Tonic Fold feature Kathy Burke and Chris New on new album
By Ben Kelly
Shane Cullinan is a composer, arranger and lyricist, who has scored films for Channel 4, dramas in London’s west end, and is the central figure in a musical project called Tonic Fold, which releases its new album this month. We caught up with him to hear how he got names like Kathy Burke, Chris New and Rachel Tucker on board.
Firstly Shane, what is the difference between yourself and Tonic Fold?
Ultimately I compose all the music for the orchestra and I write all the orchestrations and any of the songs. So I do everything from a creative perspective. However, there are a core group of musicians at the core, and I do consider them to be a part of the project. My drummer I’ve worked with for eight years. When we created this last album, he very much worked collaboratively with me, because it was very intricate, and you needed somebody who knows that stuff like the back of their hand. So I consider them to be very much part of the project, but I do write it all, and I’m not precious about that.
So how would you describe the new album, The Violent Language of Portraits?
I would say it’s eclectic and I would say it’s a text based piece, with varying individuals and scenarios. Whenever I get asked to describe how it sounds musically I always generally come up with a massive great big fail. It’s very multi genre!
It’s got quite a few interesting guest spots on there. How did those come about?
Tonic Fold never had any sort of lead singer, we’ve had some guest vocalists through our albums. So when I started creating this, we recorded it first before I decided who the soloists would be. I knew Kathy Burke because she came to one of my pieces a few years back, so I reached out to her. I know Kathy is quite precious about what she does and she’s very particular about what she does now. She’s directing and doing amazing stuff, but she said she’d do it, and I was amazed and truly happy. I approached David McAlmont directly. I originally thought it was be for a female vocalist and I did try it out, but it didn’t fit right. Chris New I met a couple of times through various people, and he’s really intelligent, he knows his stuff. He really understands depth. I didn’t want to have to start explaining who Francis Bacon was, I wanted someone to be really clued into it already. Same with Rachel Tucker. I’m so lucky to have them be a part of the project.
What would you like to have a go at next?
At the moment I’m working on a new piece for theatre in Nottingham which is going to be an opera and I’m developing that right now and it should be in production for the end of this year, maybe 2015. Plus I’m continuing my work with Tonic Fold.
Tonic Fold’s album The Violent Language of Portraits is out on April 28.