser hymn – its sparse, eerie, meditative atmosphere helped inform the tune 'Symptoms (Home's Fault)' from the soundtrack.

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David Bowie – 'Warzawa'

Side B of 'Low' has been a perennial influence on me since I first heard it in my twenties. Along with Steve Reich's 'Music For 18 Musicians' it's a sound I've been trying to emulate forever.

'Warzawa' still doesn't sound like any other music I know, the melodies are beamed in from another universe.

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Brian Eno – 'Music For Airports (Movement 1)'

Again, something I discovered in my twenties that left a pretty indelible impression. Making this soundtrack I had to reprogram my brain a bit, when I write music I'm usually very much locked into the importance of strong melodies and a rigid tempo grid.

Too much structure and melody, though, gets in the way of narrative storytelling. The pianos in 'Music For Airports', however, meander around without obvious purpose, I had this tune in my mind when I was writing 'A Wiggly Worm'.

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Laurie Spiegel – 'Patchwork'

Another way I like to unlock my mind out of it's usual musical patterns is to listen to music that is fully synthesised and sequenced, letting the machines take over for a while can suggest ideas that your own brain wouldn't be able to arrive at.

Laurie Spiegel made some of the most entrancing early electronic music that I know of. I couldn't speak to what her own practice is, but I was thinking of this piece when I produced the tune 'Birds', setting a pair of sequenced flute patterns off and letting them sing to one another.

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Cocteau Twins – 'Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops'

In the first conversation that Gareth (Warland, director or 'Danielle') had about the film and our aims for the soundtrack, we discovered that we had a lot of shared musical reference points, and when the 4AD label and The Cocteau Twins in particular came up, something really clicked into place.

There's something in the guitar sound, that ghostly quality… distinctly Scottish but not in a fiddles and bagpipes kind of way.

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'Danielle' is out now.

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