Reflective, Maybe: George FitzGerald Talks Changing Perspectives And 'All That Must Be'
Thursday, 22 March 2018
Written by Milly McMahon
Photo: Rhodri Brooks
George FitzGerald’s music blends melancholia and euphoria, building textured, enigmatic atmospheres. When twinned with haunting vocals, it feels poetic. His skills as a producer stretch far beyond the DJ booth, where he’s also at home, and his almost orchestral aesthetic opens the door to ambient, reflective passages and moments of unadulterated ecstasy.
Having traded Berlin for a return to the UK, and after signing with Domino, Fitzgerald has experimented in new musical territories on his sophomore album, ‘All That Must Be’. The result is his greatest work to date. Featuring Lil Silva, Bonobo, Hudson Scott and Tracey Thorn, it plays out like a soundtrack to a charged, epic movie.
The record is an entirely immersive, introspective journey and already a standout from 2018. Beginning on March 26, FitzGerald will hit the road for a handful of UK dates in Brighton, London, Glasgow and Manchester. We caught up with him to discuss ‘All That Must Be’ and his live plans.
What chapter of your career does this album mark for you?
I’m still travelling in that direction. With the first album I settled in one direction, this next album is a continuation of that, perhaps further into that territory outside of club music. There's a lot of club features. I still go round DJing and enjoy it. I wanted to reflect my life a bit more honestly and for things to not be completely club-based.
How have your creative processes evolved?
I don’t really have a set process. I try to approach some of the compositions a bit more musically, starting off composing things on the piano and then transferring ideas to the computer and then working on them further. The tracks all started in all different kinds of ways. I don’t work to one standard, inspiration just comes in different ways.
The new record is maybe not as melancholy as the last one, but it remains on that side of things.
I’ve just always been that way inclined. Even when I have been writing club tracks, they still maintained that slight melancholic side to them. That's always been the stuff I have been drawn to, listening-wise. I don’t think I'm a melancholic person. Reflective, maybe.
People have asked me why my music is melancholic quite a bit since the last record. Whether I am depressive. It’s cathartic, a line between melancholy and euphoric. That line between being the most beautiful thing. I'm drawn to that as an aesthetic. I find it interesting.
How did the previous album change you as a person?
I think the real difference with making this record was that I was quite introverted. I think it is hard to do anything else when you’re feeling like that. I became obsessed and focused on it whilst it was progressing and found it hard to juggle real and normal life. When I am in the middle of creating and writing, I don’t integrate very well. I had to be in the studio all hours and when I was done, then I relaxed.
I work better at night and although I have had quite a few late night sessions for this album, I have kids now, so I can’t be in the studio all the time. I’ve been trying to start in the morning and work until past dinner, to have structure, but before I would have shown up at the studio and stayed till whenever. I think it's helpful being this way; it can all get a bit intense and frazzled being in the studio all hours and it doesn’t really help the creativity at all.
You have two daughters, do they like the music?
My girls, one is two and a half and the other is six months. They have heard the album. They have been forced to listen to it. My eldest daughter now understands that it is dad’s music on the radio and she is excited by it. What she doesn’t understand is seeing videos of me playing to people. She thinks that’s quite scary. She doesn’t understand that people are there, in theory, to cheer me on. She thinks people are shouting at me.
Would you ever feature them?
One of the main tracks [Frieda] is named after my first daughter and was written a few days after she was born, over two years ago. If the record is a loose story of my experiences of the past two and a half years, then those have been the primary events: becoming a father and everything to do with that. Those are my big life changes and that had a massive effect on the record. Frieda is sampled on one of the interludes. I wouldn’t want to make a whole track of them. There is a little recording of her on the beach in L.A..
Are you enjoying touring the new material?
Touring as a DJ is always very different to touring with a band. When you are touring solo, you are by yourself with no one to disagree with. It can be very lonely. With a band, you are with your mates and there is a sense of camaraderie. You are thrown together in close quarters. As someone who has been playing in clubs for years, I've never been into the all hours culture. I like sets and parties that end.
You play some pretty intense headline slots. A schedule of early morning shows must be testing?
When I'm up waiting to play somewhere in Germany and its 5am, and I haven’t left to go to the club, I just think ‘I’m destroying myself’. Some people really dig those slots, the open all hours thing, I was never into it when I was going out. I liked my nights to have an arc where you met up with your friends, had your fun and the sun came up and you went home or you went to an after party. You never went out for 48 hours. When you stay up so late, it takes you a while when you get back from the weekend to get over it. You don’t just get up on Monday and feel fine.
DJing is a culture where people get very obsessed with keeping healthy, but it is fundamentally an unhealthy lifestyle. These days I can choose a bit more when and where I play. You can choose where your career is going musically. I want to play live more, at festivals. DJing at festivals isn’t that fun.
I want to play in a live band. I want to play sets during the day. It then becomes a different musical experience. By the same token, that doesn’t mean I never want to play in clubs late at night. My music maybe fits a bit better less on peak time. I hope that people can listen to it after they come home or in the day on the bus. I write music for all sorts of situations and there are far more situations in the day than peak time in a club.
'All That Must Be' is out now on Domino.
George FitzGerald Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Mon March 26 2018 - BRIGHTON Haunt
Tue March 27 2018 - LONDON Islington Assembly Hall
Wed March 28 2018 - GLASGOW Art School
Thu March 29 2018 - MANCHESTER Gorilla
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