After a year which has seen the music world as we know it grind to a halt, we’re finally starting to see some life being breathed back into our life force. With new singles, albums, and tour dates on the horizon once more, we’re in the final stretch of what has truly been an unprecedented time. It can be argued the break in the industry has allowed us to appreciate something we had taken for granted at times.
Before COVID-19 ransacked the world, it wasn’t unheard of for bands or artists to fall away from music for a while. The list of reasons is neither exhaustive or makes for pleasant reading. However long that time away may last, it can provide a wealth of material for the creative mind. None know that more than Andy Wilson-Taylor, the mastermind behind cinematic rock project, Midgar. Wilson-Taylor fell from the face of the planet after the 2013 album Holographic Principle, possibly to never be heard from again. Until 2020. After a slew of successful singles, Taylor-Wilson is poised to release Midgar’s first album in eight years, Unity. We caught up with him a few days before the release of single ‘Sunburn’ to talk about all things Unity, the need to confront the darkness within yourself, the influence of Silverchair, and those references staring us in the face.
For those who may not know, the name of the project [Midgar] comes from Final Fantasy 7, as does the name of your studio [Sector 7 Studios]. Are video games still a part of your life? What are you playing at the moment?
“I still play a fair bit. I don’t have as much time as I’d like but I still find it the best way for me to switch off from work or give my brain a rest. I’m about to run through the FFVII Remake again as it’s been about a year since it came out; just long enough for me to find the magic in it all over again. I play Doom pretty regularly, the 1993 version more often than the new ones but I love them too. I even snuck a few Doom references into the new album. I also play Rocket League but I’m embarrassingly bad at it considering how many years I’ve been playing.”
Video game curiosity fully indulged, until the second part of FFVII Remake comes out at least, we got down to business and settled in to discuss the latest entries to Midgar’s repertoire.
‘Sunburn’ was just released as a single through Year Of The Rat Records. Could you tell us a little about why you chose ‘Sunburn’ in particular?
“I knew when I wrote the chorus to that song that it would end up being a single. It’s really catchy and I spent weeks with the melody just going round and round in my head. It’s also an uncharacteristically happy song for Midgar, which makes it a bit of a break from the norm. I guess being more upbeat makes it a natural choice for radio play, which is something I don’t normally get to say about Midgar songs. They’re usually too weird!”
Unity’s due to be released in June. What was the inspiration behind the album? How long was the process of bringing it together?
“Unity, in one way or another, chronicles the (almost) 10 years of my life since the last Midgar album. It was a pretty bumpy few years, so the album covers a lot of the journey I’ve been on over that time. A lot of the darker, angrier parts of the album are about dealing with and overcoming personal demons that I’ve been holding onto. There are also songs about the world we’ve all been living in over the last couple of years. I often write about things that trouble or upset me, as a way of dealing with them I suppose. This album is definitely a reflection of the world around me as I see it.”
Each song on the album reads like a piece of cinema, eliciting some incredible imagery; how important was it for you to achieve that?
“I love music that does that. It’s funny, I don’t necessarily set out to paint specific images or visuals with the music, not all the time anyway. I think it’s just a combination of musical influences, and maybe training and experience I’ve had, over the years of working with picture, that rubs off on the music. I do always want the music I make to be immersive, to be transportive and to bring you out of where you are, perhaps to somewhere that feels different. Maybe somewhere magical, somewhere sad, somewhere beautiful or somewhere scary. One of my favourite bands is Silverchair and with their last album you could really see it as a work of musical theatre. I love the way Daniel Johns takes you to an entirely new world and you get to spend time with him in his imagination, to feel and experience the world from his perspective. I also love Jeff Buckley, and the way his music makes you feel his emotions so deeply. That’s what makes music matter to me.”
Unity as a whole tells beautiful lyrical stories. ‘Isle Of Glass’, for example, is one of my favourites on the record; “take me to the castles in the sky, it’s the perfect place for us to learn to fly’ paints such a breathtaking picture. If you had to choose, which song, or lyric, is most meaningful to you and why?
“I’m so glad you like that song! It almost didn’t make it to the album, it was such a puzzle to put together and it was a long time before I was happy with it. The lyrics for that song didn’t come naturally at all but I was really happy with them when they finally came to me. I don’t always feel like I’ve got control over the lyric writing process. If I’m struggling, sure, I’ll use a set of skills I’ve learned and developed to get the result I need, but for me the best lyrics just fly out of my subconscious and catch me totally by surprise. It’s like my inner self is desperately trying to launch itself out of me and I’m just there to scribble it on to the page. ‘Ira Vehementi’ came out of nowhere for me. I knew the song needed to be really dark and angry, evil in fact. It ended up being a song about confronting the darkest, most horrible parts of yourself and really getting to know them. Spending time with them so you can recognise how they influence who you really are. Listening to the awful, hurtful things those parts of you can say and embracing it all. Before I knew it, I’d written this for the first verse:
“Silent, like a creature of the underworld
Preys softly through the night
Savour the faces of your enemies
While feasting vultures clean the eyes.”
That graphic image of the vultures, and the instruction to ‘savour it’, made me feel totally revolted by myself. I thought, “I can’t possibly sing that,” but at the same time I knew that’s what this process was all about. I was confronting the darker side of who I am and drawing it into the album. It was true, unrestricted subconscious creative flow which for me is such a rush and a wonderful feeling.
On a lighter note, there’s a line in ‘We Found The Darkness in the Sun’ that I love. It’s a song about dreams and more specifically, that moment when you’re about to wake up from a dream that you wish would last forever, when your brain says, “just one more minute!” and you try to bury yourself deeper in your sleep.
“In the darkness, in the depths of my mind
Away from the arrows of time
In the shadows, in the back of my mind
Say you'll forever be mine.”
That lyric is really comforting to me. Cosy and safe, like a warm bed.”
‘Paradise’ comes across as an aggressive song, but on second or third listen, you get this undertone of that rage being fear-based. What was the concept behind it?
“You got it, it’s ‘self defence rage’ for sure. I was watching the third series of Netflix’s Dark when writing that song. I love that show so much, the music, the cinematography, everything. I was super inspired by this idea that you could meet your future or past self, and be confronted with everything you had become. That song is a conversation between my past, present and future selves and their joint efforts to make me (or them) the best version of me I (they) can be. Knowing what you need to do to get there can be really frightening and overwhelming, and that fear is largely what that song is about.”
There’s an element of duality to Midgar as it combines sweeping orchestral pieces with seemingly brash rock driven instrumentals. Even throughout the album, there’s a sense of the fantastical and reality colliding with songs such as ‘Ira Vehementi’ or ‘Erebus’ and ‘Nemesis’. Is that duality ever difficult to maintain?
“It is, and it isn’t at the same time. (Duality… Right?) I don’t find it difficult to write songs like that, I love smashing things together that don’t belong in the same space and for me, contrast is what makes music exciting. However, when actually producing the record, it can be exceptionally tough to make things sound cohesive. I have my songwriting and production style to thank for keeping things in the same ballpark to some degree, I guess no matter how diametrically opposed two elements might be, I’m still the common factor that’s bringing them together, so they find a way to play nicely.”
Greg McPherson of InMe recorded all the bass parts for Unity which must have been a huge moment for you. Are there any other musicians you’d love to work with in the future?
“It was a huge honour for me to have Greg playing on the album, I’ve been a fan of his and of InMe since I was about 13. Not only that, but he’s also such a unique and talented player and he’s elevated this album in a way I never would have imagined possible. There are so many musicians I’d love to work with, but I can’t think of anything more ridiculous or life affirming to me than collaborating with Nobuo Uematsu [composer for the Final Fantasy franchise] in some way. I don’t know what that would even look like, but wow… it would be a dream come true.”
You took a sabbatical from making music shortly after Holographic Principle. Was it an easy process to return to something you clearly have a lot of love for after that period of time? Do you think the time away possibly helped the Midgar project in any way?
“Honestly, it wasn’t easy at all. There was a time that I felt like I’d never write songs or sing again. A sabbatical is definitely a nice way of putting it; I was a total mess for a few years and really deep down in a spiral of self-destructive behaviour, the result of which was me totally ruining my voice and losing any will or desire to be creative. Finding my way back to Midgar was absolutely synonymous with me finding my way back to being myself again. It took years of personal growth, of rebirth, to have the creative energy to make a Midgar album again. The good news is, with that came a lot of stories to tell and a lot to get off my chest. It was one step at a time, one day at a time and one job at a time. I ended up building my studio myself which was really cathartic. It’s nice to use your hands and build something that wasn’t there before. I had some demons to overcome and I’m happy to say that I’m out the other side and really proud of what I’ve achieved, for myself and with this album. They’re the same thing for me, almost.”
Aside from the band, you compose music for film and TV, have you ever composed something and thought “That would have been amazing for Midgar” or even the other way round?
“Most of the work I’ve done over the years is quite corporate, even the orchestral bits. I do a lot of work to brief, and nobody has yet sent me a brief that ended up with me making something that sounds like Midgar! I don’t even know what that brief would be like. I do think that parts of the album could fit well on a film soundtrack though. Sometimes I’ll write something for a client and I’ll think, “I like that, I wish I could keep it for myself!” I’m just glad to have had the opportunity to make music for a living, it’s trained me to be consistently creative and given me a lot more of a musical vocabulary to draw from.”
What’s the next step for you now, both work wise and with Midgar?
“I’ve just finished shooting the video for the 4th single, which will be coming out just ahead of the album release. I’m working on a physical version of the album which I can’t say too much about right now, but I’m really excited about. Once that’s done, that about wraps up 18 months of work for me on this album start-to-finish, so I’ll probably take a little time off to recover before getting my head down and working on the next one. I’ve got some building work and improvements to do on the studio before I begin the next major recording project, so maybe it’s time for me to put down the guitar for a bit and pick up my hammer instead.”
Music and DIY; the two greatest forms of therapy. As always, thank you to Andy for taking time out to speak to us. We look forward to release day!
In the time between this interview and date of publication, it’s been announced Unity will be released on June 25. If that wasn’t enough, we can tell you that the physical release Andy was referring to earlier is a limited-edition cassette tape which is available for pre-order now. There have only been 50 of these made, and it includes an exclusive bonus track, so you may want to jump on that.
The single ‘Sunburn’ is available now across all major streaming platforms. For the latest Midgar news, including new releases and tour dates, visit their website here or follow their social media linked below.
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